D.I.Y. drywall + the journey to manhood

My time in Mexico (May/June '07) building houses is bearing more fruit. First we installed a toilet, a week ago we fixed a 60x60cm whole in the wall. I have never done a drywall patch-job before, but after helping to install drywall from scratch into several new houses in Mexico, I was confident we could do a patch-job (a look at a D.I.Y. web tutorial and a call to Grandpa Clyde were also reassuring, that I was on the right track). I am amazed at how far a little know-how and experience can take you, not to mention save you $. This job cost us $12, including the cost of buying a new tool. Our hole appeared after we had to get a plumber to install a new faucet set into our bath/shower (on the other side of the wall), a job we could not do by ourselves.

Here's how we did it (click on the pics to see a bigger picture and read the info more clearly):





While I was in Mexico, I indulged in some replenishing reading, and turned my attention to John Eldredge's The Way of the Wild Heart. Eldredge quotes a guy who has followed the modern path and "ceded mastery of his world over to hired hands" by outsourcing every job around his home to tradesmen of every kind. The cost:benefit analysis reveals it doesn't always make sense to D.I.Y., but neither does reaching the point of not being able to do any simple job yourself. What are we going to outsource next... finding a partner? As Eldredge would probably ask, how can we impede our initiation into manhood anymore? Besides, there is something incredibly satisfying in using the tools well, testing yourself with the work and having a great D.I.Y. finished result (plus, I now enjoy going to hardware stores!).