3 Things I Learned Painting

I've never considered myself a do-it-yourself kind of guy. I've never watched Bob the Builder. My toolbox consists of a couple of screwdrivers, some nails, and a hammer. So when my wife decided it was time to paint the house, my first thought was who can we call.

But after a little while, my frugal mind took over and I started thinking about the money we could save by doing it ourselves. I knew we could do it ourselves. I was just concerned about the quality of the work. After a weekend of painting, here's 3 things I learned.

1. Find some free help - This was the key to our success. There's no way we could've accomplished what we did without the help of my parents. I called them Saturday, and buttered them up by paying for their lunch at their favorite restaurant. They helped us all day Saturday, and even came back on Sunday to help us finish up.

2. It takes a lot of time - We started painting around 2:30 on Saturday afternoon, and didn't finish until 9:00 Sunday night. 16 hours to paint our kitchen, a small hallway, our guest bathroom, and our future nursery. Without my parents, we'd been working on it till April.

3. Figure out how much paint you need - We didn't realize exactly how much paint we needed. Most of the rooms took at least 2 coats of paint and parts of the kitchen took 3. This meant I had to make an extra trip to Walmart Saturday afternoon to pick up 3 more gallons of paint. 2 of which we didn't need, thanks mom.

All in all it was a great weekend. We brought a completely new look to our home, we got to spend some quality family time, and we saved a lot of money. Total cost for the paint, buying off my parents, and gas for the extra trip to Walmart around $140. Total cost of having someone else do it, I'm betting at least 3 times that. This was also one of our goals for 2009, so we get to mark that off our list.

How have you saved money by doing something yourself?