Another exciting week of All American Handyman has come and
gone, and yet another contestant has been forced to hang up his tool belt,
whittling the handyman hopefuls down to 8. Here’s the Holmes Spot All American
Handyman week 2 recap…
Week two, “Crying Babies and Playground Battles,” subjected
the remaining 9 contestants to two ridiculously hard challenges. In the “fix-it”
challenge, contestants were to complete four common tasks: 1) replace a
doorknob, 2) repair a broken screen, 3) patch some drywall, and lastly 4)
replace a light switch with a dimmer switch. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong.
The kicker was that the contestants had to work quietly, as they could not wake a simulated baby in a
crib several feet from their working space. The “baby” was a microphone
attached to a flashing light. If the light went off, the contestant was
disqualified from the challenge.
Sonne was the first to be DQ’d, waking the baby within the
first five minutes of the challenge. Although the other contestants took great
pains to be as quiet as possible, one by one they fell, leaving only thee
contestants standing by the end of the allotted time: Carol, Scott H., and Michael.
Mike and Scott examined the work of the three remaining handymen, judging the
quality of their work and the cleanliness of their workspace. They judged
Michael to be the winner, mainly because he was the only contestant to finish
all four tasks without waking the “baby.”
In the “build-it” challenge, contestants were given 4 hours
to build a swing set. Mike stated that the contestants were being judged on the
following criteria: 50% teamwork, 50% creativity, and 100% safety. Michael, who
won the advantage in the “fix-it” round, grouped the remaining contestants into
the following teams:
Team 1 – Scott H. (Team Leader), Michael, Rodney
Team 2 – Paul (Team Leader), Carol, Scott C.
Team 3 – Chris L. (Team Leader), Julia, Sonne
Ryan Ostrom, Chief Marketing Officer for Craftsman Tools was
introduced to the contestants as the surprise guest judge.
At the end of the 4 hours, three distinguishable playground
swing sets were certainly present, but not one got the pass from Mike. As the
contestants entered the warehouse, a pile of wood pieces from their swing sets
were piled bonfire style in the middle of the floor, signifying a job not well
done.
The criticism for Team 1 was that they did not read or
follow the safety instructions included with every piece of playground
equipment they were to build with. As a result, there were major safety issues.
The criticism given to Team 2 was similar to Team 1: safety.
Their sloppy swing set left both Mike and Scott unimpressed.
Lastly, Team 3 somewhat impressed Mike by installing most of
the railing on the inside of the swing set, making for a safer railing. They
also installed a safety guard in front of the swings, and demonstrated fairly
good planning. However, as the time wound down, they rushed and installed part
of the railing incorrectly, and Mike was easily able to pull it apart with his
bare hands.In the end, Team 3 was judged to have the best built playground. At the bottom of the pile, up for elimination was Team 2. Scott explained that there were several “fatal flaws” that led to their team being on the chopping block. Primarily, they displayed a lack of communication and leadership, which in turn led to sloppy work (nails poking through the boards, for instance), as well as many safety issues.
You can also read my All American Handyman Week 1 Recap, if
you missed last week. Or, you can watch the full episode on HGTV.
ALL AMERICAN HANDYMAN CONTESTANTS - WEEK 2
Other Photos From Week 2 (HGTV)
