D-I-Why

Dallas residents go to the pros the most for these projects

Dallas residents leave improvements to the pros.

It appears DIY is not a big part of the DNA of Big D. A new study shows residents of Dallas-Fort Worth are much more inclined to hire a pro than go it alone when it comes to home improvement projects.

The study, released by personal finance website NerdWallet, crunches home improvement statistics (drawn from U.S. Census Bureau surveys) for the country’s 15 largest metro areas. The study indicates just 26 percent of home dwellers in DFW take home improvement projects into their own hands; only Washington, D.C., has a lower share of do-it-yourselfers among the 15 regions (23 percent).

In other words, it seems that fewer people in Dallas are roaming the aisles of Home Depot and Lowe’s than residents of other major metro areas are.

Dallas residents also spend more on home improvements than their major-metro counterparts. Home upgrades in the Metroplex account for 2.2 percent of household income — the highest rate among the 15 metro areas in the study. The median price tag for a DFW project is $2,000.

The cost of projects done by the pros in DFW really raises the roof, though.

“Projects done by professionals cost a median $3,000, among the highest costs in the nation,” NerdWallet home analyst Holden Lewis says. “Why? My guess is that the Dallas-Fort Worth area was hit by multiple hailstorms during the [Census Bureau] survey period, and roof repairs are expensive and usually done by professionals.”

No matter who completes home improvements, DFW has a lot of projects going on. From 2015 to 2017, area residents nailed down 1.44 home improvement projects per owner-occupied home, according to the study. Only Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia had higher rates in that category.

“Each city has its own vibe and way of doing things, including home improvements,” Lewis says. “I mean, Detroit has Greek food and snow, and Dallas has Mexican food and hail. And they’re different in how much homeowners spend on home improvements, what kinds they do, and how often they tackle do-it-yourself projects. Like food, culture, and weather, all cities have their differences when it comes to home improvements.”

event-planner lists rankings

Kitchen News

Kitchen temple Sur La Table to close Knox Street Dallas location

Sur La Table

A longtime home cook favorite in Dallas' Knox Street district is closing: Sur La Table, the nationwide specialty retailer of cookware, kitchen electrics, and bakeware, will close its location at 4525 Cole St. at the end of January.

According to a spokesperson, the location is permanently closing on January 25.

Sales at the store have already begun, with 30 percent off everything in the store.

Sur La Table opened their first store in Seattle's Pike Place Market in 1972. From the beginning, their founder Shirley Collins partnered with the world’s best chefs and kitchen brands to bring customers trusted tools to make delicious memories.

Their in-house chefs teach 60,000 cooking classes a year to more than 700,000 people in kitchens and now online.

In addition to offering services like knife-sharpening, and selling gourmet goods which were not available elsewhere at the time, Sur La Table has played host to many chefs and cookbook authors over the years.

They were a "foodie" presence before there was such a thing when they first came to Dallas in 1998, opening off Knox Street, back when it was still a darling collection of shops and not the overdeveloped high-rise hell it is today.

It's tempting to blame the closure on factors such as online shopping; and Sur La Table did go through a pandemic-induced bankruptcy in 2020 when it closed nearly half of its stores.

However, the store's fortunes were not helped when it was bumped from its original eccentric location at 4527 Travis St. to an invisible storefront on Cole Street, bumped aside in order to make room for — another high-rise.

There are two other Sur La Table locations in the DFW area including Preston Royal which opened in 2017, and Southlake which opened in 2015, both of which will remain open.