Some people feel like a badass when they use power tools.I just feel like an ass.My family wasn't big into the whole DIY thing; instead we just had guys. The paint guy, the lawn guy, the electrician guy. I think there might even be a Christmas light guy these days, not at MY house, but at my dad's house. Sorry Dad, I threw ya under the bus.These days, I only have one guy. His name is Josh and he's the handiest guy I know in real life. He's also my boyfriend and the reason why living in a 110-year-old house isn't one cluster after another. Or, to be more precise, why it isn't a cluster for me. He'll swear up and down that he's nothing special, but I live with the guy. He's like Bob Vila, but with a younger beard.The only thing that's frustrating about living with a handy dude in a fixer-upper is that I constantly feel helpless when it comes to home improvements. I can't even hang a picture the right way. He mows the lawn and I do the laundry. He fixes toilets and I make dinner. He hooks up the new gas line for our oven and I vacuum the rug. I know it's all "traditional gender roles" and stuff, but it works and we own it. We are both contributing a lot, but that doesn't mean I don't want to help (or go to Home Depot for something other than plants and Circus Peanuts).I do want to, I just don't even know where to start.Recently, we renovated our kitchen. There were many, many, MANY shopping outings where we looked for grown-up things like cabinets, kitchen islands, lighting, counter tops and appliances. There was lots of discussion on every single item (maybe even a heated debate or two), but one thing we both loved were some rustic shelves supported by these steel thingamabobs (brackets, I suppose?). We saw them at a fancy store, with a fancy price tag to match.Josh says to me, "I could make those."I really despise when people say things like that, cause it's like, "Yeah, you could. But are you going to?" Which is precisely what I said to Josh.A week later, I'm in his parent's garage, wearing safety glasses, a leather mitt and holding a blowtorch (this was after we drilled holes into the steel with a drill press... also scary!). You crank the torch on the steel thingamabob, which is held firmly in a vise, until it gets all orange. At that point, you take the mitted hand and bend the steel in half, at a 90 degree angle, just like Superman! You do this a bunch of times until you have four brackets. Then, your boyfriend takes a piece of reclaimed wood and fashions two planks. And then you put them all together and you get this:
The completed shelves, with a bunch of crap on them.I didn't even burn the garage down! But I did manage to over-bend the steel (which is probably because I am so strong), thus Josh had to fix a few of them. But that's okay, 'cause while he was fixing them, I was making dinner... where I just might use my blowtorch skills for making crème brûlée.
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Since using a blow torch, I've used all sorts of power tools. Like the time I built a fence! On the flip side, I built this bench with ZERO tools, which was also very satisfying.
