It may be the season for home renovations but do our first world problems really need fixing?

It may be the season for home renovations, but do our first world problems really need fixing? Photo: Louie Douvis

Home renovations represent energy and cash misspent on solving a First World problem.

We've been conned by marketing and the skewed tax system into thinking it matters when it's just a selfish pursuit that adds nothing to human existence.

Not that I have strong views on the subject. Not that I can hammer a nail in straight. Not that I've looked through mum's boxes with every House & Garden magazine since 1972 because, one, they are buried metres-deep in rusted tools in the garage and, two, the garage is swaying gently in the warm breeze.

But wait, you say, it's spring!

Why not renovate and share with friends your vibrant personality as embodied in your revamped home?

Because people like me don't have friends.

That's because we live in Sydney and we don't talk about house prices or our latest home decor.

True, when we needed an extra bedroom eight years ago, we renovated to get it. We also got no door handles, skirting boards, ceilings, tiles over the sink, eves out the front or wall panels next to the laundry.

But at least we can live with ourselves.

Renovation out of necessity or for preserving heritage I get; knocking out an old bathroom to replace it with snazzy taps I don't. It's like shopping as leisure: a pointless attempt to attain what society tells you is perfection.

When you can't get that in your body shape, relationships and career, you keep up with the Joneses through money and the appearance of good taste.

There must be two types of people in the world. Renovators … and people like me who have no aesthetic sense.

I don't say ''OMG that's so true'' when home decoration websites advise that the colour blue creates a reflective, intellectual atmosphere; that pink creates a fresh, soft look (No! It's not girly!); and that grey can lend interiors an elegant formality that is subtle without being overly conservative.

Not interested in renovation shows on TV at all. Don't care that American actress Jennifer McCarthy reckons she cemented her friendship with co-star Sandra Bullock because, like, ''we are both renovating fanatics and we were constantly, like, 'Have you seen this piece of wood?!' Everybody else thought we were wildly boring.''

Neither do I salivate as tells me that ''even with the purse-strings now tight, there are ways to inject personality and achieve a luxe look for less''.

I don't see the need for Sarah and Lachlan Murdoch to spend $11.6 million doing up a Bellevue Hill dump they bought for $23 million four years ago, and can't say I care for ''starchitects'' who design houses to show off, either.

I don't even get reason 12 as cited in Randy Deutsch's 107 reasons why architects matter: ''Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but the most surely, on the soul … They design places that help us to slow down, look around and take in the view. And then, before we realise it, we're no longer in the place but of it.''

I could understand if Deutsch was talking solely about public spaces or environmental sustainability or buildings for those who don't have shelter, but big houses in rich suburbs?

Don't get me wrong. I know almost 3 million Australians help the economy by tallying up nearly $30 billion in renos each year. The Housing Industry Association predicts a 3.4 per cent rise in NSW this year, as low interest rates and government certainty spur more home owners to shift from paying down debt to renovating in the hope of cashing in as the house market heats up. It's so hard to resist when tax breaks make renovating your own home or your investment property a no-brainer, thereby pouring more cash into the vicious cycle of upscaling to nice-looking, but largely unneeded, housing while inflating prices for the unlucky rest just trying to find a home.

It's enough to make you buy a nail-gun and fix the floorboards. That way you can't see the foundations crumbling.

Next week: Why automatic dishwashers are evil.

Such is life …