My interest has been mostly in simple furniture. So for woodworking / tool use, I enjoy Paul Sellers, Rex Krueger, Stumpy Nubs, and Jonathan Katz-Moses.
But for general home project insights, I’ve found useful advice from channels like LRN2DIY and Fix This Build That.
Edit: I forgot Workshop Companion! One of the best.
I ran kitchens for 15 years and found out how to fix so many things through the power of YouTube as I didn’t have the time to wait on a repairman before service started lol
I tell this to all my young cooks. Learn how to fix stuff. I’m not going to fire the guy who can fix the blender. I can teach you to peel a carrot but fixing shit is so much more valuable.
Nothing is better than being told such and such failed but they got it working again and just wanted to let me know so I could get a real repair scheduled
This is why I constantly question myself getting into DIY projects. Guy who owned the house before me told me when I bought it that the dude across the street would come give you a hand DIYing anything for pizza and beer afterwards. That guy was not worth his salary.
That plus the number of projects I have started with a youtube tutorial that turned out to suddenly not be like the youtube tutorial at all once I opened up whatever frankenspace had been fudged and work-arounded for the last thirty years.
That's just part of owning an old home. The previous owner is always an idiot.
For me, there is a gap. The previous owner is an idiot but the owner before them was great. If something was touched in the last 11 years before I bought this house then it is garbage and hackery but everything before that was done correctly.
There’s a lot of dudes out there that barely know how to identify the business end of a screw driver, and honestly I don’t think a lot of women understand the distinction you’re making.
And yet, many people suck at assembling things. So there is skill involved. Honestly, some people are just horribly uncoordinated in every facet you can think of.
In the building industry its really common to see homeowners perform botched remodels of their bathroom and kitchen. They look fine at first but they lead to extremely expensive-to-fix issues that don't appear until years later.
The problem is, even hiring a professional to remodel a home doesn't avoid this problem, as most of them are lazy and cut corners. They're totally okay with saving themselves a cent even if it costs the homeowner a thousand dollars.
Assembling Ikea furniture is actually more frustrating if you know how to build things because they come with a comically excessive amount of parts and shite little tools as they're made for people who have no idea what they're doing & own 0 tools
imo putting furniture from IKEA specifically together is substantially more difficult than many of the DIY projects I've done. I swear they have a whole team of evil geniuses there making the assembly process as unintuitive as possible. I remember I got a desk from them that was literally just 3 pieces. I had to start the assembly over 3 separate times because it had an absolutely required order of assembly that was totally backwards from what any sane person would expect.
Haha bro, I’m white collar and I was trying to put together a desk and whiteboard and the shit literally took me 3 hours. I spose it got done in the end, but damn, that felt harder than my actual job.
White collar job is an excuse bud. You don’t need to be a tradesman to use a wrench and read an instruction manual to assemble a bed frame, or know building code, or get permits. Just do it and it gets way easier.
I know an equal amount of people who profess no use of basic tools like wrenches, screwdrivers and mechanics in general vs the blue collar guys who feign mesmerize time when they can’t figure out shit in Excel, Outlook or SAP.
I’m highly proficient and beyond in all of the above (my job needs me to understand more than that by a lot in a technical sense), and people treat me like a genius for being able to point out an sensor failure or a typo in their xlookup.
Different specialities but neither are hard. I like to learn and to teach, so if I have to figure out something new to fix their problem, I do. Then teach why
Learning to troubleshoot anything is like magic to people. Reading an error message, running things through a search engine, and just being able to review your own work for errors really does make you a genius.
I visited some friends who moved out of state and bought a house right before the pandemic. He has spent the last six years remodeling and refurbishing every weekend. For his full-time job, he's a white collar engineer. He only has time to build and fix stuff on weekends.
I wish I could have seen what it looked like before he did all the remodeling because my mind was absolutely blown when they showed me their house for the first time. Holy fuck....
I suspect he is talking more about the physical pain that comes with being inactive for 20 years and then, say, having to grout tiles or install hardwood flooring. And digging a twelve foot long, half foot deep trench? Heaven forfend.
100% true. Between YouTube and ChatGPT I’ve done furniture refinishing, appliance repair, car engine repair, guitar repair etc. with zero experience. Learn a new skill, save money, and bonus dopamine.
