1. First the Good Stuff: Painting

First off, the one thing that just about anybody can do in their new house is put on a fresh coat of interior paint. At most home improvement warehouses, the employees in the paint section are knowledgeable and helpful. Masking and painting are fairly easy, albeit time-consuming, chores, and painting a room a fresh new color of your choosing delivers a great feeling of satisfaction for any new homeowner. It's good to hold onto that feeling of satisfaction for as long as possible, because once you get into other projects, you'll look back fondly on how simple and productive your painting job turned out.

2. Changing an Electrical Outlet and, By Extension, Repairing Wall Plaster: Be Careful, and Be Gentle.

Those first projects went this way: I'd see something that needed to be done. I'd head down to Home Depot and wander around begging employees for help, until finally someone in an orange apron would give me a snippet of advice that would set me on my way. I'd buy the necessary tools and supplies, then head home full of confidence. I'd begin a project, completely screw it up, then spend the rest of the day just trying to get things back to how they were before I started fiddling with it.

3. Water and Brass Fittings: Again, Be Gentle!

I learned a very valuable lesson on my next project, hooking up the water feed to the icemaker of our new refrigerator. I figured I'd save money on installation and do it myself. I bought the kit, again at Home Depot, and got to work. The saddle-valve for the water line and little brass fitting all went together nicely and as planned, but when everything was assembled, I had leaks both at the valve and at the back of the fridge. I had done everything according to the directions and was puzzled as to why things weren't working properly. While the folks at HD had always been helpful, I decided that I'd go down to the locally-owned hardware store to see if I could get some help.

4: Hanging a Shelf: Use a Stud Finder (where applicable) and Measure!

The next project was to hang a shelf. In the thick plaster walls of my new old home, I found that my handy-dandy new stud-finder device was completely useless. It gave false readings every time I put it up to the wall. Through trial and error, I found the studs with a hammer and a nail. Thank goodness I'd purchased that plaster repair for the bathroom outlet, because it came in quite handy patching the twenty new cracked holes I'd created. I'm not sure what the lesson is here; perhaps old plaster walls don't need to have shelves mounted on them?

On a positive note, in the rooms of the house that had been remodeled with drywall, the stud finder worked like a charm, and shelf-mounting was fairly easy. The lesson on mounting shelves on drywall: Use a stud-finder, a level, and measure, measure, and measure again.