Handyman

I am fascinated by men who are good with their hands — build something out of nothing, repair, modify, improve or upgrade things. I believe anyone who still creates by hand in this retail and virtual age deserves rockstar status. 

 This fascination started at childhood. I used to keep to my father’s side as a little girl as he embarked on all sorts of D.I.Y. projects at our home on the farm. In the late afternoons and weekends, when golf didn’t claim him, he would busy himself with fixing stuff or building stuff. 

 He was my personal handyman/magician, bringing back to life my broken roller skates, bicycle chain, schoolbag wheel, parrot cage, nail clipper, compass — anything at all. He tinkered with broken-down home appliances and only called repairmen after he had tried everything. He planted fruit trees and flowering shrubs in the garden.  Then he built a bahay kubo for my sister and me (with the help of carpenters, of course). He then moved on to building a fish pond — this he did brick by brick without any help. I was awarded first dibs at sloshing about in it before the fish were put in for keeping tireless vigil and being faithful assistant. 

 When we built a house in the city, he executed an outdoor barbeque pit in the garden from his own hasty sketch on paper. This brick barbeque pit was at the heart of many warm childhood memories. I finally replicated it in my own backyard three years ago, or maybe I should say I hired masons to replicate it, which is why it doesn’t evoke the same emotions.

When I see men at work with their hands, I am thrown decades back to a carefree world of comfort, where I grew up secure in knowing that things get fixed and problems are solved. 

 So imagine my amusement when I chanced upon this reality cable show called Restaurant Makeover about a year ago. It is a Canadian TV series that airs on the AFC channel, 11 p.m. most weekdays. The premise of the show is to challenge two restaurant professionals — one interior designer and one chef — to overhaul a struggling restaurant with a limit on budget and time (six days).

 What got me hooked was neither the featured designers of chefs, nor was it the restaurant owners who come with poignant stories of lives and businesses on the brink of failure; rather, it was Igor Shamraychuck, the head contractor, project manager and carpenter, who oversees and executes all renovations.

 Born in Ukraine, Igor migrated to Canada with his family in 1999. A microchip engineer with a university degree, he hoped to continue his career but struggled to find a job in the field. “For me, I decided to change my life to make it better. I moved to Canada and changed the life of my kids and my family,” Igor said in the Canadian Immigrant Newsletter. “But it’s hard to work as an engineer when you don’t really know the language. The language issue was a big problem so I started to work on a construction sites to make ends meet and I actually started to take to construction.”

 Igor explained, “On our very first restaurant, I stayed overnight to do the kitchen floor tiles, when nobody else felt like they should do it.” This, plus his experience, knowledge and dedication quickly led to him being promoted to leader of the construction crew. He has since earned a solid fan base. Like Sting, Bono, Edge and Slash, today he is known simply by his first name: Igor.

See? Rockstar status. 

 I’m hooked on Restaurant Makeover because of Igor. His craftsmanship, work ethic, quick wit and back-talk to the show’s designers have made him my favorite. He blurts out hilarious one-liners, delivered with a deadpan face and a thick Ukrainian accent that catches everybody by surprise and this is where all the humor lies. 

 I have come to know his TV persona as the sometimes gruff, sometimes surly, but always entertaining “Igor,” who knows it all, builds it all, and solves it all. No matter what problems arise in the insane six-day makeover of an entire restaurant, Igor always finds a solution. This is the reason why I always have a date with Igor, most weekdays at 11 p.m.

 Five days ago, an unlikely thing happened as I took my daughter to the eye doctor’s clinic. We walked into the waiting room; almost stumbling onto a man hunched over an upside-down sofa, hammer in hand. 

 The clinic receptionist apologized for the noise and the inconvenience. They had to call the upholsterer/carpenter over to resuscitate the antiquated sofas acquired back in the early ‘60s. 

 We sat there waiting for my daughter’s turn with nothing else to do but watch the carpenter doing his job. It was either that or read the clinic’s magazines, which were way older than the ailing sofas.

 The carpenter sat on his haunches, intent on the task, not once distracted by the traffic and chatter of patients. I noticed his feet, clad only in slippers, and wondered why he didn’t opt for more protective shoes on the job. And why not long pants? He wore shorts and a lose T-shirt, which was understandable, knowing how much heaving and hawing one has to do in such a job — the looser the shirt, the better. 

 His movements were precise — no effort wasted. He never paused to consider anything. It’s like he’s doing this in his sleep, I thought. His fingers, long and bony, seemed very agile as he hammered nails, straightened coils and pulled fabric. 

 I checked out the hammer he had just put down. It looked even more ancient than the sofa he was restoring. The hammer’s head was gleaming — obviously well-kept. The wooden handle — notched, scratched and scraped — had seen better days. But it was the tiny screws just below the head that gave away its age: rusty and corroded. I then checked out his toolbox, which was on top of the sofa I sat on, way to the end closest to him. It was literally a box — a carton shoebox. In it was a ball of twine; three screwdrivers: two okay-looking ones, another with half the resin handle broken off, exposing the metal; a pair of ginormous scissors — the biggest and shiniest I’ve seen in my life; and a crumpled pack of cigarettes.

A pack of cigarettes? That got me curious.

 He got up from the floor and knelt beside the toolbox.  He fished out the pack of cigarettes I had just been scrutinizing. He shook the smashed pack to life and with two fingers and pulled out a long nail. Oh, the cigarette pack moonlights as a nail holder. He hammered the nail into the back of the sofa and scooted close to the toolbox again. This time he took up the badass scissors.

 I had to say something. “Manong, ang laki ng gunting niyo.” He dropped what he was doing, faced me, straightened his back and said, raising the scissors, “My grandfather used to own this.”

 “Wow,” I said, quite impressed, not so much at the age of the scissors and how well taken care they were but at the pride of ownership. 

 He smiled and said, “My grandfather, my father, and myself are all upholsterers and furniture makers. My grandfather’s friend who worked in Germany gave these scissors to him. It’s Solingen. Sturdy.” 

 He returned to his work but stopped and addressed me once in a while as I held a running conversation with him.

 He told me that his grandfather has since passed away and that his father has been plagued with problems of hand tremors, so now he is the sole custodian of the prized scissors. “You can’t find scissors as reliable as this pair,” he said.

I asked how old he was when he learned the trade and he said, “Since 15.” He started as an apprentice to his father and worked his way up to master carpenter/upholsterer. He is 40, and 25 years in the trade has brought him to Saudi and parts of Asia for work. 

 “I have raised and sent two daughters to school doing this,” he said. “Anything done by hand is still special. I can build furniture and fix anything,” he explained as he tugged and pulled at the vinyl that he was stretching from the seat of the sofa all the way to its back. 

 I asked him how long it would take him to fully upholster a love seat — including the reconditioning of springs and replacing of foam. “Three hours,” he answered, “Half a day for a full sofa.” I watched as he compressed the stretched-out springs, using twine to anchor them to one end of the sofa, and then coaxing them back in the other way for a tighter coil. 

 It probably isn’t only the craftsmanship that fascinates me. On the surface, yes; but it is also what these men ultimately do — solve problems and make life better. To many whose lives are plagued with uncertainty, the relief and wonderment that comes with having a battered sofa restored or a busted aircon fixed is priceless. They are brief and temporary respites — but somehow enough.

Our conversation was interrupted when we were called in to see the doctor. On the way out, I stopped by his spot and asked his name.

“Eric,” he answered.

Just “Eric.”

See? Rockstar status.

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 Thank you for your letters. You may reach me at cecilelilles@yahoo.com.