It's not hard to see why Harrison Gardner, the master builder and founder of social enterprise Common Knowledge, has created such a community of skilled doers around him: by the end of our 20-minute chat, I - a butter-fingered fool - was actively considering if I should invest in a woodworking table.
Gardner has lit up our screens as the presenter of Build Your Own Home, which sees him guide people as they set out to build and renovate their own dilapidated homes, sharing skills as he goes. Three years after the first season, Gardner is back on our screens tonight.
As the man says, "There's no shortcut to people building their own houses, unfortunately."
The long filming time has its privileges, he adds, notably watching families growing together. That unique dynamic, of raising a family amid the highs and lows of building a home, is one that is very close to Gardner's own upbringing.
Immigrants to Australia from South Africa, Gardner's parents "never would have described themselves as DIY", he says. "They just didn't have any money to pay other people to do things. So it was out of necessity, but they were actually really good at it. They weren't scared of it.
"To be building your house on the weekend or to be building a little boat, or whatever it was, to be busy and to be on the tools, I guess that was just the environment that I grew up in.
"My kids, whether it was intentional or not, are very much growing up in the same environment where the house is far from finished. It's progressing on every year, but they're very much a part of that journey."
For Gardner, teaching his kids to be handy is about more than just wielding a hammer correctly: it's about building resilience.
"I know they're going to grow up with the same comfort around tools and around working, but also around change. That change won't be a scary thing. That change is, it's just part of life, and it's part of growing up. And as the things you need change, then you need to change your environment to do that."
Change is very much a part of many people's lives in Ireland at the moment. In a country gripped by a housing crisis, as well as a cost of living crisis, securing a place to live has never felt more precarious, more challenging and less possible for many parts of the population.
Keenly aware of the difficulties facing many people today, Gardner sees a route forward in upskilling and taking control of the situation in any way we can, particularly as climate change worsens and construction costs continue to increase.
"I think the best way that we can become resilient to a future where we've got no idea what's coming is just to have as many skills as possible so that it's not so scary."
As lovely an idea as it is to have someone build every part of our houses for us, Gardner says "the reality is that a lot of people are being forced to think of other ways that they can create shelter and that they can secure shelter and create that sense of security".
"No one's going to come and solve this problem for us. It's too big of a problem. It's too unique to each of us."
Another way of thinking about it is that "Housing is different for everyone", Gardner says. He knows from experience: as a young man, he pitched in with friends to buy a plot of land in Co. Clare to develop as a group, eventually buying them out once he met his partner years later.
He believes that "solving" the housing crisis is going to take multifaceted, individual and group efforts to create new solutions, such as upskilling people so they can do building work themselves and crowd sourcing help to assist those who are unable to upskill or build themselves. His new book, Our Homes: Other Ways to Solve the Housing Crisis, explores this even more.
"Once you remember that even as an adult, you can learn a new skill and you can get good at something and that you can solve a problem for yourself, it's not just about the money you save. It starts this question going in your head about, well, if I can hang a door, what else can I do?
"That's the trajectory that's going to build a resilient population and a resilient community that feels like we can be part of the solution to our problem rather than just recipients of someone else's idea of the solution."
Watch Build Your Own Home on Wednesdays at 9:35pm on RTÉ One. Catch up later on RTÉ Player.
