My skills and my tool collection grew until I was known in the neighbourhood as 'handy'. When the neighbourhood crazy lady offered to pay me to build her a fence, I jumped at the chance. Of course I should have known better ... she didn't pay me. Down the rabbit hole and into Small Claims Court!

My first attempt at home reno was when I decided to install a bathtub all by myself. I had no tools and less experience, just an inexplicable drive to do the work myself. The installation was a disaster, but I learned a lot about plumbing - and about myself.

My mentor, Stan, hired me to work with him gutting a three storey house and putting it back together again. He told me about his alcoholic parents, and I told him about being abandoned at birth.

I got my first real job as a construction worker, joining a real construction crew building a recording studio complex. New tools, new people, and a new sense of belonging.