114. Becoming Handy 101 - Part Two

This episode is the second in a series of two! If you haven't already listened to Part One, I suggest going back and doing that before continuing with this one. Also, this is truly "beginner" advice when it comes to things that are considered handy - using a hammer, installing anchors, screws, etc. Please feel free to skip this episode entirely, if you already know these basics! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everyone, Sarah here. Just wanted to take a moment to let all of you know what this episode actually is, so that for those of you who this doesn't apply to, you can go ahead and skip ahead. This episode is part two of an episode that I did recently called Being Handy 101. At the time I recorded the episode, it got kind of long. I went ahead and posted the first part. And then I held off posting the second part because I wanted to come in and actually record something like this. And basically, what the episode is is for people who are not handy. So if you know how to swing a hammer, if you know how to put up a shelf, if you know what studs are, especially if you've ever used a drill, you will not be interested in this episode. Now, you may still find some of it interesting, and some of you may just say, Well, I'm bored, and I'll just go ahead and listen to see what you have to say. That's totally fine. I don't discourage you from listening if you think that you're gonna pick up on something new. But one thing I realized recently from looking at all of my numbers is that we do have a younger crowd that listens to labeled organizing. And some of the clients that I've had in the past have either been younger or they just never learned how to do anything themselves. Or I've had clients that have said, Hey, can you come out and talk to my teenager, my college student? I've met a lot of young people that have said, well, I didn't have a parent take the time to show me some of these things. And I'm very nervous about hanging a picture or hanging something or drilling. Now, a lot of the drilling stuff we're gonna do in another episode. This is just the 101. This is just basic stuff. This is measuring, marking, all of that. So if you're interested in the episode and you're stumbling on this one, I encourage you to go back to part one. I would start there. And when you're done with that, I would come back to this one. But again, I just wanted to give you guys a heads up that that's what's happening. And if you're not interested, that's totally fine. We have a couple of new episodes that just came out recently. One is the baddie bag. If you haven't listened to that one, or the one where I talk about the art of honest organizing, which has to do with grocery shopping, you may find one of those more valuable to your particular situation. So, with that said, thank you guys so much for listening, and I will see all of you in a future episode. Let's say you go to the switch plate in your house for your light. Let's say you go to flip a switch. The little plate that is a little square that goes around the actual light is your switch plate. Those are held in by screws. If you don't like the switch plate, you can go to Lowe's or Home Depot. You can probably even find on Amazon or even Etsy if you want something handmade. Somebody has probably given you different options for a switchplate. So if you're like, I don't like the white switchplate in my apartment, I want something purple. Go to Etsy. Somebody has probably painted some kind of purple switch plate. If you want, you know, chrome or gold, then that's when you go to Lowe's or Home Depot and you just go to the lighting section and you start looking at all of the switch plates. There's gonna be the plain white ones that you have on your wall probably. But if you're going into a home that's older and maybe it has like an old wood switch plate, or maybe the white ones are so dirty that you can't even really clean them. You just want to freshen up those things. This is a good beginner project because taking off those screws is super easy. Most of them will have, I think they have flat screws. But if you have both screwdrivers, you're gonna be fine. So whatever screws are in there, you turn counterclockwise to the left. The little switch plate will pop off. Make sure you don't touch anything inside. Okay, once the plate is off, don't put your fingers in there, don't put the screwdrivers in there. You're literally just taking off the plate, you're grabbing your new plate, you're putting it on there, and then you're taking the little screws and you're screwing it back in, turning clockwise to the right. Now, the other thing to remember before you go and you just start picking out new switch plates, you have to see what kind of switch plate you have. So it could be a single switch where it's just one little rectangle hole that goes over one switch. It could be a panel that has three or four switches. Maybe it's where you're coming in your front door and there's three or four lights. So what you could do is you could go ahead and take off the switch plate and take it with you to Lowe's or Home Depot. And then you want to make sure that your new switch plate matches up. It's like, okay, this has two holes for two switches. This has two holes for two switches. So that's a very simple task that you can do. If you're in the shower and the drain is not draining properly, and you have one of those drains where you look straight down. It's like in the middle of your shower and it's just like a round metal plate. And then you look and there's like two screws. You want to, again, probably take your Phillips. Most of those are Phillips. You turn counterclockwise on those screws, you pull that plate up, and then you want to make sure that nothing falls down in the drain. You want to make sure that your screws are immediately retrieved, put to the side. You don't want those falling down in there. Then you can take your flat head screwdriver. Okay, so let's say you know that your drain is backed up because of hair. Say you have really long hair, like I do, your drain starts backing up. It's like, okay, it's probably clogged. A lot of people will immediately put like a liquid plumber down in there, which if you know, if you look down there and you don't see anything and it looks really clear, maybe five or six inches down, then you may need to do like a liquid plumber because maybe it's further down in the pipe. But a lot of times that hair will actually get stuck to that metal plate that's covering the drain. So sometimes you take that plate off and a lot of hair comes with it. I recommend having a little roll of paper towels and some nitroves. That way, when you start pulling everything up, it's gonna be gross. You're gonna have hair, you're gonna have soap, you're gonna, it's just gonna be kind of like slimy and greasy because it's gonna be old hair, it's gonna be soap, it's all gonna be tangled in together. And so you pull it up with your gloves. Sometimes you can take the little piece of paper towel and grab it with that, just so that even your gloves don't get all slimy. But that's a project that you can do, and that will save you money to where if you just pull off the plate, take your flathead screwdriver and put it down even just a few inches. Sometimes you'll grab a big clump of hair. And when you pull that out, a whole big clump will come out. And then you throw that away. And I usually spray a little bit of bleach or a little bit of cleaner, and I kind of clean the area. Then I put the plate back on, then you put your screws back in and you go clockwise to screw them back in. And then that's a project that you've done on your own, and you feel like, okay, now I don't have to call a plumber, which is very expensive. Or, okay, now the shower that I'm taking in an hour because now I'm dirty, all of the water's gonna drain. And I did that. Okay, I did that. And that feels like a good feeling for a lot of people. A lot of people have never felt the whole, wow, I did something handy. I did it myself. And it wasn't that hard. I thought it would be harder, but it wasn't that hard. It was a little gross, but I did that myself, and that feels pretty good. So those are a couple things you can do. Now, in future episodes, we're gonna talk more about drills. A lot of people get intimidated by drills, but I do want you to think about getting a drill and not necessarily like the cheapest option or like a pink drill. And I'm not saying that those aren't fine to start out with, but if you're going to spend $60 or $70 on a drill, you might as well spend $100 or $120 to get like a really good like Craftsman drill or DeWalt. All of these brands that a lot of construction people use, they're using the really high-end version. But a lot of these brands will have an intro type little version or more of like a residential household day-to-day use type drill. You don't have to spend seven or eight hundred dollars. I know when I got my drill, I also went ahead and got a toolbox, like an actual sturdy toolbox. And I think I only spent $150 for the drill, the drill bits, and the toolbox. And so we'll talk about all of that in future episodes. But basically, what a drill is doing, a drill is just making a hole. Now, there's the poor man's drill, which I used to do all the time. You can take a nail and you can hammer a nail into a wall and it's gonna make a small hole. This is fine if you need to screw in a very small, thin screw. So sometimes if you have to screw in a very thin screw for something, maybe you are putting up just a very small like entryway shelf that has like hooks. Maybe you're putting up something where you're just hanging your keys. So it's not heavy, it doesn't have big screws, you don't have a drill, but you're like, okay, I can't hammer this in. I've got to put the screws in. What you can do is you can use a level. So your level is just going to be a straight little gadget. And if you've never used a level, basically what it's doing is it's telling you if your item is straight. And it uses gravity and all this other great stuff to determine, okay, is this item straight compared to the floor or to the ceiling? I mean, it's basically just telling you, okay, when you step away, your picture is gonna be hung to where it doesn't look all crooked. And so levels have those little bubbles, right? So there's like a little window and it almost looks like water inside. And there's a little bitty bubble that slides back and forth. So if you just take the level and you put it up against a wall and you tilt it to where it's clearly crooked, the little bubble is gonna go to one end. It's gonna go roop and it's gonna show you that it's clearly tilted to one side, that it's not level. If you tilt it to the other side, the bubble's gonna go to the other side. What you want is when you put your level up on top of your picture, on top of your little shelf. Sometimes you can set it on a shelf, like if you're trying to hang a shelf, you put the level and it sits on top of the shelf. And then this is before you hang it. You're literally just trying to position the shelf. You put the level up there. The little bubble is gonna go in the window in the middle that has two little lines. That shows that if that bubble is pretty much anywhere in that window, it's considered leveled. Once you have the shelf up there, you've got your level and the bubble goes in the middle, then you're gonna mark on the wall with a pencil. And you're not gonna make big marks, you're basically just gonna kind of make little lines on each side. So if you know on the back of the shelf that there are two holes that are going to go up onto the wall, you're