10 Things You Can Actually Learn About Fixing Your House From 'Home Improvement'

If you’re looking for tutorials on how to make repairs around the house, you’re probably better off watching This Old House than Home Improvement. The writers of the ’90s sitcom were generally more concerned with getting a laugh out of Tim’s mishaps than showing you the best ways to refinish a cabinet. Even though Home Improvement wasn’t built as a how-to show, there are some important lessons that you can learn from Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor.

While watching Home Improvement isn’t going to leave you an expert at home repairs, there is some great advice buried between laugh lines and belt sander-assisted pratfalls. The Tool Man may not be the home improvement genius he thinks he is, but he can still teach you a thing or two. These are 10 Things You Can Actually Learn About Fixing Your House From Home Improvement.

There are many lessons that you can learn from Tim Taylor by observing what he does, and then doing the opposite. The Tool Man had a tendency of slamming moths with sledgehammers when it came to doing it yourself. He was known to reach for a power tool when what he needed was finesse.

For Tim Taylor, the answer was always “More power!” no matter what the question happened to be. When approaching your own home repairs, look to Al Borland’s school of thought and use the right tool for the job, even if that tool doesn’t make a cool noise and carry more horsepower than a Formula One racecar.

On Home Improvement, seemingly simple jobs often led to Tim falling through a wall, busting through the floor, or harming himself otherwise.

When you begin a home improvement project, be aware that the job could be a lot harder than you think. A homeowner’s relationship with home repair is often a lot like a doctor diagnosing a patient. Treating a small symptom may reveal a larger disease. An attempt to fix a crack in a ceiling may uncover structural problems and examining a small leak may reveal a home-wide issue with faulty plumbing.

This is especially true of older homes. Moving into a house that has seen several generations of residents is essentially a lifelong commitment to wandering the aisles of your local hardware store. There’s not much you can do to stem the tide of home repair issues, but if you approach your projects with the understanding that they could get larger, you’ll be ahead of the game.

On Home Improvement, Tim had far more failures than successes.

One of the few times he came out on top was when he successfully built Jill a “(Wo)Man’s Closet.” 

With this project, Tim combined his desire for new and innovative ways to provide “more power” with solutions to Jill’s organization problems. The results were top notch because Tim landed on some specific goals and created a project tailored to meet his needs. You can take a page out of Tim’s book: Before you commit to a project, think about how it could specifically meet your needs. That doesn’t mean that you have to decide on talking drawers and a shoe carousel, but it does mean that you should always remember that you and your family are going to be the ones who have to interact with the finished product of your home improvement projects.

Another one of Tim’s few victories came when he remodeled Jill’s washing machine.

Rather than simply fixing it, Tim thought through some creative solutions to Jill’s problems. He installed dispensers for fabric softener, bleach, and detergent, and put the liquids on a timer for her convenience. Of course, his outside-the-box thinking led him to put a high-speed motor into the dryer, but we should still give Tim credit for thinking differently.

When you plan a home improvement project, it’s helpful to think of the problems that you’re trying to solve and brainstorm a variety of ways to solve them. Honing in on what you’re trying to accomplish and finding the best way to get it done can be a cost-saving measure that can yield some really cool results. Just stay away from high-powered motors.

The Tool Man often launched into projects without the necessary preparation.

But when he took his time, the results spoke for themselves. Tim spent more Home Improvement screen time working on his hot rod than some shows give to their key romantic subplots. Though Tim races Bob Vila’s roadster at the end of Season 3 and flirts with selling the vehicle in Season 4, he never technically finishes working on his hot rod until the last few episodes of the series.

Whether you’re working on a small repair to your deck or taking on a full kitchen remodel (Tim Taylor spent a whole month on his), don’t rush your projects. If that means you have to stretch out the work over nights and weekends for months, then settle in for the long haul. If you cut corners, you’ll have to live with shabby workmanship for far longer than the time it would have taken to get the project done right in the first place.

Whether he was working around the house or on Tool Time, Tim always seemed to find a way to hurt himself or others.

No matter how badly he screwed up, no matter how many garage doors he crashed through, he eventually got back in one piece and the show went on. Yes, that’s part of the magic of television, but it should be noted that in the world of the show, Tim and his cohorts prepared for his mishaps. The emergency room was on speed dial and the fire extinguisher was always close at hand.

You may think that there are some jobs that don’t require safety preparation. You’d be wrong. Falling off a ladder while painting or whacking your thumb with a hammer are just two injuries that could arise from the most basic home projects. No matter how small your project might be, think about the potential risks and make a plan in case your worst fears become an immediate reality.

Despite all of Tim’s various mishaps, he bounces back very quickly just in time to ruin things yet again. You’ll notice that through his many accidents, Tim keeps a clean and orderly workspace both on the Tool Time stage and in his home garage.

Whether he’s the victim of nail-gun artillery or a runaway belt sander, Tim bounced back from all but the most serious of mishaps, and he lived to fight another day.

Home ownership is a pain. As soon as you’re happy with the basement, it’s time to re-tile the roof. Once you’ve figured out that leak in the bathroom, the backdoor starts to creak. You could level many criticisms at Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor, but you could never accuse him of not having a good time. Even when he ended up with his head glued to a table …

… Tim managed to have a good time.

No matter how tedious your home improvement task might be, find a way to enjoy yourself. Maybe that means saving up some great podcasts or even running an extension cord so you can watch the game while you work on the garage. Go to great lengths to create an environment that you can enjoy when you tackle home improvements. You’ll be surprised at how much more you get done if you learn to enjoy the task at hand.