Ed Sanders talks woodworking, glitter, ‘Owner’s Manual,’ and anatomy with MyFixitUpLife hosts Mark and Theresa.
Ed Sanders was a designer for seven seasons on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The son of a carpenter, Ed can be seen in AMC’s Owner’s Manual. Each week Ed has a weekly challenge where he attempts to operate today’s most advanced, dangerous and powerful machinery and technology, from a stunt plane to an off-road racing car to a locomotive, and more, without reading the owner’s manual.
We talked with Ed Sanders about ‘Owner’s Manual,’ his recent experience with glitter-gone-wrong, DIY Don’ts, and his door woodworking projects. Check out this interview.
Mark: You’re back inside MyFixitUpLife with my wife, Theresa …
Theresa: And my husband, Mark …
Mark: Don’t do it.
Theresa: I say that a lot because you usually move before I finish a sentence. I make a suggestion and you’re already getting tools together, you’re already going at it. You’re running around. I mean, you’re fast and I usually say, “Nah!”
Mark: Got to make it happen.
Theresa: You got to make it happen now.
Mark: I want to make it happen at lightning speed because that’s fun.
Theresa: I guess it’s fun.
Mark: I like it to be …
Theresa: I like it to be a little bit more deliberate. I to try to plan things out and try to plan when we’re doing it, how we’re doing it, what we need, draw it, figure everything out, and go a little bit more methodically.
Mark: I go by my muse.
Theresa: You always say we’re not going to get anything done if we go by my way and we have a friend on the line right now. I’m wondering which way he likes better.
Mark: Ed Sanders, AMC’s Owner’s Manual, Extreme Makeover Home Edition, woodworking expert and more. Ed, how do you roll? Is it the muse, does art take you? Or do you think your way through it, more or less?
Ed: I felt for a second I was phoning into a Dr. Drew Love line episode. Are we talking about the same thing here? Because you guys are talking about doing it fast and methodical and planning it out. What exactly are we talking about?
Mark: Oh, I forgot to tell you, I’m also Adam Corolla.
Ed: How we doing, guys? Good morning to you both.
Mark: Likewise, and we’re doing great. We’re so excited to talk to you again because, well, I’ll get right to my cutting edge journalism question that is more important than all the other questions. DIY Don’t, what we’re talking about today, AMC’s Owner’s Manual, what you’re working on. It’s this, because we check you out on twitter, luckylimeyed, and you have more names for more people that come out of nowhere. I have to be honest with you, I sometimes just stop watching the videos or looking at the photos because I’m howling too hard at sweet cheeks, at, you’re doing a logging episode and you just yelled, “Googlies,” and …
Ed: Not googlies, ghoulies. The ghoulies are the twig and 2 berries. That’s an English term.
Theresa: Not only do you have names for people but you have quite a colorful collection of names for the anatomy.
Ed: Put it this way Theresa, when I slipped on that log, and I nearly castrated myself, it was either shout out, “Oh my ghoulies,” or shout out something slightly worse, which probably wouldn’t have made air.
Theresa: Thinking about that and a tweet that you sent out that you had a party at your house with 20 little girls and glitter?
Ed: Oh Theresa … my wife … this was not even a week ago, we still haven’t got all the glitter up off the floor. I don’t even know what my beautiful wife was thinking when she … every year we’re known for our little Halloween party. We get all of our kids’ friends over and my wife and I turn all the lights out in the house, we shut all the blinds so it’s pitch black – of course, we feed them and let them have fun – but then we have this hour game of scaring the living daylights out of them. We absolutely scare the living daylights out of them. But, to bring them all down this year my wife added the fatal glitter to the pumpkin making, shaping, carving competition. All of the kids, the majority of the little ones, friends of my girls, I don’t think they’d ever heard of the word glue, which you need to put on something to then throw the glitter on. They just emptied bags and bags of glitter loosely on top of their pumpkins, which then fell on the floor, on their clothes, and then 20 kids proceeded to trample glitter over every square foot of the house.
Theresa: Basically they …
Ed: I know which rooms they’ve been in because they shouldn’t have been in those rooms because there’s glitter everywhere.
Theresa: That’s really smart though, to be able to dump glitter on all of your guests and then make sure they’re not going into places you don’t want them to go in your house. Then put colored glitter for each one of your guests, so you’re blue, someone’s pink, and then you know where everyone’s been. That’s smart.
Ed: Here’s a simpler idea, Theresa. You can just lock the door and don’t let them in that room.
Theresa: Speaking of doors, do you have enough doors in your house to lock yet?
Ed: Yes! The doors are done.
Mark: We’ve been tracking this …
Ed: I’m telling you guys. The doors are done guys.
Theresa: That’s fantastic. Congratulations. Locking your door is actually a really smart move.
Mark: We’ve been tracking this story for 3 years.
Theresa: We have been.
