Learning and Developing through Home Repair: Foreword

This post was written by Jacob McNulty

A couple of months ago I began work on a home project and as I have progressed I keep noticing the similarities between my behaviors on this job and how people behave in organizations.  Successive posts will be centered around specific examples.  But first, some background…

I live in an old home in Denver.  When searching for the ideal home-office location, I had my eye on a utility room in the basement that was being used for nothing more than storage of random things that were poorly organized.  I am far from an expert in home remodeling but I figured that with some paint, putty and sweat I could have my home-office in a long weekend.

Enter my cousin.  A Home Depot employee and formerly with a renovation firm, he enticed me to look a little beyond my constrained vision of what this room could become.  By disassembling one stud wall, removing some plaster and putting up some drywall, I could add more square feet and a finished touch…all for about two long weekends of work, he estimated. 

It’s taking more than two long weekends.  The journey, as well as many learnings along the way, will be chronicled here.  Not knowing the number of knowledge nuggets that would be contained in such an innocent undertaking, I didn’t shoot nearly enough photos in the beginning.  I’ve got some.  They’re not the best but they should provide a little glimpse into the start of this great adventure.

The first one is a wall covered in plaster.  It’s tough to tell but the plaster is in really bad shape - the brick behind it was badly deteriorated so much of the plaster had a hollow sound when tapped:

  

Here you can see the footer that surrounds 3/4 of the room at a height of about 18″ and the lovely red paint someone had chosen to highlight it:

     

  Here is the only window in the room.  You can see the plaster coming up to the frame:

 

Tags: Action learning, business training, corporate training, development, informal learning, learning, learning strategies, organizational learning, professional development, workforce development

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