Interview w/ HGTV‘s fan favorite handy woman Allison Oropallo
HGTV’s fan favorite handy woman Allison Oropallo talks w/ Mark & Theresa about her dad, HGTV’s All American Handyman, teaching, and her favorite parts of building.
Mark: And you are back inside MyFixitUpLife with my beautiful wife, Theresa.
Theresa: And my handsome husband, Mark.
Mark: And we’re getting it fixed up, we’re getting it done, we’re making it happen, and we’re teaching.
Theresa: We’re teaching?
Mark: How to make that happen.
Theresa: I don’t know if we’re teaching how to make that happen, I think we’re inspiring to make that happen. And what better way of doing that then with women?
Mark: That’s right, and that’s my segue.
Theresa: There’s enough guys in the world, I swear.
Mark: World. Now it’s the world’s fault.
Theresa: I travel around to these Industry’s Shows and I read the magazines, the whole thing, and there’s so many guys. I’m tired of seeing guys. I’m so excited to talk to our guest today because she’s not a guy!
Mark: Allison Oropallo who was the fan favorite on HGTV’s All American Handyman, joins us. Allison are you here?
Allison: I am here.
Theresa: I am so excited to talk to you and for everybody who watched that show, you know you’re the fan favorite and you know I think that is the coolest thing ever is to be America’s favorite handy woman.
Allison: Yeah I was pretty excited, I actually won that fan favorite by a big margin, and it was awesome. It was really awesome that everyone liked to watch.
Theresa: And that is so inspiring too, for all of the young women out there who watch HGTV and who say, ‘You know what, if she can do it I can do it too.’
Allison: Yeah definitely. Every time I go to the grocery store someone walks up to me, female with her kids or whoever, and she says, ‘Because of you on that show I’m going to try to something to my house by myself.’ And I feel pretty good about that. I didn’t really realize I’d have that effect on women, but everyday I run into someone who I’ve had that effect on so I’m pretty excited about that.
Mark: Well everyday I meet someone who says they don’t like me so I’m doing the wrong thing.
Theresa: Ha ha. He gets the opposite reaction when he goes to the grocery store. You know things get pelted at him…its really kinda messy. He has to wear galoshes and rain gear. But I was watching a video about you, and you were talking about you dad and how he kinda pushed you along when you were a kid, about trying to figure stuff out on your own. And not really doing it for you but trying to get you to do it yourself.
Allison: Yeah my dad, he was probably the real life MacGyver in my life. Even if he had never done something before, he would do it. And he would make it look good, and it would work, and he would learn a lot along the way. So I watched him do that and he said ever since I was really young I just loved to do everything with him and I wanted to learn everything so he built me my first work bench when I was six, he loaded it up with tools, he got some wood, and we just built stuff ever since. So he was a huge factor of where I am today, but I’ve actually gone above and beyond anything he’s taught me because I’m absolutely obsessed and I want to learn everything from how to drive huge machines to how to do little stuff around the house so he was a huge factor and a great role model. He never told me I couldn’t do something because I was a girl, and it got me pretty far so far so we’ll see where else it’ll lead me.
Theresa: Wow that is such an awesome thing. Because that reminds me, my husband and our daughter, she’s 10 now, and we have her doing the same kinds of projects that we would have a boy do — there’s no gender specific thing in our house. But it’s like giving girls the ability and the environment to be able to take care of themselves, being able to do simple things around your house.
Allison: Exactly.
Theresa: And then for you, you’ve taken that and gone over the moon.
Allison: Yeah I mean I’m a teacher now, I teach basically kids to use tools. Ultimately I have a wood shop at the school, and girls are, I don’t know what it is but girl’s fathers — not many that I meet — teach them things. It’s automatically they teach the son, and they don’t even ask the daughter do you want to try this? So, the girls see me and they’re like ‘Wow this is actually really fun, this is awesome. I’m gonna ask my parents for a drill for Christmas. And I’m gonna try to do stuff.’ Yeah I recommend all fathers pushing their daughters, or at least asking them. You know you don’t need your daughter becoming a construction worker or whatever but everyone’s going to have an apartment, everyone’s going to have a house, it’s cool to know how to work on it. You don’t want to feel helpless and not be able to work on your own home. And women are motivated. They want their houses to be awesome.
Theresa: There are so many — you probably have the same thing — friends who just sort of wait around for their husbands or boyfriends to do things around their house and it’s like ‘Come on, you can do it yourself. It’s not that hard!’
Allison: Yeah it’s insane. I mean even when I work and they see me work — I just built an entertainment center for some people in Brooklyn — and everyone in the building was watching me do it and they were like ‘Aw I need to get my husband to get that to do that for me.’ And I was like ‘No, you can do it, you don’t need your husband.’
Mark: I totally love that. And you know sort of like you, but the roles are reversed, my mother was my inspiration.
Allison: That’s awesome.
Mark: Yeah I will never forget her building bookcases in her bedroom. Number 2, pine, 1×12, like 8 bright finish nails, and curved claw hammer, and a hand saw.
Allison: Wow.
