Now firmly in my mid-to-late thirties, I’ve gained a basic knowledge and skill set of carpentry, electrical work, and plumbing. I can also apply basic ideas of building technology to properly apply cladding to, seal, and insulate a structure.
My dad was not a construction foreman. I never went to school for any of these things. I work a totally unrelated, white-collar job.
So how, and, perhaps more importantly, why, did I learn these things?
Motivation
Sometime in my mid-teens, I realized I had absolutely no idea how the house I lived in actually worked. I want to say this realization might have originated in thinking about how a toilet functioned.* As I laid in my bed in my parents’ house, I wondered how it all came together.
Couple this with the fact that I’ve always admired people who just knew how things worked and were practically capable. I yearned for that demonstrable proof that I could do stuff!
Years later, when I was lucky enough to buy my own little townhouse, these seeds of wonder and want grew when I realized that I would need to hire someone to do even the most menial of tasks around my new home. What would I do if my toilet stopped working all of a sudden!? Call a plumber for $150? That’s the cost of a new toilet!
Though higher education might have been the key to making more money, perhaps a practical education would be the key to keeping it?
Cue The Skill-Building Montage (with 80s music!)!
Motivated by my new circumstances, I started to slowly build a knowledge base. I learned how to install trim work around doors and windows by hiring and watching a carpenter do it on a couple. I then replicated that throughout the rest of the house.
Each home project I moved onto, I took on a little bit more. Sure, it took me out of my comfort zone a few times, but there are very few errors one can make in basic carpentry that can’t be undone.
Then one day a friend came over to my house and helped me replace an old gate valve (which was no longer functional) that had been serving as the water shut off to a toilet. He showed me what a compression fitting was and how it worked, and why ball valves are an infinitely better choice than gate valves. The same day, he even showed me how to sweat some copper pipes in another part of the house.
This plumbing knowledge has been extremely valuable—I’ve since installed new water lines to sinks, showers, toilets, washing machines, water heaters, you name it!** And I’ve fixed countless other leaks and plumbing problems for myself, friends, and family, for basically no money.
This is how it went, over and over. More recently, I’ve also turned to the internet… YouTube, a myriad of great websites, various technical product websites, national and international building, plumbing, and electrical codes***… all this stuff is online if one cares to watch, read, and learn.
Takeaways
Luckily for me, this stuff isn’t rocket science. All you have to do is be curious.
So you know what kind of grinds my gears now? When I am talking to someone about some carpentry I did in my house and they say something to the effect of, “Well, you’re handy. I could never do that.” As if it were just some innate talent I hadn’t worked toward for almost two decades…
And you know what I say to those people now?
“It’s never too late for you to start! What do you want to learn?”
*I’m happy to say I’ve figured this out all by myself!!
**Thanks, Craig! You’re legitimately a great teacher!
***Many of which might be provided free of charge from your state or local government’s website!
So true! Over time, one can learn a myriad of different ways to make home improvements. The only thing is a willingness to learn and some times fail; as the author points out, almost every mistake can be fixed.
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