The interest in home improvement continues to grow, and it would seem that it is women who are fueling today’s market.

A recent survey of homeowners who used the RenovationExperts.com site, which is a premium network of over 3000 remodeling contractors, shows that women are as likely as men to be in charge of a remodeling project. Of the homeowners surveyed, 46 percent of women were looking for and planning to make the final decision on which remodeling general contractor to hire versus 54 percent of men.

“We’re seeing a significant increase in the number of women looking for contractors for their home improvement projects. The female consumer now represents a huge amount of buying power in the industry,” said Craig Lucas, president of RenovationExperts.com.

According to the 2005 Home Improvement Research Institute Survey, women take the lead in initiating both kitchen and bath remodeling projects, initiating 45 percent of kitchen remodeling projects and 43 percent of bathroom projects, compared to just 34 percent and 36 percent for men.

More and more women are buying their own power tools and using them for home improvement projects. The potential market is huge and smart companies — many of them headed by women — already see the opportunity.

Businesses such as Tomboy Tools, which sells tools for women at “tool parties” much like Tupperware, and Be Jane, Inc., the first online community dedicated solely to serving women in home improvement, are leading the way in empowering women in a traditionally male-dominated industry.

Home improvement stores have also made changes to accommodate the growing female market. Home Depot and Lowe’s now offer women only options for their popular home improvement workshops. According to a recent survey done by Lowe’s, women initiate 80 percent of all home improvement projects and represent half of their customer base.

And it seems that trend will only continue to grow over the next few years as single women are purchasing homes at twice the rate of single men and, after married couples, represent the largest group of homebuyers in the United States, according to the National Association of Realtors.

“We’re seeing more and more single women who have well-established careers and are now ready to put a lot of their hard-earned money into their homes,” Lucas said.

The demographics bear that out. According to ‘Understanding Generational Differences in Home Remodeling Behavior,’ published in October 2005 by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, never-married female Generation Xers — those born between 1965 and 1974 — have homeownenership rates over 40 percent higher than never-married female baby boomers when they were of a comparable age in the mid-1908s.

And the study goes on to say those women are just coming into their remodeling prime spending years.

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend? Nah, maybe a miter saw.

Since 1999 Renovation Experts.com has helped over 800,000 homeowners to locate and hire a local residential general contractor. Renovation Experts ® is a premium network of over 3,000 remodeling contractors, who carry out bathroom remodeling, kitchen remodeling, attic remodeling and basement remodeling projects. Renovation Experts® contractors perform over 4.8 billion dollars worth of work per year for homeowners located across the United States.