Mark: Yeah.
Ed: The only person more excited than you guys is my wife.
Theresa: I’m very happy for her.
Ed: Thank you guys. She can finally take a bath without the kids kind of running in on her.
Theresa: Oh yeah, I have that problem too. The other day I was taking a bath and our 5 year old came in to give me some ducks, because Mommy needs ducks.
Ed: Nice that you have ducks.
Theresa: You need bath toys. It’s really important. We’re talking about DIY Don’t today and with all the work that you’ve done in your woodworking career, on your television career, I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of ridiculous stunts and don’ts that other people have attempt, because quite frankly you haven’t, I’m sure.
Ed: Yup. I got a long list of do’s and don’ts for me and whenever I do, like the trade shows that I’ve seen you guys at, various home shows around America, I often do a show and I talk about whatever show I’m doing or building. There’s always a lot of no-nos for woodworkers or avid builders and I always say to people, “First and foremost, know your limitations.” I don’t mean that in a derogatory, bad way, but I don’t know how many houses I’ve gone to in Britain and now in America where someone’s called me up and they’ve said, “We kind of need your help here. We kind of decided to put some French doors in and we thought it would be easy just to take the old ones out and knock some of the walls out.” But, they haven’t checked if the city’s happy with it, they haven’t checked it they needed a beam, or a [spear 00:07:00], or a lintel in ceiling, they haven’t realized how big a scope the job is. I always say to people, “I would never attempt to do my own taxes, I would never attempt to do brain surgery, because I’m not trained in any of that.” I always tell people know your limitations. You kind of know if a job is too big to take on. Again, I don’t know how many times people have called me up, said, “You’ve got to help us. We’ve made a big mistake doing this job.” Know your limitations.
Theresa: I like the comparison to brain surgery because no one’s going to slice open their head and then say, “You know, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing in here. Let me call a surgeon.”
Mark: “Is that the frontal cortex? Wait, I stopped breathing!”
Theresa: “Do I need my frontal lobe? I don’t know.”
Ed: I think the analogy … that’s the analogy I use because, I don’t know what it is like in America, but in England, you have to go to trade school to learn a trade. You got to learn electrics 3 years, plumbing 3 years, carpentry 3 years, furniture building 5 years. You need to have to go to school to be qualified. There’s a learning process. So many people just see it on these t.v. shows that I’m probably guilty for because I’ve been a big deal on these t.v. shows. They see it and they go, “God, that would be great. That would be a lovely weekend job. Let’s knock down half the house and add and addition in a week.” These t.v. shows do make it look easy but you just need to know your limitations. Sometimes, a dollar spent will save you a headache of 100s of dollars out of pocket, if not 1000s.
Mark: Have you walked into somebody’s house, for whatever reason, and they took on a DIY project and only got as far as demolition and then just gave up? Toilet on the floor or whatever?
Ed: I don’t know how many, I swear to you guys, I could count on a million people’s hand how many times I’ve been … it’s just, you walk in, the husband, bless him, looks like a scolded, kind of naughty school kid, and the wife has got her arms folded leaning against kitchen cabinets and you’re kind of walking into a marital dispute. The husband is a typical guy that didn’t want to ask for directions or help and the wife has had enough and said, “Call someone, now.” I don’t know how many times I’ve walked into an atmosphere in someone’s house where half the party is happy for you being there and the other half is reluctant that your there. It happens so often, buddy, so, so, often.
Theresa: Being prepared and reading the directions is so appropriate for your show, Owner’s Manual. How are you doing on that show, because, you’re doing a lot of very different things and without directions.
Ed: Yeah, yeah. When I 1st signed up for this show, back in January of last year, 2012, they said to me, “Ed, it’s going to be you and a co-host and it’s going to [carve in 00:10:06] pretty much every week, you’re going to challenge this new piece of machinery. You’re just going to have a go at it and see what going to intel.”
I said, “Okay. No problem, sounds easy enough. Small piece of machinery.” In the space of 10 months from the audition to actually shooting, the idea changed 10-fold, and from working on small pieces of machinery to flying stunt planes over the Pacific Ocean and sailing tall ships and working on logging equipment. I swear our producers must have been drunk when they thought up 1/2 of these challenges. I swear they go to the pub every week for their production meeting, have a few pints, and say, “Right, what can we get Ed and Marcus doing this week?” They just come up with their bucket list of hell for us, because I’m not the best with heights and the stunt plane episode, I passed out very badly in the plane and I swear to God, I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve nearly puked and pooped my pants at the same time. I can’t say it any other way.
Theresa: I guess you’ve never been pregnant then, huh?
Ed: I’ll take your word for that, Theresa.
Theresa: All right. There you go.
Mark: We have to take a break. We’ll be back. Thank you, Ed Sanders. Check him out at luckylimeyed on twitter. We’ll be back with more MyFixitUpLife.
