This week I had the fortunate opportunity to help my roommate replace the screen on his Nexus 5, and it was everything that I thought it could be.

Now, I’ve taken devices apart before, but my track record for putting them back together stood at about one for three. This included a broken VCR that fell victim to being hammered apart after I lost patience with the screws (I was seven), an old laptop (which is still sitting in a box of parts), and my desktop (which was a complete success after one fried motherboard).

Needless to say, that fact that this was someone else’s device made me want to sit back and cause as little damage as possible.

I had somewhat of an idea what we were getting into, because earlier in the day on the bus to campus, I had read through the recent iFixit Nexus 5 teardown. It would appear that LG did all of the right things with their Nexus 5. Plastic clips, minimal adhesive, modular components, and non-proprietary screws were praised for the ease they added to the repair. All was well, save for a screen/LCD combo that was fused to the entire display assembly.

This meant that a cracked screen repair would require purchasing a completely new assembly, taking the device completely apart, and placing all components back into the new assembly. I was a little disappointed, seeing that one of the most common repairs would be much more expensive, but I didn’t give it much further thought.

My roommate’s new Nexus 5 had suffered a series of unfortunate bumps and drops, leaving the screen with a myriad of white veins of broken glass. His replacement display assembly arrived a few days later, and we started the operation later that night.

With the help of the same iFixit teardown I had read earlier, and a walk-through video, we were good to go.

Luckily, most of the steps where pretty self-explanatory. Remove these screws here, use a spudger to unhook these connections, remove component, rinse and repeat. There were a few steps where I was very thankful to have the guide, as some parts needed a little extra oomph to remove. Without the guide to reassure me, I was worried that a particular part (the battery for example) could break past a certain amount of effort.

While there were a few times where we had to stop and figure out the correct way to remove a part without breaking it (I’m looking at you, camera), the end result was a renewed and functioning Nexus 5.

But why should I care?

To me, the most remarkable part about the repair process was the amount of freedom there is in repairing a phone. Since all of the device’s components had to be removed to reach the display assembly, I was able to really see how replaceable each part was. The battery, motherboard, charging port, camera, even the headphone jack needed a slight amount of effort to remove and replace. I was compelled to looked up repair guides on my own phone, a Samsung Galaxy S4, and to my delight, found it to be just as repairable as the Nexus 5.

I feel empowered by the experience, and I know that the next time something of mine needs repairing, I’ll be the one to do it.

All it took was getting over the fear of opening the device.

If you feel learning more about how to repair your own devices, I highly recommend checking out iFixit.com’s collection of repair manuals.