Like most westerners, the do-it-yourself spirit is alive and well within us. That is especially evident when moving into a new place. Our desire to improve our surroundings drives us to make a “to do” list and get to work. Here are a few “DIY” projects from the past week.
We got a good deal on a used bookcase from a nearby furniture market. It arrived unassembled with some hardware broken and missing:
After some improvisation and a lot of cleaning by Susan, it turned out nicely:
In order to move our internet connection from the living room to the study, I experimented with the wires in this junction box, eventually (and miraculously) connecting the right ones through an unused RJ45 connection panel:
Water has been leaking down from our kitchen sink into the cabinet below, requiring a thorough recaulking:
Speaking of caulking, I attached some plastic conduit to the floor of our bathrooms to keep the shower water from soaking the bathmat:
All of the apartment walls are concrete (often covered with tile), so it takes a masonry bit to mount an adjustable shower bracket:
Remember the ugly, poorly painted bed from the last blog? Hopefully, it will look better by tomorrow:
This post highlights one difference between many westerners and Chinese. As Americans, we take a certain pleasure in doing things ourselves. But in China, it seems that people may actually lose face if they possess numerous “handyman skills,” since it suggests that they were unable to hire someone else to do these routine tasks. The abundance of cheap labor recently led to the closure of the remaining six Home Depot stores in China – in the words of a company spokeswoman, China is a “do it for me market, not a do it yourself market.”
This is too bad for folks like us. I recently found a soldering iron at the local B&Q store (a Home Depot copycat), but they didn’t have any solder. I also found an RJ45 internet crimping tool, but no RJ45 jacks to crimp onto the wire. Fortunately, we have a tiny hardware store across the street:
This guy had the conduit and spray paint I needed. In fact, he probably has everything else that a “DIY” guy might want (if he can find it):
wow, that bookcase really does look complicated! Ah, someday I hope I can be as much of a handyman as dad is…
The bookcase turned out great. I wonder how it would have turned out if you had hired a Chinese to put it together for you.
Good job and with such obstacles to deal with, too! You two make a good team. Interesting differences in culture—-thanks for writing this post. I love learning about things like this on blogs like yours. We will be “thinking” about you there. 🙂