26/2025: Tools, Tape, and Truths

Image © Jose 2025

My brother-in-law is in town for 10 days, first time we are with family in this house. He is a contractor, a general contractor and project manager for multimillion dollar projects in Seattle, he knows his stuff. We met more than 10 years ago in Chicago, part of the largest Polish community outside of Poland, deep into construction and house renovations. He knows what can be expected from a project like ours, he knows what we should expect from a contractor, and he knows why things are done the way they are. He is very critical, bluntly stating our general contractor was careless and sloppy, and that we are responsible for defining what we want, but the GC is responsible for the quality.

He is very attentive to details, and within three hours in the house he had gone around with the blue tape and signaled more than twenty things he thought needed to be fixed by the GC and his crew, some small, some so large he knows the GC will never want to repeat the work and will probably prefer to negotiate a lower price to save face and receive some of what we still owe him. I like this guy very much, he is family, and he knows what he is talking about and he wants what is best for us, but where do we draw the line between what we want and believe to be the desired result and quality, and what he is saying, which sounds true but does not ring true to who we are?

We also discussed and decided it would be a good idea to use the fact that he is in town to do the deck we want to build in the backyard. The quotes we have collected are more than 50% labor, which is very expensive, we would be able to save some real money if we did this ourselves. Even if we don’t complete the job while he is in town, I can finish it. Hopefully…

Today we went shopping for tools and materials. He wants me to have some proper tools. While here he has asked me for some of my tools and he cracked up, saying these are toys, not tools! As a designer, I understand the importance of having good tools, they don’t make the work, but have a strong impact on the quality of the result, and inspire confidence and pride in the work we do. So, I went to The Home Depot with him, and we spent three hours shopping, like boys in a toy store, only we were getting tools, not toys.

It was interesting to see him choosing these tools, describing at the same time why this is better than that. I learned that some of the ideas I had about tools are not correct, or not updated when it comes to new tools, and I also learned some of the consumables I typically bought to do stuff around the house were not the best choices. We spent a considerable amount of time around the tools, discussing power, torque, performance, durability, human factors,… the type of qualitative research where any tool designer would kill to be a fly on the wall. Though his voice is a sample of one, it is a very hands-on, experienced and shrewd voice that carries a lot of weight.

I am curious to do a job like this with a pro. Learning by doing is fine, but can get costly and take a long time. This way I will be working alongside and get to understand how it’s done and why this way and not another. And for someone like me who aspires to do more renovation around the house, this masterclass will be an important step.

Another reality I was reminded of was the return culture we have in the US, extending from clothing and apparel to tools and consumables. He kept repeating that we should take this and that, and then if we didn’t need it or use it, we could return it. That inflated the bill of what we bought, with a veiled promise that some of this would be returned.

But the total cost of returning is something not considered. It does not include my time and energy to go back and return. It does not include the cost for the retailer to process and return to the shelves (when things are in good shape), nor the cost to the customer, because it seems all boxes have been tampered with, have some sort of sign that they were returned, and sometimes they do not correspond to our expectations.

As he explained some of the tricks contractors do with retailers to get refunds, from stealing, to using and returning as new, to getting as gifts and attempting to return,  apparently there is a myriad of tricks that retailers end up having to counter with increased security and tighter control over product displays. Then we wonder why so many products are behind locks and why the people working there will not leave certain products out of sight till you pay for them. It feels like this “return” culture may have some darker implications to the whole ecosystem, but it sure feels good knowing you can take the stuff home, take it out of the package, use it, see if it is what you need for that particular job, and if not, return it for a full refund, no questions asked.

This week reminded me that doing the work teaches you more than watching others do it, and that sometimes, the most useful tools are sharp eyes and honest words, even if they leave a trail of blue tape behind!