BASIC HOME REPAIRS FOR WOMEN

Tutoring is offered in your home in Youbou, Lake Cowichan or Duncan, so that you can learn to fix minor house repairs yourself. I do not do the repairs for you, I simply supply the know-how. You provide the materials necessary for the repair, after a discussion with me either by phone or in person.
I have put up photos of some renos that I have done, with some "before" photos as well.


TOPICS can include any of the following:

• Changing the bit in a drill.
• Making the nails not show on a baseboard.
• Making the screws go flush with the surface by countersinking.
• How to screw anything to the wall, whether the wall is drywall, wood or whatever.
• Levelling your shelf as you put it up.
• Replacing the kitchen or bathroom taps
• Tiling the bathtub
• Fixing the toilet.
• Repairing holes in drywall.
• I do not teach anything electrical because of the liability.
• Anything else that I am able to do (except wiring)

FEES
$30 per hour (min 1 hour) in your home, in Youbou, Lake Cowichan, or Honeymoon Bay. Onlookers over 15 years old, $10 each per hour.


TUTOR - Jenny Robson
I have a B.Sc. Physics with a subsidiary in Electrical Engineering from Birmingham University, England. I used to be a computer programmer on the old mainframes, and now I have turned my hand to tutoring, renovating old houses, and writing books and web pages. The most recent renovation has been in the last 2 years. I bought an old house with a fabulous view, but everything inside was a disaster. I have been going through the house, slowly fixing everything that was wrong.

I began fixing my houses more than 30 years ago. My husband and I had moved into a new house, with an unfinished basement. My laundry sat on the concrete basement floor for over a year, waiting for my husband to put up some shelves for me. He had learned cabinet work as a child, but unfortunately for me, he preferred the TV to cabinetwork. In desperation, I tried to do it myself, but my screws stood proud of the shelves and would not go flush, in spite of all my efforts. I asked my husband what to do. He was sitting in the armchair, watching TV as usual. "Countersink them!" he cried. I found the bit for the drill that he had described, but now I had a drill in one hand, and a metal bit in the other, but I did not know how to put one into the other. He instructed me from the armchair. I finally got my screws flush with the wood.

My next problem was that my young son got asthma everytime he escaped into the basement, because it was dirty and unfinished. Someone inevitably left the door open. It needed to be finished. Under instruction from my armchair tutor, I was told how to lay out the frames for the walls, and how big they had to be. Each day, I measured the pieces of 2" x 4" wood and laid them out on the floor. When my husband came home, I handed him the saw and he went "zip, zip zip....", cut the pieces to length, and went upstairs, put his feet up and watched TV. The next night, I had the pieces all laid out in the shape of a frame. When my tutor came home, I handed him the hammer, he went "bang, bang, bang...", nailed the frame together and went upstairs, put his feet up and watched TV.

It was all very frustrating. I ended up doing two thirds of the drywalling, with instruction from my tutor, and I could now countersink screws. I had also learnt the principles of framing walls, even if I did not know how to use a saw yet!

Not surprisingly, we eventually parted company. I was then on my own with 2 children, and bought an old house that needed a lot of TLC. Over the next 20 years, I slowly learnt to use a hammer, saw, drill and many other tools. In 1996 I bought 15 acres of raw land and proceeded to set up a farm in the bush. I practiced my building skills on my well house, chicken house, woodshed and many other projects. The old mobile home that I had bought had had a chimney fire, unknown to me when I bought it, and they must have chucked a lot of water around the place. When I tried to hook in the new bath-tub, all the old plumbing joints under the floor gave way. I had to learn to plumb in a hurry. Then the freezing weather came, and all the outside PVC pipes cracked because I had not got my skirting up in time. More plumbing. I have now learnt most of the trades used for fixing houses, through experience, and as far as possible I stick to the BC building code.

I no longer have my farm, but thought it would be a good thing if I could teach other women who are in the same boat as I was, having repairs that need to be done, but no knowledge with which to do them. So I have set up this site to see if anyone needs some help.