basically gonna make like little, I always almost make like little lines. Instead of making holes, I'm gonna like kind of make a line that goes left and right right above where the shelf is on both ends of it. So that way you know, okay, this is where it's supposed to be on the right, and this is where it's supposed to be on the left. And then from there, you may need to pull the shelf down and actually see how far apart the holes are. They could be six inches apart, they could be 12 inches apart. I don't know how long of a shelf you're hanging. But basically, you now know where it's roughly gonna go on the wall, and then you measure between the two holes on the back. So if the holes are six inches apart, you're gonna take a ruler, you're gonna put the ruler up on the wall, and you're gonna position it very similar to where you had the shelf. And then you're gonna take your level again and you're gonna put the level on top of the ruler. And so it's almost like the ruler now has a little hat that's a level. And if that little bubble goes to the right, you know that the ruler isn't in the right spot. So you've got to either lower the right side or lower the left or raise the right or raise the left. And you're gonna get the ruler in the correct position with the level bubble in the middle. Once you do that, then you're gonna say, here's where I want the shelf to begin. Here's where I want it to end. And I know that the two holes in the back of it are somewhere in the middle and they're six inches apart. So now you mark little holes that are six inches apart, but you also know that that ruler is leveled. And so now you know for the most part that your holes are leveled to where when you actually make the holes in the wall and you screw the shelf in, that the shelf most likely is going to be level and it's gonna be in the right place. And then you finish off by putting the level on top of the shelf again after it's hung. And as long as that little bubble is in the middle, you're done. If it's not, if it's way off, then somehow one of the two holes got marked incorrectly. So you take the shelf back off, and then you may have to do the process again. But I would only drill or hammer one more little hole. I wouldn't do both holes. You're just adjusting one. So if the level shows that the right side is too far up, when you take everything down, you want to mark a hole that's maybe just slightly below the first hole, and then you redo it, and then it should be leveled. So after today's episode, I want you to get comfortable with a hammer and a nail. I want you to get comfortable with both screwdrivers. Okay, the flathead. Now, the flathead, like I said before, can actually be used as a tool other than just screwing in a screw. You can actually use it to pull things out of a drain. If you have a switch plate on the wall that's not coming off, maybe somebody painted it on, you can use a flathead screwdriver to kind of pry it off of the wall. So you kind of just tuck it in behind the corner of the switch plate, and then you're going to pull the screwdriver towards you. You kind of use the wall as leverage and you try to pop it off. So that's another way you can use a screwdriver. And then with a drill, I want you to just think about maybe borrowing someone's drill. If you have a spouse that has a drill, maybe ask them to show it to you. And then maybe ask them, you've got your little block of wood that you got for free from Lowe's. Say, hey, I want to learn how to drill. I've got this block of wood that I've been hammering a nail into. Now I want to drill. Because what you're doing into a wall, when you're actually drilling into a wall, you're hoping that you hit a stud. Now, a stud could be wood or it could be metal. I just encountered my first metal stud when we moved into this new apartment. It's actually a concrete building that has metal studs in the walls. And so you don't have wood studs, which are normally what pulled up a wall. This was metal. So that was a different experience. But nine times out of 10, you're going to encounter a wood stud. And we're going to talk in future episodes about what a stud is, mounting TVs, mounting larger items. Um, if you're trying to put a big shelf on the wall, if you're trying to actually mount a closet system, things that would be a little bit more detrimental if they fell off the wall, things that have to be anchored. Okay, I'm sure you guys have heard of anchors. Those are those little plastic dubers that come with screws, and you're like, well, I don't even know what to do with this. And a lot of people are intimidated by anchors. And so that's why I think that that would be kind of like a step to level two, or you know, we're in 101, that would be like a 201 class. So if you've never done anything handy before and you're on a budget, I would go to Lowe's or Home Depot and I would go to the wood section. Okay, you can usually hear a saw because normally there are people cutting somewhere. Um, but even if you just go to the lumber area and you find someone that works in lumber, or you just find someone randomly in the store that works there and say, Hey, I am wanting to learn about being handy. And I just want to get like a block of wood that I can, you know, kind of practice with. They can walk you to the lumber area and just tell them what you're doing. Just say, listen, I want to start getting more comfortable with a hammer and a nail. Do you have like a little block of wood that I can buy or scraps that's like a big block that I can hammer into? And they'll help you. They love helping people that don't know what they're doing. That's a lot of them that work there are like, I am eager to teach someone something. And you'll learn that once you go there more. A lot of women, especially younger women, are like very intimidated to go into a home