Born to be a handyman

Ever since I was a boy I have always been interested in how things work. This inevitably led me to taking things apart to satisfy my curiosity. Thankfully I also had the innate ability to put them back together so they functioned properly. I built my first workshop when I was 12 years old; it was under the stairs of my parent’s house. I would buy broken down mustang bicycles from the police auction, fix them up and sell them. This is also when my tool collection started, which now requires its own building. After graduating from school, and a year of college I spent the next 10 years apprenticing at 5 different trades, which included tiling, plumbing, painting, woodturning, and finally cabinetry. I enjoyed all the trades I worked in and appreciated all the lessons taught to me. Unfortunately I did not enjoy any trade enough to want to pursue a career in it. One day about fifteen years ago I simply described myself as a handyman, and have never looked back. Along the way I have picked up several more trades which now allow me to go into a client’s home and deal competently with virtually all their household issues. This is why I love to be a handyman: each day is different and all my clients are happy.

There is no school for handymen except the school of life. In order to be a good handyman a person must put 10 years of work into a variety of trades. This is about how long it takes to learn the basic skills of the 6 most important trades: Plumbing, Electrical, Drywall, Finish Carpentry, Painting and Flooring. Once you have all these skills you can call yourself a good handyman but it takes another 5 or 10 years of work to become a great handyman. That is why even good handymen are rare, it takes a long time and a lot of work to produce one.