HOW was your Easter weekend? Chances are you rolled up your sleeves and knuckled down to a bit of DIY between the Easter egg hunts and a spot of roast lamb.

But the likelihood is you either made a costly mistake, started something you'll never finish or even injured yourself, according to a new report.

A survey of almost 1,500 adults by Yellow Pages also revealed that householders spend almost a year of their lives carrying out home repairs.

Fewer than one in five said they enjoyed DIY work, often attempting decorating, tiling or even plastering so they could save money.

Some of those questioned admitted their homes had even been devalued by botched DIY jobs.

One in three had started a DIY job they didn't finish, or which went wrong.

And Bournemouth residents are the UK's clumsiest, according to separate figures published today from a survey by Endsleigh Insurance Services.

The statistics were revealed in the company's Homes Report 2008 which identifies the UK's top 10 safest and riskiest towns for accidental damage in the home.

Bournemouth was listed number one town for household accidents. Staggeringly, we are 55.2 per cent more likely to commit a bodge than the national average. Bournemouth was followed by Milton Keynes and Newport respectively.

Perhaps we in the south should take a leaf out of Northerners' books, as Manchester, Leeds and York were reported as the safest in terms of household accidents.

The results were collected by analysing accidental damage claims over the last four years from hundreds of thousands of policyholders in the UK (with the exception of student policyholders).

Endsleigh spokesperson Rhiannon Harris said: "Accidental damage in the home can relate to a number of claims such as spilling a drink on the computer and damaging the furniture, but claims for DIY disasters are all too common.

To stay safe next time you tackle any DIY jobs, the advice from the experts at B&Q is firstly to think things through from start to finish before picking up any equipment, read all the instructions and make sure you have understood them fully. It's also important to check you have all the necessary tools and materials to hand and consider whether or not you will have to deal with any heights or weights. Try to determine how long the job should take you and whether or not any part of your home will be dangerous while the job is taking place, especially if you have young children.

They also advise to wear the right clothes for the job, including protective goggles and toe-caps if necessary.

Some people forget that, if they are laying a quantity of flooring, a decent pair of knee pads can prevent it from becoming a painful affair.

Ladders are one of the biggest causes of accidents during home improvement activities. Remember the "one-in-four" rule - the foot should be one measure out from the wall for every four measures of wall height. A typical two-storey home will be approximately 5.2m in height. Therefore, the base of the ladder should be rested securely 1.3m from the base of the wall.

It seems it isn't just your physical health you should be protecting. Marriages can also suffer as a result of do-it-yourself issues. Two per cent of people said they had left their partners because of DIY disasters.

According to Halifax home insurance, one in three men claim they feel pressurised into carrying out DIY jobs by their partner (for pressurised', read nagged').

Nearly half of women claim their ideal partner would have DIY skills, and 31 per cent expect men to be competent at doing jobs around the house. But 37 per cent of men admitted that DIY was a chore, and only ever did it out of a sense of duty.

Clodah Ward, consumer development director at Yell, said: "Despite this, it's really surprising to see the scale of home improvements that people are prepared to tackle.

"And considering the large numbers of DIY disasters, sometimes it may prove cheaper to call upon the skilled tradespeople for the trickier jobs in the first instance."

The headline for this story came from a 2CR listener who won the Headline Game on the Paul Bunker Show.