Learning by doing

When I was youngster, my older brother was always the one out watching my dad work on the car, build things, learning how to make and fix things. I was never interested. I didn't think anything was wrong with that kind of thing, it just wasn't my ball of wax. Home Depot was the most boring place in the world. Now I am a little older and the man-genes have long since kicked in. I have tools galore and the desire for more. If something breaks I don't throw it away, I figure out how to fix it. If a room needs renovating, I don't necessarily call my dad every time anymore. For major projects, definitely. Even for minor projects I value the input of my parents, who have been through all this before. What I find interesting is that I never thought I would connect with my dad and brother on this level. I've always been the artistic and creative entity in our family and never the hammer slinger. Times have changed though, and I love it. Home Depot and Lowes are timesucks. I could wander the tool aisle at Sears for hours on end, thinking of projects and reasons to acquire more tools and materials. I guess I just find it interesting how owning a home can change a person. Of course, overhauling a house that my great-grandparents once moved into when it was brand new is different than buying a new house but you know what I mean. Owning a house, as my wife and I have found, requires a lot of time, patience, and manual labor. It also is a new outlet for a pair of creative minds. There is a finesse imperative in renovations, especially when doing the work with minimal outside input from professionals. Professionals know how to get the job done quickly and efficiently. They have to because it is on to the next job as soon as this one is done. Understandable. We find the beauty in the details though, and cutting something just right, or angling something this way or that, these all lead to a beautiful finished product to be proud of. These are concepts I always was aware of in my artwork, and are really being driven home as we work on our house.