• 0 Posts
  • 7 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: June 29th, 2023
  • Justifier@lemmy.worldtoComic Strips@lemmy.world•Make It Myself [XKCD]English
    1·
    7 days ago

    You know, I had a similar conversation with someone but regarding houses

    My big issue with old furniture is the quantities of people I see bring some nice old piece home only to end up with termites or other pests, evrn after they treated the thing, and then they are forced to spend way more than just the cost of the old piece to remove those pests from their home… thats if they catch it in time anyways. If they get to the structure you’re looking at thousands in pest removal and repairs

    One of my neighbors who worked in pest control at the time would go on about stuff like that being one of the big factors keeping him in the trade

    Everything comes with its own caveat. New stuff isn’t built the same as things used to be, old stuff is very old now, usually hardly servicable without substantial effort and diligence

    There’s a good 20 year gap on the market of quality consumer goods and todays types of products so getting quality stuff is also just getting darned hard as they break down and are disposed of. Soon it won’t just be the products. It will be the tools and skills to make them too

  • Justifier@lemmy.worldtoComic Strips@lemmy.world•Make It Myself [XKCD]English
    13·
    7 days ago

    Last time I diy’d it was triple the cost

    I got tools to do other things with after the fact, developed a personal connection with the things I made. The second version didn’t break and was substantially under the original projected costs, but the total was over triple

    However, if you want things made to last instead of things to ship these days, the tools and materials of say a decent dining table can easily be under the cost of the product

    $500 in lumber, $1,500 for a table saw, $700 for a helical thickness reducer, $700 for a helical planer, $300 for a biscuit joiner, and ~$500 in varius clamps, glues, screws, and materials puts the project at the ~$4,000 mark, which is the starting point for many decent good dining tables (without shipping/delivery)

  • Justifier@lemmy.worldtoNo Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•How do I actually find a job that isn't retail?English
    1·
    12 days ago

    I can’t really speak for today, because I know things are way different than they were before when I got out of retail

    But I can tell you what worked for me and maybe you can apply something from it to your own situation

    Save up enough money and buy your own tools, for me that was a $200 in 2013 computer. Sounds cheap today but it was a very tough purchase to make at the time without help and with bills to pay. Learn something that can be applied elsewhere using ‘free’ resources (r/piracy, FMHY, and your local Library would be the equivalent today). For me that was learning to use Linux, CAD and other modeling software in ways traditionally educated people at the time did not leverage them, and that edge got my foot in the door

    Oh, and before you get your hopes up on the regular sleep schedule bit, I spent the past +decade swapping between nights and days every single week after getting out of retail. Now there’s also a baby in the picture and we won’t afford child care so sleep is a pipe dream. Maybe 2-4 hours a day if I’m lucky. Been that way for over a year now

    Retrospectively my schedule then of 4-10:30 on week days so I could go to school and 5am-2pm weekends to get enough hours to pay the bills was amazing. Pay sucked though. So did them playing with my hours to keep me part time without full time benefits.