I replaced all the floor registers in my house; have spackled and painted four rooms so far, one more to do. I've changed the door handles to matching ones in all rooms (seriously when I bought this house several doors had a brass colored handle on the outside, and a silver one on the inside) I've painted the shutters, power washed and stained the deck. I also replaced my garbage disposal (it's so much easier than you would think) I'm sure I'm over-looking several things, especially in terms of landscaping.

However, I did pay someone to install wood flooring in the nursery (yep, I'm one of those people who won't have time to do any of this stuff in the next year or two); and had a roofer replace a patch of shingles.

I wish I had the talent to be a DIY type of gal.

We recently painted our entire downstairs living area, which included a living room, dining room and kitchen. We painted the ceiling, walls and baseboards and it took us two days this past weekend. I got a contractor who was doing work on a neighbor’s house to give me an estimate and he ball parked it at $1400. We did it for a little over $300 and under 2 days of work. It wasn't worth it while we were doing the work, but after it was a great idea.

I've learned to fix the toilets by myself! I'm not sure I'm advanced enough to change seals, but I do know my way around the rest of the tank :)

Wow, folks! I'm impressed by your DIY efforts.

Since we're trying to stay on a budget, we're remodeling our kitchen. Luckily, my husband is very handy and I'm an able assistant!

And, we're trading Valentine's Day babysitting for manual labor! :)

Wallpaper removal can ONLY be done by oneself if the (drooling morons) who put the wallpaper up were intelligent enough to use SIZING on the walls. We have a rental property that has wallpaper on the walls and ceilings (!!!), and because of the manner in which it was put up, professionals don't even think it's worth the trouble to pull it. We have had 2 different contractors recommend putting new drywall over it rather than dealing with the fact that pulling the wallpaper is going to tear up the drywall.

The ease of MANY DIY jobs is completely dependent not on whether the job is easy to do in a perfect world, but rather whether one is inheriting a Rube Goldberg mess of mediocre construction and dubious code adherence. Repairing something well-made is easy. Repairing something that is a mess is a mess, and can lead directly to a call to the appropriate professional.

We are capable painters and DIYers for a range of small tasks, but we have run up against messes that looked simple but were not a number of times.

Taken off wall paper and wood paneling. What was up in the 60's w/ wood paneling? Wall paper sucks too!

Install toilet and tub, faucets. Light fixtures, replaced electrical sockets

Paint removal should come with a BIG caveat if the house was constructed before 1978. http://www.epa.gov/lead/pubs/leadsafetybk.pdf

Lori and Pete, good points!

$760 for 6 hours of unskilled labor?! I am obviously in a wrong profession...

I don't believe there is such a thing as "unskilled labor."

@Lori - removing wallpaper is easy with a very inexpensive "secret weapon" - liquid fabric softener! It took me 8 hours do do one wall with the aid of a store-bought product and a rented steamer. I went online and found out about fabric softener and was able to do the rest of the room in under an hour - and it smelled nice afterward! I scored the wallpaper and then sprayed it to saturation with a solution of about 70% water to 30% fabric softener. The walls practically stripped themselves. WHO KNEW?!

I just sold my house and did a ton of small jobs including painting every room, rebuilding and painting my deck, painting my garage, putting a bunch a junk on CL for free (it's amazing how fast a pile of scrap wood goes on CL), planted about 8 dozen flowers, etc. I probably spent about $2K total and did all the work myself. It took me 5 months but I got full price.

I've been in the market for a new home for a few months and can tell you there aren't many homeowners who do these type of repairs and maintenance. With the market so saturated, these things make a big difference (to me at least). I'll walk out of a completely wallpapered house in a heartbeat unless the place is a steal. There are probably a dozen houses on the same street that aren't covered in wallpaper.

When I bought my last house in 2005 it was a total wreck (stained carpet, stains on the walls, a corner of the kitchen counter was sawed off and you were looking into the drawer) and 3 other people were bidding against me the same week it went on the market. But people just can't seem to get it through their heads that its not 2005 anymore.

When we moved into our current house almost 20 years ago there was hideous metallic wallpaper in one bathroom and two closets were papered in ancient paper so brown you could no longer discern the pattern. Worst of all was the master bedroom, where paper on the walls AND THE CEILING had been painted over. We hired a crew that removed every shred of this paper in one day for $100. Best money we ever spent! We do our own painting, many repairs, plumbing fixes, landscaping, but it would have taken us days and days to remove all that wallpaper.

Avalon -- Thanks, we will definitely try it. I wonder what the magical ingredient in the fabric softener is.

Dahlink, you are so right.

Very useful post! I agree; a lot of people claim to be handymen, but end up making things worse. On the other hand, some people think that a job is too big for them so they quickly hire outside help, realizing too late that they could have done the job themselves. I remember a friend of mine who decided to hire his cousin to strip off his old wallpaper. Well, it took longer and more expensive than it needed to be had he done the job himself.