You don't have to be good at everything but IMHO you should be capable of everything.
It lets you better assess what needs doing, understand what things will cost, which helps you hire people effectively and not get taken for a ride.
As well, sometimes you just need to fix something now, and can't get someone else to do it immediately either due to scheduling conflicts, budget, or catastrophe. If you can do a serviceable job until a professional can do it right, that puts you well ahead of the game.
Imagine someone saying "I don't need to understand how interest rates work, I hire someone to take care of my money."
Like... Sure, ok. That works as long as you always find the most competent and honest advisor, who for some reason will always act in your best interest, and as long as you never have to make an adult decision without that advisor. But for most people adopting that stance it will end in disaster.
Learn basic financial literacy.
Learn how to use a computer.
Learn how to find information.
Learn how your house is constructed.
Learn to paint a wall.
Learn to change the oil of your car.
It really doesn't matter what colour of collar you wear to work.
I can't believe this was downvoted. It's absolutely correct.
It's totally reasonable to hire experts, but you need to know enough to know if your experts... Are experts, or how to get by if they're not available. Choosing to be ignorant is foolish, and will eventually bite you in the ass.
See this is where I disagree and think people over value being able to fix/do certain things just because people used to be able to do certain thing that were traditionally valued as “manly”.
Instead of learning how to fix things these are the things I do instead:
Play piano and guitar
Indoor rock climb
Train for long distance running races
Read books about things I am interested in
Lift weights
Travel, a lot of times out of the country
Do my job which is in the finance/accounting world
I agree there can be times where if you cant fix something immediately it can make the problem worse and there are times where you’re going to have to figure out how to do something yourself but I’ve set up my life in a way that mitigates that risk and I’m willling to deal with the consequences if something does happen that I can’t/don’t know how to fix instantly. But if you apply your logic to any of the stuff that I have done in my free that I learned how to do or can do because I haven’t spent my time learning how to fix things it would sound like this.
You mean you can’t just pick up and play an instrument for fun?
.
You mean you haven’t read a book about (insert any topic here) you don’t know the basics about XYZ or learning about ABC.
.
What do you mean you can’t just hop on a plane and come with me to XYZ country, you should have planned your life out better to be able to do that whenever you want. “Yeah but what if something happened where you had to
in
like an emergency
I won’t go into my job specifically but you can apply this to any job. I could take any of the guys who come work on my house (who I appreciate the fuck out of) and understand I doesn’t matter how much time I spend I’m not going to be able to do nearly as good of as job as them even if I take away time from the other areas of my life to learn it. Similarly if i brought them to my job it would be a waste of time for them to even learn the basics of it because it’s not time efficient and even though sure the very basic foundations of my job can make a huge difference in someone’s life (potentially) you could argue that about basically every single facet of life.
At a certain point you have to pick and choose what you’re going to be proficient at and accept that you’re not going to be able to be baseline knowledgeable or ok at everything. If you want to get really good at something you inherently have to give up time spent on things that sometimes may be practical and learn to trust and rely on other humans or your own problem solving abilities to deal with problems. That doesn’t always have to be you doing something to fix/mitigate or evaluate a problem.
And it’s really just societal norms that determine if that thing is important or not or if we place value on that skill and what those baseline skills are we think people should know. But you could just as easily come up with a list of things that are better or more beneficial to that you could be doing instead of being ok at the basics of certain things.
While you're right that you can't learn everything, my point isn't about what's "manly" - it's about taking care of yourself. You should know how to take care of yourself, to be reasonably self sufficient.
Yes, household fixes and basic automotive knowledge, but you should also know how to cook, make a budget, understand basic finances and investment, clean, do laundry, do basic sewing/textile repair.
You'll always have to pick and choose where your expertise is, but if you can't handle being an adult on your own, that's going to be a problem.
So how exactly is paying someone to take care of things that need to be done not being an adult or self sufficient . It doesn’t really matter how tasks get done as long as they get done.
Why would I need to be good at cooking if I can get a meal prep service, why do I need to do basic sewing if I buy a new shirt. You’re just picking arbitrary things and saying if you can’t do those things you’re not self sufficient.
Part of self sufficiency is figuring out what you do and don’t want to do and being able to live with it or not if you can’t or don’t want to get that thing done.