improvement store because they feel like everyone in there knows what they're doing as far as the customers. A lot of people are trying to figure out a new project, and that's why they're in there. They've never painted before. So they're asking the painting person questions. They've never had to swap out lighting. So they're in the lighting section asking questions. The lumber people, the plant people, all these people know at least a little bit. And if they're working there part-time and they're younger, maybe it's just like an entry-level job for them and it's their first job. They're gonna go find someone. There is somebody that works there who's been doing this for years and they are eager. They actually started working there because they want to help and they want to show people how to get more comfortable using tools and working on projects. And so that's kind of where you start. And you may ask yourself, Sarah, why are you even talking about all this handy stuff on an organizing podcast? Because, you know, professional organizers, they just bring in baskets and bins and they're just organizing pantries and closets. Well, what you don't realize is that when you really get into organizing, sometimes you have to assemble and sometimes you have to install. This is probably like a 301 class. Okay, so if you've never been handy before and you're like, I want to be an organizer, but I'm so intimidated to put up a garage rack or to put up a custom closet. Sometimes you need a second person just because of the heaviness of whatever you're doing, or sometimes one person has to position something and someone else has to actually drill it or like screw it in. But for the most part, you want to have a basic knowledge of being handy as an organizer because the last thing you want is to get out to a project that seems easy and you run into something that's like a 101 or a 201 handy type thing, like I'm talking about. And then you have to stop and either ask the homeowner to help you, or you have to try to call and find a handyman yourself, which is gonna cost you money. And so you want to have a basic knowledge of being quote unquote handy because it's just gonna save you time and money. And you wanna have that confidence that, okay, my husband's out of town and there's this small project, or worse, you may get divorced. You know, we just did the organizing after divorce episode. That could happen to you. And I'm not saying that it will or that I want that for you. But when you talk about organizing after divorce, we're gonna have an organizing for single moms coming up. There are all these things that may happen and you don't want to feel like, okay, I can't balance a checkbook, I can't hammer in a nail. You just want to have more confidence that as there are things that you want to do, whether it's your own house or you're just doing temporary little projects to make your rental feel a little bit more like home while you're there, being able to do some things on your own is just gonna make your life easier and it's gonna be cheaper. Sometimes it just makes more sense. And then you also have all of this creativity that comes with it. You're like assembled a bookshelf on my own. Now I want to anchor it to the wall because I've got a little baby that's crawling around. And so you did the whole assembly and you got it up, and now it's time to actually fix it to the wall. And you're like, I did all of this by myself, but I don't know how to assemble these brackets. I don't know how to actually fix it to the wall. Those are things that you're gonna be able to do as we get into these future episodes. And I want to be able to help those of you who want to actually help yourselves. Some people were always gonna throw money at something. Some people are always just gonna go complain to somebody else and ask for help and wait for help. You know, I don't know how long that woman had to wait until her husband came back into town. She said something about he was gonna be gone for two weeks. So she was already feeling helpless and she still had another two weeks left. And so part of that is a marriage thing. Part of it is, you know, if your husband has control over everything and then leaves town and you actually just don't know how to even function and pay bills and do whatever needs to be done while he's gone. That's a conversation you need to have with your spouse. Otherwise, there are things that you can start doing to build some confidence and to do some things on your own. And from there, you could actually start your own business. You could start assembling things, you could start offering up your services in the neighborhood. Say, I assemble furniture. So for that bookshelf, you know, you can pay me $50. And sometimes there are housewives and moms in neighborhoods that just become good at being that handy female. And they can actually charge their friends and charge their neighbors, and they can say, Hey, I know a handyman may charge $75, but I'll, you know, do it for $30. They look at it as, okay, that's just extra money for me. And I've helped out my neighbor. And you can slowly start to build your own little side business and you can save up for vacations. You can save up if you want to go shopping or go to brunch. So there are all these different ways that you can use being handy to your advantage. And like I said before, it just makes you feel a little bit more confident, makes you feel like you're learning something new and pushing yourself and challenging yourself. And that in itself can really take you far and make you feel good about yourself. I hope this episode was helpful. Please make sure to subscribe to the bonus content if you want more information like this. The minimum contribution is only $3 a month, and you can cancel at any time. Thank you so much, and I will see you in the next episode.