(upbeat music)
Welcome to Hadley Presents.
I'm your host, Ricky Enger,
inviting you to sit back, relax,
and enjoy a conversation with the experts.
In this episode, we discuss performing home maintenance
and repairs with a visual impairment.
And our experts are experienced home repair
and woodworking enthusiast, Gil Johnson,
interviewed by Hadley learning expert, Jennifer Ottowitz.
Welcome to the show, both of you.
Hi. Thank you.
This is something, and I know I say this
on a lot of these shows,
but it turns out that I know very little
about a lot of things,
and home repair is one of those things
that I know very little about.
And so I'm really looking forward to diving into that
and figuring out how to use a hammer
on something besides my own thumb.
So before we do that, before we get into that,
I wanna get just a quick introduction
from both of you and tell us about who you are
and what you do.
So Jennifer, let's start with you.
Hi everybody, I'm Jennifer.
I'm a senior learning expert with Hadley.
I've worked as an instructor with Hadley since 2013.
I'm also a certified vision rehabilitation therapist,
which means I work with adults who are losing
or have lost their vision.
And in the course of my career,
I've had the chance to teach folks
how to do home repair tasks.
I'm also blind myself and have had occasions
to do minor home repairs.
So I'm excited about today's topic.
Very cool, how about you Gil?
I'm Gil Johnson.
I'm totally blind.
I've had worked for 44 years in the field of blindness.
I started as a rehabilitation counselor for the blind
and I'm a supervisor and worked my way up
through the ranks into administration.
But my love has always been woodworking
and being able to do home repair.
I started that when I was very young
and at my current age, I still do.
I'm looking forward to hearing all about that.
I bet you have some interesting stories to share with us.
So Jennifer, I will hand it over to you and off we go.
Well, Gil, one of my favorite Christmas
presents that I got from my parents was when I had
one of my first apartments and it was actually a toolkit.
It was called a ladies toolkit and it came in a pink box
and all the tools, they were what I would call
the starter set of hand tools.
But what I really liked about the present
was that there was also an expectation
that I, even though I was visually impaired,
could learn how to use these tools like anybody else.
And I did learn how to use them.
I still have them today and still use them.
But I know that when people first lose vision,
especially that not everyone has those expectations.
And I'm just wondering, with your experience,
what words of encouragement or advice do you have
to help people know about the possibilities
in terms of how someone can perform home repair
and woodworking tasks when they have a visual impairment?
I have known a number of blind
and visually impaired people
many of whom have recently or relatively recently
become blind or visually impaired.
All of the things that we know about losing vision
and adjusting to it are true.
It's an adjustment and some make it more easily than others.
And one of the things that is typical
of people that lose vision is their fear
and the fear of others around them
that they will not be able to do,
certainly not be able to operate power tools
or hand tools very well, or to do home repair.
It's part of the adjustment process
to learn that, yes, indeed, I can.
I can overcome it.
Blind and visually impaired people
can do almost anything they want to
if they have the basic skills or can learn them.
But the most important thing is having belief in themselves.
Every time that I've seen somebody have some success
it has done nothing but encouraged them more.
Not everybody wants to do home repair work or carpentry
but for those who do, I can tell you
it is very possible.
And today we'll talk about some examples
of things that have been done
and some projects and some tips
that I've developed over the years
for myself and for others.
It really is about whatever level
you're comfortable with, right?
I mean, there may be times when it's better
and easier to call in the professional to do the work
but we certainly want folks to know
that if you have a desire to start
or continue doing these tasks,
don't rule it out just because of a visual impairment.
But I wanted to ask first
because safety is so important
anytime anyone does home repair tasks.
And I know that it's especially a concern
for people who have trouble seeing.
And like you mentioned also their family members
who may worry about their safety.
What are some tips that you can share
to help keep people safe when they're working on a project?
There are some very obvious things
about being able to do things safely.
One of them is to be organized.
Whenever I go into somebody's workshop
and I find that it's cluttered
or there's stuff all over the floor
or there's things just laying around here and there,
I get a little nervous
because that is not safe.
That would be one thing.
Another is that there needs to be good lighting
for those who have some vision.
For all of us having good ventilation
is really important as a safety feature
because if there's dust or stuff in the air
that can cause all kinds of problems
and a good ventilating system will help with that.
You wanna have a good selection of the right tools
to do what it is you wanna do.
If it's a fairly simple repair task,
set of screwdrivers or pliers or a wrench or two,
you might need hammers of course.
Something a little more involved might require a drill
but you need the right tools.
