The Handywoman Can

click to enlarge

Deployments, TDY assignments and field training often leave us without our handyman. We have to take matters into our own hands. We become the handyman.

I remember having to disassemble a large heating unit to remove a dead bird which had lodged itself in the unit and shut it down. February in Washington + No Heat = Frozen stiff (no disrespect meant to the dead bird). I've installed a tank kit for a toilet and temporarily reattached my car's undercarriage using some crude instruments and a little imagination.

The list goes on and on. I can't think of much that could go wrong at home that I wouldn't know how to handle or fix. I'm proud of the skills I've acquired. Homefront Six has me beat, though. Hopefully she'll chime in and share her handyman stories. Impressive stuff.

Let's hear your handyman stories. With our collective know-how, we could probably open a handyman business staffed by military spouses. Our husbands could answer the phones and do our bookkeeping. Heh. 

Thanks to the uber-talented Sly for the graphic.

Comments

[liberal army wife]

After building our house - and I mean with our hands, and blood and sweat and lots of tears - there isn't much I can't do! yeah, dead mice, trapping bats, fixing toilets, drywall, painting, laying the tubes for in floor heating and putting down Pergo, laying tile.. So sure, let's open a business, but um... could we do our own books. C'mon, how many of us are the bookeepers in the family too!

LAW

[Slightly Salty]

I give you guys props b/c I'm not nearly that talented. Since my DH has been on deployment, I've had problems with both my heat and a/c and I wouldn't even have a clue about that stuff. As for minimal repairs around the house, if I take something apart, I probably will not be able to put it back together properly. I try and save those small non-emergency repairs for my parents visits to my house. My dad has become my handyman in DH's absence. Hats off to you ladies though getting the job done!

[Andi]

Slightly Salty - I'm sure you could do some repair work. Installing a tank kit wasn't something I knew how to do instinctively. Google was my friend and it took me a long time to get it done, but I did it.

I think that many of us think we can't do something, but once we tinker with a few things, we find out that we really can. I may not be able to handle some things, but now I don't mind trying.

As for A/C and big things of that sort, I wouldn't try to tackle that. The heater was not that bad because it just required taking some parts apart to get to the area where the bird was lodged. Not as intimidating as it seems, but something I probably wouldn't have tried on my own had I not had to do so many other things during my husband's absence.

This past year, my husband and I tiled a bathroom and a kitchen floor, installed new lighting and hardwood floors in three bedrooms. Trust me, you can do these things, sometimes they just seem intimidating, but it's not all that hard. If it were, I wouldn't be able to do them....

[Shanna]

Fixed a main water line that burst; changed the oil; patched drywall...etc. The great thing is that my parents get all the credit because they made me learn all of this stuff in my younger years. My dad wouldn't even let me get my driver's license until I could change my tires, change my oil and replace hoses and filters on my car. He calls me his middle son. My mom, being a milspouse herself, always taught me to have my own toolkit that my dh isn't allowed to touch!

[Slightly Salty]

For me, this is the first house we have been in that we owned so this is my first foray into being left to repair things that break. We always rented in the past so I didn't have to worry.

One thing I have done is every time my dad helped me with something, I helped him and did some of the work myself so that I would learn. For example, we hung new mini-blinds in two rooms of my house. While that doesn't sound too hard, it's more involved than I thought. I had no idea how to use a drill, figure out which size bits to use, plus measurements, etc. But now I know. :)

[Sarah]

I hung a 15-pound bookshelf on the wall with toggle bolts all by myself. Which meant holding the thing with my left hand and screwing it in with my right. I still have no idea how I did that.

[Butterfly Wife]

Actually I do the same things my husband would do: I pick up the phone and call a repair man.

[Andi]

Heh, BW. Heh...

[Ramie]

I tackle things all the time that my DH just cringes at the thought of touching on his own. He's not super handy,but is learning....but I can run with the best of them. So far, knock on wood, we've not had any major issues that weren't under warranty in this house. And thankfully we're paying for an extended warranty...its come in handy twice now, both during deployments! (Doesn't stop me from refinishing furniture, repainting, hanging shelves and relandscaping!

[liberal army wife]

BW - now THAT's called using your head!

LAW

[TripleE]

Shanna, A main water line? eek, that happened to me a couple months ago and I just called the cute plumber.

I did just do all the wiring for a new HDTV, DVR, DVR, and surround sound...all while a toddler was trying to crawl on my head or lift up my shirt to nurse.

[Diana]

I took the plumbing under the kitchen sink apart because it was stuffed up and put it back together. I can put together furniture I can hold on to by myself (and if I use my legs to keep the sides of the bookshelf up hahaha, kinda akward position, but it worked, great workout for the tummy). Well yeah, I can do the little things, but still don't compare to him, he built us a new front porch a couple of years ago.

[Andi]

And yes, I changed the title. I thought something was wrong with it. "The Candyman Can?" Got that part right, but had a brain cramp with the rest of the words until it hit me last night.

Urgh, need more sleep!

[Sly2017]

Well, I'm not sure it qualifies for "handyman while MH is deployed" since he and BIL were involved in the project from start to finish. But, when we owned our home while stationed at Camp Lejeune, we completed quite a few major renovations. The largest by far was opening up the main support wall in the kitchen and making a half wall with pillar column supports, a bar shelf and a breakfast bar coming out 90 degrees from the wall. The hardest part about that project was having to drill the holes for the electric wiring all the way through the 4' pillar posts -- with a hand-held power drill.

However, I don't suppose it'd be fair for me to tell all of my stories since maintenance was my job when we were stationed at Lejeune.

btw, de nada for the graphic. You'd do the same for me, even though I am a Marine wife.
*snort*

[Kelly]

This is all to familiar....I have changed a spark plug in the lawnmower, patched holes in the walls (yes, I made the holes), bought and connected a DVD recorder to the million other pieces of television equipment that we have so my dh can have the Pittsburgh Steelers games to watch on his laptop and it actually worked, which amazed me. This doesn't compare to some of your handyman abilities though....I'm new at this...I guess I'll learn, right?