I Was Thinking... DIY Blues
There are times when you don’t appreciate something until you have a chance to reflect back on it. I feel that way about growing up on a farm. At the time, I didn’t realize I would be learning things that would someday be useful. A farmer is not just someone who tills the land and tends to animals. They must develop a wide range of talents to succeed. Probably the most valuable skill is problem solving.
Things seldom go as planned. You are ready to bale hay and there is a flat on the wagon. A cold winter night causes the pipes in the barn to freeze. Just when you are ready to go someplace, you find the cattle have broken through a fence and are in the corn field. The person that is able to take each situation in stride is the one who will succeed without an ulcer.
While I grew up on a farm, I never developed the wide range of skills my father possessed. He was a farmer, carpenter, could do plumbing and was able to wire the garage he built. I was usually relegated to holding something, getting a necessary wrench, or doing a less-skilled task. While dad was good at what he did, he wasn’t a good teacher and didn’t have patience with someone that wasn’t as adept at the job as he was. He didn’t want to wait for someone to learn when he could do it quicker.
Americans are proud of the fact that their forefathers tamed the wilderness, constructed sod or log cabins, and were generally self-sufficient. That “can do” attitude has encouraged many men to take on DIY projects they may or may not have the aptitude to successfully complete.
Before there were You Tube videos on everything, there were “how-to” books. I believe I have some of those Time Life or Readers Digest “fix it yourself” books on a basement bookshelf. It gave less-than-talented individuals the courage to try it themselves. However, more than one project got started but was finished by a professional called by a wife before more damage was done.
There is something in most men’s nature that makes them think they should be able to fix or build things around the house. It may go back to former times when girls took home economics classes and boys were automatically registered for shop classes. But with the advent of You Tube videos, many people feel they can do anything on their own. Box stores like Home Depot and Menards are home improvement havens that promise to have all the available supplies for those projects. But even with instructional videos and written directions, things can go wrong.
The guy in the video completes the task with ease while rattling off not always fully understood instructions. Of course, he always has the perfect tool for the job and never makes a mistake measuring. But his success doesn’t always translate to what happens in a real-life DIY project. The directions for laying tile, putting up deck railing, or installing a storm door made perfect sense to the engineer who designed it, but it might not be as clear to the lay person trying to do it. There may be a terminology problem too. Terms like adaptors, levelers, brackets, flanges, mounts, plates, sleeves, fasteners, anchors, tabs, cleats, or caps may seem simple but can cause confusion in a DIY job. A carpenter who has done the same thing a hundred times knows the mistakes to avoid, but the DIY guy learns the lesson right after he screws up. Trying desperately to plan for everything in your one and only project, means you proceed at a rate much slower than the professional. This process is sometimes complicated by impatience or multiple suggestions offered by others in your home overseeing the work.
If you try a DIY venture, plan for two or three times the amount of time it will take you. Don’t expect everything to go as planned and be ready to handle mistakes, delays, and changes. But even if there are setbacks, there is a certain satisfaction knowing you did it yourself.
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