We’re rounding out our New House Know-How series this week with special guest, James.  He’s a good buddy of ours and new homeowner.  Listen in as we discuss his renovation woes and triumphs.  James is a You can, man. success story with his freshly acquired DIY skills.  We talk everything from load-bearing walls to bacterial meningitis.  It’s a doozy.

Dave and Tim helped James with his load-bearing walls project at his new house. The image above is James just after we owned those two walls and had removed the temp walls. You can, man!

On this week’s show we continued our New House Know-How series discussing tasks you should accomplish after you move into your new house. A few of these are no-brainers, but some are things you may not have thought about doing. In keeping with our, “What one man can do, you can do as well” motto, you’ll find that most of the tasks on the checklist are things you can totally take care of yourself. Example: meeting your neighbors. That’d just be weird if you hired someone to do that.

Being a homeowner comes with tons of responsibility. It can also include hefty bills paid to service contractors if you don’t take matters into your own hands and tackle doing things yourself. On this week’s show, New House Know-How, Part 1, we discussed five basic things to know when you become a homeowner. You may be a longtime homeowner and think our list is almost too basic, but run it by your non-homeowner friends. You may be surprised that they don’t know what they don’t know. We want to encourage new and longtime homeowners alike to get to know their house and the systems that keep it running.

On this week’s show we discussed not owning the right tools for the job. That’s not an excuse! You can rent or borrow tools. It’s that simple. Many times, a project calls for a tool you’re only going to use that one time. Buying and maintaining tools that seldom get used doesn’t always make sense, so renting or reaching out to friends is a great option. Don’t let not having the right tools be an excuse for not getting the job done!

On this week’s show we discussed basic car repair and maintenance that you should really know how to do. These basic skills will provide you with a solid foundation on your DIY auto repair journey. Don’t wait until you’re stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire not knowing what to do. Get out there and try it out! If you’ve never tackled something on this list, don’t you worry. A plethora of how-to’s videos are just a YouTube search away. This episode is your friendly kick in the pants to make sure you’re up to speed on basic car repair and maintenance know-how.

On this week’s show we discussed the why behind You can, man. We each gave our reasons why we think learning new skills and doing things yourself is so important. Tim gave a brief explanation of how he chose the name, You can, man. You can read more about that here.

So you’re just getting started on your DIY journey and you need some tools? Where the heck do you start? On this week’s show we discussed the basic tools every DIYer needs to get started. We began the conversation with two non-negotiables: