For the last year this has been my approach to the irrigation and landscaping work I do.
I have never been known for my home handy man skills – in fact one of the standing jokes at our last church – was that ‘dangerous’ was defined as Hamo with a Bunnings bag! However part of the problem was that I was never interested in any of the handyman work I was faced with. I had plenty of things occupying my mind and didn’t want to carve out a space in my brain to figure out how to hang a door or install a kitchen.
Lately I’ve been much more interested in this kinda stuff and funnily enough I have got better at it. A few years back when faced with a practical task I wasn’t familiar with I would simply ‘pay a man’, but now I’d prefer to have a go myself – so long as I have time and brainspace to figure it out.
Lately I’ve had a few jobs where I haven’t known exactly what to do at the time of starting, but what I know is that if you do your homework you can solve anything – so long as you are motivated…
I don’t have a natural practical inclination, but I am getting better at this stuff, so maybe one day people will stop running in fear when they see me with a Bunnings bag…
Very glad to read this, The personal satisfaction is great when you get it right.
For me it has always been a challenge to repair something you know nothing about, e,g putting new piston rings into our second car when up to then i knew nothing about cars.
I am with you … the handy stuff can be satisfying – as long as you take the time to do it as well as a professional and do the necessary rework.
If you do it by halves, or do a less than quality job – it will stick out like dogs balls and you will always some degree of cognitive dissonance.
What in the world is a Bunnings bag???!!!!????
Must be hard quoting on a job!!! My guess is you under quote.
Haha!
Never mate!!
I quote to compensate for that 🙂
A recently discovered joy for me, has been pulling old lawnmowers off the verge before the big junk truck comes to take them away to landfill oblivion or whatever.
A bit of fiddling, fresh fuel, and 8 times out of 10 AWAY THEY GO, sputtering into life and then I pop the ear muffs onto Megan (our middle daughter) and off she goes around the yard, merrily mowing any toys that have been left out on the grass.
Then I just handball them onto mates who are sick and tired of hiring mowers but don’t want to spend the ridiculous money that’s asked for new ones down at Bunnings (which FYI sojourner, is a mega-chain of hardware stores here in Oz).
So it’s win/win. I get lots of excellent time in the shed getting filthy fiddling around with engines, and they get free mowers.
Sounds like fun Mike! If only I had a few clues mechanically…
My wife reckons our budget can’t cope with my DIY.
“sigh”…