Today we’d like to introduce you to Tyler Giannattasio.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
As a kid, I always helped my father around the house basic upkeep, but also building whatever we needed. Throughout high school, I did a lot of work around the campus for various maintenance tasks; needless to say, I have always been a very hands-on person and good with fixing and figuring things out.
After high school, I went to college for Electrical engineering and received a bachelor’s of science. After getting a job and getting married, we rented a home for the first year of our married life, so there was very little that I needed to build or maintain. We purchased out first home in 2012; it was a fixer-upper with a ton of potential; my wife was a trooper but had a hard time seeing the vision that the home had.
This is where DIYTyler really started. Being a newly married couple and a junior engineer, we didn’t have the funds to hire remodeling and home improvement tasks out, and furniture was/is extremely expensive and usually not the greatest quality. We completely refinished the upper level of our home before officially moving up there. This was a lot of painting, trim, sanding, and doors, not so much building a remodeling yet.
My first woodworking project was board out of necessity. We needed a new toddler bed; I looked around a found a few not-very-great options for several hundred dollars. I then discovered some woodworking/DIY blogs that had some plans for a toddler bed… it was all downhill from there. As an engineer, CAD design is what I do for a living, finding that I could use the same design skills for making furniture really got me excited. I designed the toddler bed we needed and convinced the wife that if only I got a miter saw, kreg jig, and a few other tools, I would be able to make almost anything. It was a good sales pitch! 10 years later, here we are with a beautiful shop full of great tools onto our second home that we have refinished and added on to twice and is completely full of our own furniture sourced from local trees and lumber yards.
DIYTyler the media company started after I completed a few woodworking projects and wanted to share what I had done with the world, just like those blogs that had opened the world of woodworking to me. DIYTyler started as a blog/website, which still exists, and then branched off to the YouTube channel
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Real job, side business, and life balance is always a challenge. Becoming more efficient at building and video editing has helped with this. The proper tools for the job to help move things along; not necessary to have fancy tools to do fine woodworking, but it really helps move tasks along really quickly.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am an electrical engineer by education but mostly work as a software project manager now; been while since I have done any real engineering! I am known for being very organized, just like in my shop!
Contact Info:
- Website: DIYTyler.com
- Instagram: DIYTylerG
- Facebook: DIYTyler
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DIYTyler/
