On DIY, and knowing the real problem to solve
The old base of the patio, before becoming the new base of the new patio.
I love making real things. Until we moved into our current house last May I never realised quite how much. I used to describe myself as “not really practical” — I’d never really considered spending a weekend figuring out how to plumb in a sink or fixing plasterboard to a wall.
This list might not read as much to you, but it contains some things that I’ve done over the past 18 months that I’m as proud of as anything else I’ve done:
- Turning the worlds biggest shed into three vegetable patches. [1. And getting a nail in my foot in the process.]
- Breaking up a tonne of concrete and turning that into a patio. [2. Breaking up concrete is bloody boring.]
- Digging out a tree with never ending roots.
- Replacing our shower [3. Required the demolition of an entire wall, rebuilding the wall, and some adventurous plumbing]
- Making a proper laundry room out of an under-used utility room.
Why am I proud of these things? Because if you’d asked me to do anything on that list at the beginning of the year I’d have had no idea. Because I’ve been able to work in a team with my fantastic family to solve these problems. Because at the end of a hard weekend’s work I can stand back and actually see what we’ve achieved.
The ex-shed.
Being able to see the tangible results of my work is really important to me — and its something I can sometimes struggle with when I’m dealing with things that can feel nebulous or intangible.
My love of solving practical problems has helped me realise that I actually just love being able to define the problem I’ve got to solve, to be able to test a solution and then come up with a final fix. It’s not about having a list of easy steps to the solution, but about being confident in the actual, real problem you want to solve and then knowing when you’ve fixed it.