Mark: And there she was, and as it turns out, she was a school teacher as well. So she did it, and that sort of opened doors for me. And I loved hearing about your dad, and I noticed the photo of you — and where I saw it don’t ask me — but it might have been from the set of the show where you were adjusting the fence of your table saw to a certain width, whatever it was, but you used a tape measure instead of the gauge on the saw. And I could tell right there that wasn’t your first day with a table saw.
Allison: Oh well I’ve been using a table saw for a long time, and that was probably on the show on HGTV?
Mark: It could have been. There was no context to the photo, or I was being yelled at by my neighbors — it’s hard to tell. I have a lot of distractions in my life.
Allison: Yeah I’ve been using tools all my life, and if there’s one thing I know is that on table saw do not count on that gauge that’s on the fence, unless you have a really pristine table saw. I have a nice one from craftsman that I can trust the gauge but any table saw like my portable table saw from home, you can’t trust it. You have to use a tape measure to make sure you’ve got it right so that you don’t waste material.
Mark: I love it, ahh that’s awesome!
Theresa: My husband is a little bit of like a carpentry snob. Like he sees people using tools and he’s like they don’t really know what they’re doing so he’s like beaming right now because he’s so excited because you really know what you’re doing.
Mark: You know from the job site prospective, sounds of the blade burning through the wood because the person’s not cutting straight, or reaming out the screw head because they aren’t driving the screw straight. The fact that they are using a cordless drill instead of an impact driver — you know I am a snob I guess.
Allison: I guess I am too because I don’t understand the drill and the impact driver. Why doesn’t everyone have an impact driver?
Mark: Oh I love you! That’s it.
Allison: It costs more money, but it makes your life so easy. I don’t even think I could use a drill anymore.
Mark: I have a drill and it only comes out on very rare occasions. We’re all impact driver all the time here at MyFixitUpLife. Here’s an ad ‘This brought to you by impact drivers.net,’ I made that up.
Theresa: You’re gonna go buy that website now.
Mark: Yeah, I’m gonna go buy that domain name. But seriously, I knew I would like you before, now I’m all the way in. So your shop and your school though…you must get a chance there to, I hope at least, have a budget to have some really nice stationary tools, and can show the kids on stuff that’s not wobbling around in the grass outside, like my shop.
Allison: Yeah, my school is very supportive of me and my program. We actually, I just organized a renovation where — my wood shop kinda needed some upgrading — so I dedicated my February vacation, I got 160 volunteers from the community and we all went in. We painted everything, we built organizational bins, we build a racetrack on the floor for the kids, and it was pretty awesome. So now, I have to say my woodshop is pretty cool. So the kids love it. It’s got every tool they could imagine. We even have band saws that we let our 8th graders use. So it’s pretty good, it’s a pretty good program.
Theresa: So are we going to see any videos from inside the classroom on your YouTube channel?
Allison: Definitely. I was actually thinking about doing one this Friday, and I’m teaching a woodshop camp this summer. I’m going to ask the parents if they’ll let me — cause it’s going to be grades 3-5 which people are like ‘You’re going to let little kids use tools?’ But let me tell you, they are awesome with tools; they listen to everything you tell them — way more than high school students. They are really good with tools so I do a camp for little kids, and I might bring some video cameras in and I also have a show in my shop when I built a gumball machine, I don’t think it’s on YouTube but it’s on my website. Allisonoropallo.com, it’s right on the home page. It’s a half an hour segment on how to build a gumball machine and I do it in my class room so you’ll get to see my shop.
Mark: So of all the things that you do, like working on your house, building a deck, woodworking, do you have a category of projects that’s your favorite that you look forward to doing more than others?
Allison: I do, I do. You know what, I can’t stand painting.
Mark: Ha…still loving you.
Allison: I mean I’ll do it because it makes everything look so good, it’s so easy but for me it’s just so tedious. I have to be able to use tools, and build something, and create something and make something better. Like the entertainment center that I did that was a blast. I did a library of built ins for a lady, that was really fun. And I really like to organize so I like to create something that makes people’s lives neat. So anything building.
Theresa: I really like that a lot too.
Mark: That makes a ton of sense.
Theresa: I’d like my life to be neat.
Allison: Yeah, I’m kind of OCD.
Theresa: And I saw that you made a chicken coop. Was that on your website too?
Allison: Yeah, we just did that quick. It was like a 30degree weekend when I built that, it was crazy cold and I was so tired so that video is kind of funny, but everyone seems to give me good feedback on it so I’m kind of glad I did it. But yeah, I built a chicken coop for a woman in Maine, she had the budget, she bought the materials and said, ‘Here, this is what I can afford,’ so build it out of this. Which I actually like to be challenged like that I think that’s why I did so well on all American Handy Man. I love that challenge — this is what you get and you have to do what we need you to do with that.
Mark: Well we’re challenged upon a break which is coming upon us right now. So check out Allison online at allisonoropallo.com. Check her out on Facebook at facebook.com/yourhandywoman.
Theresa: And follow her on Twitter because we do too. And we’ll be right back with more MyFixitUpLife.
