My father is once again hunched over his phone, but he isn’t texting, playing games, or watching mindless videos. He’s trying to learn how to build an entire bathroom from scratch. And not just a basic bathroom (which is difficult enough), but an elaborately planned bathroom with a new vanity, a new bathtub, new tiles, drawers underneath the bathtub, an open shower complete a rain spout and heated floors. “Go big or go home” is one of the many mantras that my father lives by.

This is not the first home improvement endeavor that my father has made, and it will not be the last. In total, my father has built a wooden ceiling, a balcony, a treehouse, a swing set, two stone fireplaces, a stone patio complete with a fire pit/fountain (fire pit in the winter, fountain in the summer) and an intricate wooden arch with working Christmas lights, another bathroom, and a pond complete with a small stream and waterfall. And I’m probably missing things.

It bears noting that my father does not work in construction. He is not a plumber. He is not a carpenter. He is not an electrician. He is a psychotherapist, and a good one at that. In other words, he has no business with a hammer and saw. He is completely self-taught. Pretty much everything he’s learned comes from books, videos, and good old-fashioned trial and error.

He is not accident-free either. When he was building the pond, the backhoe he rented fell into the ditch he was digging, and he was trapped inside. While he was building the balcony, he fell off of it. He fell eighteen feet. It’s a miracle he wasn’t paralyzed. He also cut off the tips of three of his fingers when using a radial saw one time. I have since renamed the middle finger “Stumpy.” Nowadays, when my father does a project, he is not allowed without my mother being home. If he ever yells, “SSHHAAANNNNAAA!!!” We all come running.

So why does my father do all of this dangerous and hard work? Because that’s how he shows his love to my mother? His main love language is services after all and crossing off his honey-do list is one of the most thoughtful displays of affection. Is it because he’s cheap? He often does things himself because hearing a quote from a professional is the quickest way to send him to Lowe’s. Does he do it because he likes it? Sure, this is all incredibly difficult work. I can’t wrap around how he always turns his vision into reality, not just reality but a beautiful reality. I always see a twinkle of pride when I witness my father gazing at his own immense creations.

These are all reasons that my father takes on these huge projects, but I don’t think it is the main one. You see, the main mantra that my father lives by is “Your home is your sanctuary.” He has been telling me this ever since I was a little tyke, ignorant of the work and love he put into making my swing set and treehouse. My father has always been the unofficial keeper and protector of our home, making sure the locks were turned and the alarmed was set, spending many sleepless nights worrying about a tree falling on our house or our basement flooding. He and my mother and my little brother have imbued the walls of my home with a deep sense of love and security that I have never felt anywhere else. It’s so noticeable that even when strangers and friends come into our home, they can feel it too. My father, with all of his hard work and home improvements, is one of the major reasons why our house is a home.