I got a comment that appliance maintenance it wasn't home improvement. With that literal interpretation, building a home is not improvement, repair is not an improvement, maintenance is not improvement. Is replacing a broken garbage disposal a repair, while installing one an improvement? Are general DIY (like building something out of wood) not improvement? So cabinetry would on-topic (but only new cabinets, not repairs), but any non-functional woodworking wouldn't be?
I'm not going to get worried until I see lots of people vote to close on perfectly valid questions, at that point, there's no point in me coming back here.
FWIW, I think that these questions about what is in scope are coming up far too frequently on these early sites. People are voting to close on stuff and saying it's off-topic before there is a sizable base of questions where it would be reasonable to start making these determinations.
If a site is taken over by police enforcing narrow topics, the site will not thrive and people WILL find another place. This is also a possibility as a site becomes popular with people due to the good SEO, but people being used to sites with far more community features (people sure love those off-topic forums) that SO/SE sites will never have.