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Quick Fixes to Do Before Holiday Guests Arrive

Kelli — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 11:14:00 +0000

The holidays are right around the corner and now is the time to take care of the improvements you’ve been procrastinating about all year long. From dead doorbells and jammed doors, to caulking the bath and replacing broken tiles, here are our top quick fixes, and all the information you need to get the job done right.

All About Wainscoting

Kelli — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:35:58 +0000

A house with good bones has pleasing lines on the outside, but that artful composition has to be echoed on the inside, too. And nothing’s better for giving rooms a handsome, well-built look than wainscoting on the walls.

A combination of decorative boards or panels and moldings that extend partway up a wall’s face, wainscoting is a centuries-old marriage of form and style. Dating to the 1300s, the Dutch used it to shield the bottom half of plaster walls from such hazards as jostled chairs, spurs on riding boots, perhaps even carelessly swung scabbards. Wainscoting still guards our walls, but today it’s from dirt-caked gardening shoes in mudrooms, olive-oil fingerprints in kitchens, and the inevitable scuffs in the close quarters along hallways and stairways.

7 Home Improvements to Do This Year (and Save $1500)

Kelli — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:23:03 +0000

This is the year. If you’ve been sitting on home fixes, waiting for the right time, it’s 2010. Lucrative federal tax incentives are set to expire at the end of 2010, meaning these projects will never be more affordable. The government will cover 30% of the costs, in most cases, and investments in energy efficiency generally pay for themselves over time, since you’ll be paying for less wasted energy year after year. (Except where noted, taxpayers can qualify for no more than $1,500, regardless of the total cost of multiple qualifying projects were performed in 2009 and 2010.)

Reduce Unwanted Noise

Kelli — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:32:01 +0000

Noise disrupts a peaceful home and can interrupt sleep and increase stress. New housing developments place houses closer together on smaller lots, so it’s easier to hear your neighbors. Indoors, home theaters and powerful stereo systems are creating more noise. What’s worse, noise travels easily around walls, under doors and through floors and ceilings.

There are two basic pathways by which sound can travel from room to room: through the air and through the solid building materials. The easiest way to make your home quieter is to use sound control insulation in the interior walls. Even if you only insulate key rooms, you’ll notice the difference.

How to Install Baseboard Trim

admin — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 22:08:33 +0000

Baseboard trim covers the joints between the walls and the floor and adds an essential finishing touch to a room. You can choose from many styles of baseboard and shoe moldings to get the look you want, from understated to elaborately detailed.

Repairing Drywall

Kelli — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 03:24:07 +0000

Drywall repair is a project that most homeowners will have to face at one time or another. It encompasses a wide range of problems that include everything from nail pops to holes from doorknobs to major repairs like water damage and cracks caused by a settling foundation. Whatever your problem is, it’s important to understand the scope of the repair so that you don’t get in over your head if you’re a do-it-yourselfer.

13 Amazing Facts About Green Roofs

Kelli — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 17:30:59 +0000

A green roof is an extension of a new or existing roof that involves a high-quality water proofing and root repellant system, a drainage system, filter cloth, a lightweight growing medium and plants. Green roof systems may be modular, with drainage layers, filter cloth, growing media and plants already prepared in movable, interlocking grids, or, each component may be installed separately. Green roof development involves the creation of “contained” green space on top of a human-made structure. This green space could be below, at or above grade, but in all cases the plants are not planted in the “ground.”

How to Finish Drywall: 18 Steps to Smooth Joints

admin — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 12:54:27 +0000

here are few home improvement tasks greeted with more dread than finishing drywall. If you’re like most people, you hope that you’ve already done your last finishing job. Unfortunately, if you enjoy working on your home, you are bound to be confronted by this task again. So it’s worth your while to check out the tips and techniques we discuss here.

What tools are needed to skim coat?

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:49:08 +0000

Q: What tools/stuff do I need to skim coat?

A: Some prefer to put joint compound in a ‘mud pan’ (like a bread-making pan), and use what is called a broad knife, which is a wide putty knife. Beyond a 3 inch putty knife, you pretty much start calling them broadknives. I like to use a 10 inch one. it is wide enough. Too wide a knife and you wind up with a weird flex in the blade that can leave hump and ridges in your mud at overlap points.

Others will use what is called a ‘hawk’ (which is a flatboard ontop of a short stick, and then use a trowel with it (like what you use for cement). IMO, the hawk and trowel is good for ceilings as you can catch slobber that falls, towards your face for one thing.

For walls, I like the feel of the control I get using a broadknife vertically on the wall. Something about grabbing the handle of the trowel and pulling sideways bothers me.

So get yourself a 5 gallon pail of ‘lightweight’ ready mix joint compound. It sands easier. Too bad for you, trying to learn mudding by skim coating an entire wall is not easy for the first time. Mudding is like learning how to ride a bike – the training wheels thing, etc. The idea is so you don’t have to sand a ton of mud back off! Unfortunately, you can bet on you are going to have to do a lot of sanding.

Therefore you also need a sanding pole and sanding screen and/or those sanding sponge blocks. I love those things. They come in different grits. Get them all.

You also might consider getting one of those halogen floodlights that you can sit on the floor that adjusts, and has like a 300 watt skinny lamp bulb in it. As you mud, and especially as you sand, you want to cast the light on the wall at an acute angle so that you can see any waves, high spots, low spots, gouges, etc.

Source

How To Skim Coat Rough Plaster Or Drywall

admin — Sun, 23 May 2010 20:23:40 +0000

You want to wallpaper – or put new texture - but it’s not smooth enough. Some helpful steps to skim coat and prepare for a beautiful paper, or texture, job.