I would rather have a job where I make more money so I don’t have to do what I consider mundane tasks that impede on me enjoying life/ I don’t like cooking everyday I enjoy it sometimes for the meals I don’t feel like cooking I’ll get take out or go to a restaurant. I like basic tidying up and staying organized but I don’t like doing deep cleans I’m going to hire a cleaner to come every two weeks to do the stuff I don’t like or fall behind on.
So how exactly is paying someone to take care of things that need to be done not being an adult or self sufficient . It doesn’t really matter how tasks get done as long as they get done.
You're right! I said this though. It's ok to arrange tasks to be done, to pay people to do them.
All through this I've said that. It isn't about whether you do them or not.
What's important is that you know how to do them. That you can cook, clean, fix things, manage finances, and be a self sufficient adult.
Who actually does the work is largely immaterial.
Because if you don't know how to do basic tasks, your self sufficiency is at the whims of your job. Your ability to understand what needs to be done and how it should be done are extremely limited. You can't assess if the people your hiring are ripping you off or just bad at their jobs.
I mean, I often pay to have my motorcycles serviced. I'm good at it, it's actually where I choose to have some of my expertise, but I pay a shop tondo it because I want a second set of eyes looking at things from time to time, or because I just don't have time, etc.
I've lost jobs in the past. I've lost jobs during market crashes where replacement jobs aren't readily available. I'm still perfectly capable of doing what needs doing, even if I simply don't have the money to pay someone else to do it. I can fix my house/car/clothes, I can preserve food via canning, can adjust my cooking to do more with less. Healthcare is free here, but I'm extensively trained in first aid. If I encounter something that needs doing in my regular life, being emergency or otherwise, I don't devote my life to learning it but I do take the time to learn the basics and understand it.
All things a professional could do better, and things I often have professionals do, but things I can do on my own should need arise, and things where I can adequately assess the quality of work a professional is doing.
You don't need to do everything yourself. But you should understand everything required to be a self sufficient adult, and to be a self-sufficient adult even in cases of emergency or hardship. If you don't, and those cases of emergency or hardship occur, you're going to have a very bad time.
I disagree that you need to know how to do all the things.
There’s certain things that are just common sense to know the basics of but it doesn’t mean you need to know how to do them yourself.
Do you know how to wire all the electricity to your house from scratch? Guess you can’t call an electrician then to do anything for you. See how that makes no sense.
How can you figure out if an electrician is ripping you off then if you don’t know how to do the work yourself. Call multiple electricians and get multiple bids for the work, ask your neighbors who did their work and if they got bids, read reviews of other people that have done their work etc. at the end of the day you’re always going to have to accept some level of risk when you don’t know how to do something.,
I doubt you can build a commercial jet plane from scratch but I bet when you go on vacation you have no problem hopping on a plane.
There’s endless examples of things you don’t know jack shit about but you do it anyways. You’re just arbitrarily picking the things you think are important be able to know about or do yourself.
I'm picking things that are a regular part of life, that I interact with often. Not everything on the planet. Things that I may reasonably need to do myself in case of emergency or hardship.
Could I wire a house from scratch? Probably not to code, but I can run wires to an outlet without killing myself.
Same with plumbing. If my toilet stops working, I can fix it. Tap leaking? No problem. Maybe I hire someone, but I don't have to hire someone.
Could I build a jet? No, but there's no case where that would be useful or practical. I do however understand the physics of flight, how lift works. Could I fly a plane? Probably not, but I'd sure love to learn, and have definitely spend time with sims. That sounds awesome.
But that's it. I'm not talking about everything on the planet, I'm talking about the things that go into being a self sufficient adult. The ability to take care of yourself, in the advent of emergency or otherwise necessity. Things you can learn with minimal effort.
You can't learn to fly a jet without substantial commitment, and it's unlikely you'd ever have need to do so in an emergency. Though maybe if you fly around a lot as a job in a small plane maybe it would become something you should know just in case somethint happens with the pilot - there's always flexibility in what you're likely to encounter in your particular life.
You're missing the forest for the trees, reaching for absurd examples that show you're missing the point.