And back to the kind of organizational theme of this,
they need to have their place
and so they're not just laying around
partly because of safety
but also if you're trying to do something
and you're groping around looking for this screwdriver
that, oh, it was here just a minute ago,
where the heck did it go?
That can be frustrating.
The kind of clothing you're wearing is important
because if you're in a shop
whether you have just hand tools
or you have more involved tools,
if your clothing is loose and flops around,
it can catch in things and that can be dangerous.
I always say if you have long sleeves,
if they don't fasten close together at the wrist,
button them if you have buttons
or put a little rand around them.
Anyway, keep it clear.
Same would be true with hair length.
Hair can get caught in things.
You bend over and the hair flops down
and that would be true for men or women, doesn't matter.
Wearing closed toed shoes is important.
All of us drop things.
You drop a tool, you drop a piece
of something you're working on
and if it hits your foot
and your foot is not well protected,
you're gonna get hurt.
If there's loud sounds where you're working,
you may wanna consider earplugs.
You may also wanna wear goggles
if there's a lot of dust flying around
or if you're chipping cement, for example.
So those are some of the safety tips.
These are all pretty basic
and it would be true for anybody
whether they have a vision problem or not.
And I think a tip for protecting your eyes,
that's one I often forget about
because I think that, well, I don't see so well anyway
so it doesn't really matter but it does
because like you said, dust can get in there,
cause injury or possibly infection.
So that's an important one to remember.
Going back to being organized,
I'm just wondering for you personally,
are there particular ways that you stay organized?
I have a rack on a pegboard
for my screwdrivers, for example.
Now, not everybody's gonna have that many screwdrivers
or they're not gonna have a pegboard.
If you don't, then having a drawer
where you can put screwdrivers, wrenches and so forth
in as orderly way as you can.
We all gather a lot of nails and bolts and screws
and washers and nuts
and all the kinds of fasteners that you need.
A lot of people just throw them all in one place.
I don't.
I have probably 30 or 40 little wooden boxes
that over the years I've built
so that nails of one size will go in a box
and bolts of another size will go in another box.
And I could not operate the way that I do
if I didn't have things sorted out like that.
But when I first started, of course I didn't have that.
Can you share a little bit?
I know when it comes to safety,
it's natural for people to wanna look at what they're doing,
but sometimes you can't always get close enough to something
or leaning in close to see it may not always be safe.
So what tips do you have to help people
use their remaining vision
and all of their other senses
to help them when they're doing a project?
If you're totally blind, as I am,
then you wanna use every sense that you still have.
Sense of touch, sense of smell, hearing.
Smell in particular is one
that people don't think too much about,
but you can sometimes realize
that something isn't going quite right
because of the odor you get from it.
So that would be one thing.
And that would be true whether you're totally blind
or have some vision.
Everyone that I've known that has some remaining vision,
they wanna use it.
And I say, why not?
You should, but use it in a safe way.
If they have prescriptions, prescription lenses,
you can get those prescription lenses
actually fitted into goggles
that would protect your eyes
and still give you the magnification
that helps you see a little bit better.
Another thing that people with low vision
that depend on a lighting source,
you can use a lamp of different kinds.
There's different kinds of lamps,
but those with kind of a flexible gooseneck
where you can get the light focused
on the work that you're doing can be very useful
and enable you to use the vision that you have
with the correction that you have for it
with a good light source.
I know too, like with my pink handled tools,
there's some interesting things
you could do with contrast too,
just like maybe putting some colored tape around the handle
so when you lay down the tool, you can find it easier.
And there are a lot of different strategies like that
for folks with low vision.
And I know you've got tons of tips
and other suggestions like that.
And we are gonna talk about more specific things
in upcoming podcasts,
but just wanted to ask you a little bit
to describe some of the projects you've worked on
and tell us a little bit more
about any general tips you have for folks
to get them started or restarted
doing home repair and woodworking.
My first major project when I was about 14 or 15
was I built a desk out of using birch wood.
Now this is not home repair,
but it's using a lot of the same skills
that you would use
if you're doing something around the house.
We are still using that desk today.
And the pride I took in that
and the pride that my parents had
that I could build something like that
that looked good and it's sturdy.
One of the things that was really kind of,
if you excuse the pun, an eye-opener for me,
my parents had a home and the attic in their house
had some storage space, but it didn't have a light.
And I looked up there and I saw
where there was a junction,
what they call a junction box.
It's a metal box where wires come into it.
And I've kind of figured out which wires did what
and I installed a light bulb socket
into that junction box and it worked
and it didn't blow a fuse.
And that gave me a lot of confidence.
