A Hesitant Handyman...
My grandfather was the handiest person I knew when I was a kid. It shouldn’t come as any surprise—he grew up on the plains of South Dakota, served in the Community Conservation Corps during the depression, and until his retirement worked in construction as an operating engineer. When he retired, he built a house out in Hebo, Oregon on a wooded plot of land, with room for their motor home. The house contained a shop in the basement, and in the shop grandpa had shelf after shelf of salvaged nails, nuts, bolts, washers—anything you could imagine, there’s a good chance grandpa had it, all neatly sorted and labelled in glass baby food jars. He was truly a child of the depression—if there was anything that could potentially be reused, he would reuse it. When I needed a tee-ball stand to practice on as a kid, my grandpa didn’t go out any buy one—he crafted one using an old washing machine agitator and some sturdy rubber tubing.
Grandpa’s real area of expertise was woodworking—grandpa made amazing items with wood that I still have in my house to this day: A marble solitaire game that he created a hardwood board for, a blanket rack that sits in our living room and holds blankets for cold winter evenings, and a coffee table/end table set he built from reclaimed wood pallets and 1970s ceramic tile. The tables are dated, currently not really blending with any of our home décor, but they’re still a cherished memory of something my grandpa built with his hands.
His shop was pretty extensive—he had a Shopsmith, a radial arm saw, and a few dozen hand tools that I couldn’t name if I tried. As a kid I remember looking into his shop with absolute wonder—I didn’t know what half of the tools that he owned did, but I knew that I someday wanted to learn how to use them. A week before my 15th birthday, my grandpa passed away, and to this day I still remember the thought that crossed my mind—“who’s going to teach me to use all of these tools?”
My grandpa was a fount of knowledge on these things—he was self-taught, picking up Popular Science woodworking project yearbooks and learning the different techniques there. When grandpa passed away, we didn’t have the miracle of YouTube or Google–we didn’t just pull how-to articles from thin air–which made his expertise even more impressive in my mind. While I lost his expertise, I still knew that I wanted to learn.
About five years ago, my grandmother wanted to get rid of his Shopsmith so she could have more room in her garage. I pleaded with her to let me keep it—I didn’t have a place of my own in which to store it or figure out how to use it, but I knew that I still wanted to learn it. She agreed to let me have it as long as I could find somewhere else to store it, and a friend whose family owns a farm was gracious enough to allow me space in their shop until I had a place of my own for it. Fast forward to today—my wife and I have our first home, and with the home is a garage large enough to start setting up shop in.
Thus begins the grand adventure of homeownership—becoming a do-it-yourselfer.
If I had to pick a word to describe me as a handyman, “hesitant” is probably the first word that comes to mind. It’s not that I can’t do things, or can’t figure things out, it’s just I inherited some of my mother’s perfectionism, and as a result I tend to be terrified at the possibility of screwing up.
If I drill a hole in the wall, a voice in the back of my head says “Well, this could be the day that you punch a hole in the water line!”
If I’m replacing an electrical outlet, “Hope you remembered to kill the breaker, otherwise this could be the day you fry yourself!” (Keep in mind, one of my biggest fears is death by electrocution—even jump starting a car gives me the willies)
If I’m hanging a picture, “Are you SURE that’s level? Like, really sure?”
I’ll usually talk to friends who have done things I’m trying to do before I go and let fly, and usually the projects aren’t necessarily difficult—replacing an outlet is usually as simple as looking at how the old outlet was wired, then replicating that on the new outlet. White wires to the silver screws, black wires to the brass screws. With most of the modern stuff, the concept of poka yoke (mistake proofing) is in play, so it makes learning the basics pretty darn easy. But before I bought a home, in my mind these sorts of things required ten years’ experience and a PhD in electrical engineering to do.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that they don’t.
I’m at the beginning of my journey to learn how to do things. I’m finding that the fear of doing them tends to stem more from my not knowing what they involve and less from how difficult they really are. So I’m setting out to learn how to do stuff.
My goal is to take you through the projects that I’m doing, or have done, to encourage you (and in a way, myself) that these projects aren’t insurmountable. I’m going to figure out how to work with wood, how to replace broken stuff around the house, and hopefully we can both come out of this with a better understanding of how to do these things without the nagging fear of failing.
Is there something you found yourself afraid of starting because you thought it was too complicated to start? Or do you have a piece of advice for someone just starting out at woodworking or home improvement that you wish you’d had when you first started out? Leave a comment below to discuss.
