Painting the exterior side of a front door.

That was next on my home improvement list today. I started at 5:30PM eastern and finished putting the last coat on at 8PM. It's drying now. I'm familiar with painting stuff so I didn't have to look this one up on youtube. I did need a little coaching from the paint department employee at Menard's, though, to make sure I had the right stuff.

The door was dirty and I thought it might have some mold on it, so I hit it with a bleach, water, and soap concoction, rinsed it and that took care of that. I then put painter's tape around the windows, lock, and door knob. I thought about taking the door off the hinges, but a relative had a drop cloth that I borrowed and I was able to paint it right there. I put a coat of primer on it to help keep the mold from coming back and let that dry. Then I put a coat of latex, ultra white door paint on it. One coat of that looks like it's going to be enough.

Total cost about $40. I had to buy everything- paint, primer, brush, rollers, tape, paint pans. I didn't have any of the supplies. I don't know what someone might have charged to paint it for me. My wife said she'd guess about $50 labor. I scrubbed the mildew off the north side of the house today for about $25 cost in supplies. Around here, people are charging about $150 to pressure wash a house.

So I saved a lot of money today by doing this stuff myself. I was talking to my dad and telling him that this home improvement stuff is addictive. Once you start, you want to keep on fixing things and doing things to make the place look better. We got a new washer and dryer last week- free delivery and installation. I bought the least expensive models they had and they still came with a ten year warranty. On Tuesday of next week we are getting a new central air unit. That's going to be costly, but not as bad as we thought it was going to be. There's no way I can do that myself. I'm leaving that one to the pros.