Toward Ecosophy

My tip this week reflects a recent experience of ours. My husband (and to a lesser degree myself) are pretty handy, and we have built structures before, but we found ourselves frustrated and a little intimidated by the prospect of replacing a rotten beam under our house. We called around and found that it would be both expensive and a long wait to have a contractor do it. So we decided to just take it step by step and think it through at every stage, and it only took about a day and a half, went smoothly, and saved us a bunch of money. In retrospect, it’s unclear why we thought it would be any more challenging than other things we’ve done. Of course, without a certain level of baseline skill we could have broken the house, but this tip applies to all skill levels. There was a time I wouldn’t have hung my own curtain rods for fear of messing up the walls. Spend enough time doing things that are a slight stretch for you—and doing them thoughtfully and carefully!—and you can gain a lot of skill without costing yourself a bunch of money to fix your mistakes.