The Life of a Homeowner

I've never considered myself to be particularly handy with tools, but life as a homeowner has a way of making you expand you horizons in regards to the projects you think you can pull off. This is mostly related to the cost of having someone else do it for you, but is sometimes related to how long it would take to get someone to do it for you instead of doing it yourself.

Here's a list of some of the things I've done around here that I never would have thought I would take on:

1. Replacing toilets
2. Replacing valves on the water heater
3. Cut a hole in the back wall of the house and installed a dog door
4. Cut a hole in the roof and installed a fan
5. Replaced the front door, frame and all
6. Repurposed phone jacks for networking, including mounting a box to the outside of the house for the switch and wiring it into the breaker box
7. Installed security cameras (running the wires through the attic)

One of the things I used to think was easy is painting. We've painted a couple of rooms in this house, and I've primed some trim. But now painting is not really something I want to do much of in the future. I think it's because it requires too much precision when it comes to trim, and I don't like dealing with the cleanup.

Now that I'm more confident in my ability to take on bigger products, I'm going to move on to my car and install a trailer hitch. I doubt I'll make a habit of working on my car, but stranger things have happened.