My late husband, Ed, who retired in 2002, used to put on old clothes and go outside to “putter,” as he called it. I had no idea exactly what a day of puttering entailed, but I knew he usually came inside hot, tired and covered in red clay and old leaves. After he passed away, I learned at least some of what he’d been doing all those times, because it no longer got done.
We live on four acres in a wooded subdivision. My land is mostly trees, with no grass to speak of. All of those trees drop branches and gutters fill up with leaves. Weeds spring up where you don’t expect or want them. In the summer, poison ivy and thorny smilax must be battled, mulch on our walking path has to be renewed, and I’m sure there are things I’m leaving out.
Ed also took care of a lot of inside chores. He hated plumbing (I actually think he was a little afraid of it), so it was a challenge to get him to attempt anything that involved water. But he didn’t hesitate to tackle other projects, like painting, electrical repairs and so much more.
Now, all of that is up to me, and after paying handymen good money to do fairly simple things, I’m trying to step up to the tasks.
One of the first things I’ve done is to join a Facebook group called Handy Women. The 238,000 women in that group run the gamut from actual renovators who earn their living with their skills to aspiring handy women like me who barely know which end of the hammer to hold.
I come from a family of strong, capable women. Both my grandmothers were young mothers during the Great Depression, so of course they were no strangers to hard work. They both were adept at canning, gardening, quilting, sewing and all the things that kept a home running back then, including (from stories I heard), keeping and killing chickens when necessary.
My mother, who worked full time in an office, also helped my father with a lot of home renovations during my growing up years. My father was handy, but impatient. There was a saying in my family (or maybe it was just I who thought it) that my father would start a job and get frustrated, so my mother would step in to do it slowly, methodically and correctly.
My parents went through almost every home décor trend of the 1970s (though somehow, they avoided shag carpet), and they did it all themselves. They installed flooring. They installed paneling and lights and ceiling fans. Every few years, all the walls in our house got a fresh coat of paint or new wallpaper. They also owned several rental properties, and they took care of all the maintenance.
I don’t aspire to that much effort all by myself, but I’m inspired when I think of all they accomplished as I was growing up.
So far, with the help of the Handy Women and the inspiration of my mother, I’ve managed to change showerheads, repair the rotted railing of a deck, reupholster chairs, chainsaw a few small downed trees, put together furniture (including a desk which took hours), and my crowning achievement (so far), install two overhead light fixtures.
I know I’ll never be as handy as my parents or the women on the Facebook page. But with their guidance, I do hope to at least paint my bathroom and fix a toilet that likes to “ghost flush.” And that is handy enough for me.
Kimberly Brown is a staff writer for The Northeast Georgian. Email her at kbrown@TheNortheastGeorgian.com