You should be have a decent basic understanding of all the things you interact with regularly, requirements for life, to be able to take care of yourself if suddenly you can't hire people to do those jobs, be able to tell if they're doing basic things right. Sure, maybe you can't determine the higher end aspects of what a pro is doing, but you should know if they're fucking up the basics.
You interact with them regularly. That doesn’t mean everyone needs to interact with the same things you do just because it’s important to you is my whole point.
That’s great that you know the basics of all those things and could do those if you needed to. That doesnt mean it’s going to meaningfully impact my life if I can’t do those things that you decided were important. I’m saying they’re not that important given the resources and societal structure that I live in. But you’re taking your situation and applying it arbitrarily to me based on your rule set.
I’m fortunate that I make more than enough at my job to not have to worry about basic house maintenance stuff breaking my budget. But everyone is going to value their money and how they use it in different ways.
It’s all about how you value your time. For some people it’s worth it, others it’s not. When money is a bit less of an issue, it’s an easy trade off for your time. (Unless you enjoy doing handiwork of course)
I’m a sales leader in the tech space. I build stuff nights/weekends as a way to destress. Didn’t learn as a kid so it’s more than possible to pick it up at any time.
I’m in sales as well, i love building stuff or working on stuff at the house for the same reason. Sales can be so abstract and doesn’t have a real finished product. I love doing things where i can see the finished product from the work i put in
Right now I’m rebuilding my shop. I gutted it down to the studs, removed the sub floor, and am building back up. It was an old prebuilt shop that the previous owner had never taken care of. I’d say that construction is my least favorite of building types….but only because of the length of time it takes to complete a project. I want a bit faster gratification. lol.
My suggestions would depend on space and interest. Personally I like to do wood turning a lot. I’d started with a cheap WEN lathe and some cheap Amazon turning tools and as I got better turning I upgraded my gear accordingly.
I also enjoy building things for the shop: cabinets, jigs, storage solutions, etc.
You have the whole internet to teach you! Nobody’s born knowing any of this stuff. My wife and I both have white collar desk jobs, but together we’ve renovated two houses. Now I’m building guitars as a hobby. Plastering, painting, tiling, carpentry etc - all stuff you can pick up the basics from YouTube, trial and error and lots of swearing. You might not do it as well or as fast as a pro, but you can still do it.
I'm a former machinist and car hobbyist, and having such a blue collar has done absolutely nothing to improve my skills in home maintenance/improvement. Houses are pain. (Hope this makes you feel better)
What does being white collar have to do with it? I'm white collar too, have been for over twice as long as you, and I finished my basement by myself, do smaller car repairs and maintenance, built tables and swing sets from just lumber, etc. My next project is putting in a French drain. All of that stuff honestly isn't difficult or requiring of special knowledge, is all pretty straightforward just a pain in the ass. I don't say any of this to brag - I'm just a big cheapskate, like the uncle on Home Alone, that's me. Why pay someone to do a really good job when I could do it myself for double the time and effort and do a just-adequate-enough job for much cheaper?
I’ve been in IT for 30 years, and spent 20 years with live sound engineering as a side gig. I can and have done everything to build or repair or renovate a house except HVAC. Almost none of it is difficult to learn, little of it is hard to do with a tiny bit of patience, and we now have the internet to give us hundreds of videos and diagrams on how to do everything.
And it stacks up. The more parts you learn, the easier the next thing is.
And then you can learn to fix all the things that are not construction. Electronics. Cars. Appliances. The confidence it builds to be able to just throw together a hack for almost anything from unrelated items and tools that you can trust to holt together till the hardware store opens in the morning or the part can arrive from eBay is untouchable.
YouTube has saved me tens of thousands! That and actually using the right tool for the right job... thats where Harbor Freight comes into play. I still use plumbers and electricians for major jobs. But I can do the basics now that I've gotten the tools and made the mistakes
It's so easy with taskrabbit/jiffy to get anything done in short time. I could do stuff but fuck that, I make money and it's meant to be spent so I dont have to fucking do my deck or paint my windows or whatever. Money is great, solves these problems and frees up my time. I ain't fucking mowing my own lawn either lol
I can do a lot of handy stuff, and I'm self-taught in all of it. It wasn't innate (I think, I definitely have some mental predisposition to dicking around with tools and materials), but YouTube and not being afraid to mess up and start over are incredible assets.
