Patching Drywall: Easy As 1, 2, 3.

I know, patching drywall sounds intimidating. Or at least it did to me. But no joke: It's about a three step process, and the steps aren't even tough. Ready?

First, make a hole in  your wall. I prefer to make mine with a 15 pound, 36" pry bar when wrastling (yes. wrastling.) up old hardwood. Done? Mmkay, moving on.

You can pick up one of these handy dandy patch kits if it meets the criteria of your hole size (about $8), or you can pick up each item singly.

Now all that's left is the work: Stick, spackle, sand and paint. Yep, that's it. Look:

Stick on the metal mesh (really - it's a sticker.)

Load up the putty knife with spackle.

Slap it on, blend it out so it's not a big lump.

Let it dry (this brand is pink wet, white dry). I put up the baseboard too.

Sand lightly if needed, then paint to match. Done!

Not so scary anymore now, is it. The hardest part is waiting for the spackle to dry: Mine said it could take only an hour, but it was pouring rain and the humidity made that one hour about twenty four. Looking back I could have added some texture somehow into my wet spackle to better match the wall, but the hole is behind the front door so I'm just not too worried about it being a little smoother than the surrounding area. You can't even see it looking down from eye level.
Success!

P.S. Added bonus: I only used about a quarter of that little pot of DAP spackle, so I've been using it around the house to fill some other damaged areas that don't require the mesh. Two-for-one, love it!