Ted Barris

A good friend of mine – a designer by profession – has decided to take on something new in his life. It’s really only a slight turn in his career. He’s created masterful book designs for Canadian publishers for years. But when he and I recently put our heads together in front of a computer to work on my latest book design, he told me he’d bought a property in a neighbouring community, an older house, one we used to refer to as “a fixer-upper.”

“And I’m doing most of the interior renovations myself,” he said. “I just thought I’d like to try my hand at it.”

“You’re a better man than I,” I told him. And I meant it.

I think I’ve seen a few too many fixer-uppers that turned into money pits, marriage breakers, and even one-way tickets to an emergency ward at the hospital. And yet, knowing that I’m not any good at do-it-yourself (DIY) projects has never completely stopped me from trying. Over the years, experience has taught me that only those with the right tools and the professional capability should tackle DIY projects. I recall projects as diverse as minor plumbing, quickie electric repairs, and even what appeared to be a simple job of knocking down an old garage at our place. Inevitably, my incompetence at most handyman skills, has eventually driven me to get a professional to pick up the pieces and do it the right way … the second time ’round.

For years, when my parents owned a hobby farm in the Ontario countryside, I always tried to fix things myself – things such as squeaky stair steps, dripping taps and leaky sinks, holes in the roof, clogged chimney, new insulation in the attic and even a perennially dysfunctional water pump that laboured away in an old outhouse adjacent to the house. It was especially difficult to keep the pump going in the winter. So, I tried everything to baby it along (and save the expense of hiring a plumber). I tried installing new fan belts, filters, gaskets and wiring. To keep it from freezing in the winter, I packed straw around it. When all my efforts failed, I finally broke down and called a plumber. He took the pump apart, cleaned it, replaced worn parts; and finally he insulated the shed and hung a single light bulb inside and we never had another breakdown. Hire a professional and you generally get a professional result.

It’s amazing the number of times the issue of attempting DIY comes up these days, whether to save money, speed up the process (you think) or just feed the ego. The other day, another friend and I were talking about choosing dinner wines. He suggested I should invest a few bucks in the tools – a fruit press, glass demi-johns, hydrometers, airlocks, sanitized bottles and assorted vintner tools – and do it all myself in the basement.

“Nope,” I said. “The only part of winemaking I’m good at, is drinking it.” I explained that long ago I had decided to leave the winemaking to the Niagara Peninsula and Prince Edward County vintners, who know what they’re doing. That way I’ll pay a little more, but I’ll always know I’m getting a much more drinkable product.

Maybe it’s age, but I used to try doing a lot more things myself, than I tend to today. I used to change the oil in my car myself. I used to rotate the tires. I even tackled changing the winter tires to summer or vice versa. And quite rightly, my wife would say, “You know, for all the time you’ve put into saving money by doing it yourself, you could probably have written and sold another story to pay for a professional to do it.”

As usual, she was right. The other day – during the recent dump of snow – I got another lesson in why most of us should turn things over to the professionals. In my haste to get the driveway shovelled, so that my wife and I could get on our way, I attacked the snow furiously two-thirds of the way to the street. The snow was pretty light, but after shovelling it for 20 minutes, I was exhausted About that time, my neighbour’s grandson showed up with one of those heavy-duty pick-ups sporting a hydraulic, super-manipulating, front-end snowplough. He rolled down the window and waved me off.

“Don’t bother shovelling any more of it,” he said. “What’ll take you another half an hour, I can clear in five seconds.”

I only wish I had procrastinated that morning. I could’ve had the right guy with the right tools and all the know-how, do ALL of my work for me, not just part of it. I guess that urge to DIY will always drive some of us, no matter how many times falling short proves our inadequacy.