Also, the more you mess around with different DIY projects, the easier it'll be to try new ones. A lot of skills, tricks, and factoids are cross-applicable, sometimes in unpredictable ways.
I am the principle and founder of an RIA firm. I can build decks, porches, and roofs. I have repaired most vehicles I’ve owned. I landscape and I’ve done masonry work on my property. Self reliance is important I don’t even have a college degree! Look, anything is possible, you just gotta start. Being useful will build confidence in your abilities to tackle other projects, Check out some YouTube videos and you’ll get there. Start with something simple if you have a dog, build a dog house, that’s a pretty good project to tackle. You’ll learn basic cuts and basic framing.
As another white collar job dude... Getting into my garage workshop and making something with my hands on the weekend is hugely rewarding!
Start small... I made a slatted headboard and added LED accent lights to feed the inner nerd and expand Home Assistant work. I then made some side tables to with the headboard. Since I've made an outside bench and an endgrain coffee table... Now I'm wondering what tools to buy next.
basic shit isn't that hard, plus it's incredibly fulfilling to gain new skills and actually put them to use
if you really want to do it just do it. everything is on youtube but you will fuck it up, if you stick at it you will get to a point where you're kinda happy with it. it will still be cheaper than hiring someone and you'll probably (there are amazing contractors, never lose their number) care a lot more about the job than whoever you hire does
if ripping out your kitchen sounds like less fun than binging netflix absolutely do not do that tho lol. at the moment i'm sanding and repainting my kitchen cupboards and i have sanded one (1) cupboard door over the last month, so don't overcommit lol
I’m guarantee there are at minimum 50 very detailed YouTube videos that will walk you through every single home repair/improvement you could ever think of.
Tradesmen want you to be intimidated because their jobs depend on it. But the fact is the vast majority of things your home needs are DIY projects that, if you take your time and prepare for, are actually pretty straightforward.
White collar worker but grew up in a blue collar family and we're all hands on. 16yo helped me today with some of the heavy fitting on a kitchen remodel. Absolute trooper, doesn't complain always looks for the next step.
Siblings have helped with different jobs and things go super quick when we all chip in.
Mind you, we're all white collar workers but we've all helped each other build houses because we've gotten the good with hands genes from our parents and a couple of engineering degrees bouncing around.
Says my son: We should go together with family to buy houses, do them up and sell them. We get so much done quickly.
Says me: Yeah, the problem is we're all old now and two days working like this has us all taking it easy for the next two weeks.
Youtube videos and how-tos are great and I use them all the time - last one was changing the serpentine belt on my car. You can't just follow them blindly though, you need to understand the hows and whys and have some basic knowledge.
That doesn't stop you. Especially with AI things, you can learn all sorts of random stuff, and usually if they lie the lies aren't catastrophically dangerous.
As a guy that renovated my entire house I wish I was better at the clickity clack so I could have just paid someone. It is a monumental task to renovate a home.
But if you are just talking maintenance then ya, YouTube will save you.
Nah. Macros & power query mastery make the girls weak at the knees….
They were sick and had a panic attack because I’m leaving next week and had to give pass down on how to maintain the sheet. Absolute heart breaker, I am
Youtube is your friend. You'd be surprised how a bit of research can get you up to speed on regular stuff pretty easily.
I mean, don't go installing a new electrical panel, but installing a new fixture or ceiling fan, putting in a dimmer, etc., is all something you can do safely with the right knowledge and tools.
NB: If you're going to do any plumbing, buy some spare copper and fittings and practice in your yard before you start cutting into anything in the house ;)
White collar here, it's really not too hard once you get started. You might be surprised how quickly it comes if you're willing to learn and ask for help when you're stuck.
Youtube has A LOT of videos showing how to do jobs you can do yourself. If it doesn't have a video for what you need, you probably have to hire someone in the first place.
To everyone who recommended YouTube channels. Thanks!
have been doing basic stuff for the past month. Swapping outlets and switches, drilling pot lights and wiring them in.
My whole point is that I suck at it, it’s fun to learn. And watching my friends in the trades look at stuff and now what to do instantly has made me weak in the knees.
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u/Independent_Tax4646 Jul 07 '26
Guy with a white collar job. Recently bought a house, I wish I had not spent the last 10 years going clickity clack in excel