I was really, I was impressed with myself.
Every time you do something
and you accomplish something you didn't think you could,
feel good about it, brag about it
'cause that reinforces your confidence
in being able to do something else
that you didn't think you could do.
I completely agree.
And sometimes you may find
that you're doing it a little differently now
that you're having trouble with vision
that maybe you did before, but you're still able to do it.
And it could be something as simple as tightening up a knob
on maybe a drawer in the kitchen
or doing a major project.
I know you've made furniture, so that's pretty major.
So it could be anything from small to big.
And like you said, success breeds success.
So I wondered if you could just talk briefly
about your Gil's guide to home repair,
the books on home repair
and then the woodworking for the blind.
I wrote eight different guides.
It's probably a step-by-step guide
and those will be available
or the links to those will be available.
Just to give you an example,
one of them was changing light bulbs.
You wouldn't think there would be much to that,
but for somebody that is not sure
if they have the ability to do something,
you may think, "Oh, I can't change that light bulb.
"It's hot."
Well, then turn it off.
Replacing fuses and circuit breakers.
All of us overload a circuit in the house.
Sometime we put too many things in
and all of a sudden nothing is working
and it either has a fuse that protects the house
from burning down or a circuit breaker.
And so this guide describes how to find those
and how to go about replacing them safely.
Replacing faucet washers.
A faucet that drips is annoying and it makes noise
and it wastes water and it costs money.
And with the right approach,
can replace faucet washers very easily.
Unclogging straight stopped up drains is another one.
A sink can get clogged up and there's different ways
you can go about unclogging that.
Installing a ceiling fan.
Living in California, I can tell you,
ceiling fans here are a must
and they're almost as good as air conditioning.
Not quite, but almost.
And that's a little more of a complex task,
but again, it's very doable.
I've probably have installed a dozen of them myself.
Fixing toilets that don't seem to wanna shut off
after they've been flushed.
There can be some very, very simple fixes for that.
Sometimes it can be more difficult,
but there's a guide describing how to do that.
How to replace a faulty light switch
or a wall outlet, electrical wall outlet.
This again may seem kind of more challenging
than a lot of people would wanna do,
but if you turn the circuit breaker off,
then there's no electricity there,
you don't have to worry about it,
but you do have to wire it right.
So there's a guide describing that.
Those are the ones that I've written.
I have three or four others
that are kind of in some one stage of being written
that I haven't finished up yet,
but they're a step-by-step guide
and it really is aimed at people who are totally blind
or have usable vision.
And there's a lot of great information
in those guides.
And Gil has also provided us with a list
of some books that are available
through the National Library Service.
Otherwise I call it the Talking Book Service.
And these are books in audio format
that you can get on doing home repair.
I don't think they're necessarily about doing home repair
as a person with a visual impairment,
they're general information,
but you can take that and use the techniques
that Gil's suggesting in his Gil's guides,
put them together and be on your way, right Gil?
Right, I think there's five books
that NLS has published over the years.
And there may be more,
some that I didn't happen to catch,
but these cover a whole range of topics.
And they can be useful.
There are many communities have an organization
or a group of either woodworkers or home repair people
that they get together
and they talk about how to do various projects.
Again, not necessarily aimed targeted toward blind people,
but the ones I've seen,
once you get to know some of the people in there,
they can be of an awful lot of help to you.
It's a group called Woodworking for the Blind.
And it's a group of blind and visually impaired people
from the United States, Canada, Australia and Great Britain
who are, their main interest is woodworking,
but they all, we all do home repairs.
And then finally, if any of you have questions
about how to do a certain thing, a repair around the home,
if you wanna send your inquiry into Jennifer,
she can pass that on to me.
And if I can, I'll tell you what I know about it
or try to put you in touch with somebody else who can.
Excellent.
And we'll have your written work linked in the show notes.
And so if people do have questions,
perhaps they wanna ask you, Jennifer,
or they have a specific question for Gil
that they'd like to pass along to you,
how can they contact you?
Sure, you can reach me by email at
jennifer@hadley.edu
or by phone, I'll give our main toll-free number,
1-800-323-4238 and just ask for Jennifer Ottowitz.
Thank you both so much
for all of this information.
I feel like anyone who is kind of starting on this journey
of either home repair or woodworking, or perhaps both,
now there are lots of places that they can begin looking
just to get an idea of, you know,
how might I go about doing this?
And all of the wonderful tips that have shared,
those are incredibly useful as well.
Thank you, Gil.
Thank you, Jennifer.
I appreciate you're both joining us
and thank all of you for listening.
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