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Regular maintenance and repairs are essential to homeownership, but hiring professionals for every little fix can add up. Instead of forking over your hard-earned paycheck, it’s better to learn the basics of home maintenance so you can handle a wide range of jobs on your own. The following quick repair projects are relatively easy to learn and don’t take much time to complete, even for beginner DIYers.
1. Touch Up Painted Walls
Walls inside the home are prone to minor dings and regular abuse from people, pets, and objects bumping, rubbing, or knocking into them, which can leave behind peeling, marred, and chipped paint. However, learning how to touch up paint on walls is relatively easy and doesn’t require a lot of tools. This makes it a great project for new DIYers to tackle on a lazy Saturday or a quiet weekday evening.
2. Remove Stripped Screws
Screws are essential fasteners that are used in many construction projects around the home, but when you encounter a stripped screw it can seriously slow down DIY jobs. Instead of being able to remove the screw with a few twists of a screwdriver, it may start to feel like the screw will be stuck forever. Thankfully, there are a few different ways to remove a stripped screw so you don’t have to keep grinding away indefinitely with no foreseeable end to your plight.
Tool Tip
Supported by Leatherman
With a ton of useful features packed into a lightweight, stainless-steel design, the Leatherman Skeletool CX multitool can easily handle a range of quick-and-easy projects inside and outside the home. With its integrated knife, needlenose pliers, regular pliers, wire cutter, hard-wire cutter, bit driver, and bottle opener, carrying a Skeletool is like having a toolbox in your pocket. The convenient design even has a carabiner so you can attach it to your belt or to a backpack when you go hiking or camping. Comes with a 25-year warranty.
3. Hide TV Wires
Electronic devices ranging from sound systems and computers to microwaves, toasters, and coffee makers tend to fill up the average modern household, giving you access to a variety of convenient features as long as the wires are connected to an available outlet. TVs in particular tend to have a mess of wires and cables coming and going, which presents a serious aesthetic drawback that homeowners can have difficulty contending with unless they learn a few simple tricks to conceal these unsightly TV wires.
4. Find a Wall Stud
Plain walls can be an attractive option for a home, but most homeowners want to hang at least a couple of objects or decorations, like picture frames, wall-mounted TVs, or mirrors, so it’s important to learn how to find a wall stud. Otherwise, when you drive a nail or screw into the wall as an anchor, you may find that the fastener is loose or that it pulls out as soon as weight is applied, since drywall doesn’t have the right composition and strength to support heavy items.
5. Unclog a Shower Drain
Sliding into a hot shower first thing in the morning or after a long day at work is meant to be relaxing, but when the bottom of the shower starts to fill up with water it can put a damper on those few precious moments you get to yourself. Shower drains typically get clogged with hair and soap scum, which can prevent water from draining properly, but before hiring a plumber to clear the clog, it’s worth trying a few basic methods to unclog a shower drain.
6. Fix a Squeaky Bed
Few things beat wrapping yourself up in blankets and sinking into a comfy bed before checking out for the day. It’s a place each person reserves for rest and relaxation so they can feel rejuvenated and ready to take on the challenges of the next day, but if this bastion of peace squeaks and creaks every time you move, it can deprive you of much-needed sleep. Replacing the bed is a surefire way to handle this issue, but even beginner DIYers can learn easier and more cost-effective methods to fix a squeaky bed, so they can get back to enjoying a full night of uninterrupted rest.
7. Remove Water Stains From Wood
Wood furniture and flooring is an attractive design choice that is seen in a wide range of households. The natural appearance of wood makes it a popular aesthetic option for both inside and outside the home, but wood needs to be sealed to protect it from moisture. When water is left to sit on wood for too long, it can cause stains to appear, which diminish the natural appearance of the material. As long as the damage has not progressed too far, your should be able to remove water stains from wood to restore the natural beauty of their furniture and decor.
8. Get Rid of Gnats
Insects and bugs have a way of getting inside the home through cracks, crevices, and openings. Among the most notorious invaders that seem to show up in droves are gnats. These tiny insects flock to fruit bowls, infest vegetable gardens, and hover inches away from food while you are trying to eat because they are attracted to moisture and salt. Some species of gnats can even leave people and pets with nasty bites or destroy plants in and around the home. DIYers who are fed up with these pests can and should take advantage of a wide variety of methods to get rid of gnats before resorting to calling in the pros.
9. Fix a Slow Sink Drain
Faucets direct the flow of water down into a sink where it empties into a drain, creating a convenient location to wash your hands, brush your teeth, or even wash and prepare food. However, when the water doesn’t drain as quickly as normal, it may indicate that the sink drain is partially clogged. Learning how to handle a slow sink drain is well within the skillset of most DIYers, so before the drain is fully clogged find out how to clear the blockage and restore normal flow to the drain to save yourself an expensive plumbing repair bill.
10. Remove Glue
Glue is a common tool used around the home to make repairs or complete personal projects, but it can make a real mess if you aren’t careful. When glue seeps out from the edges of the materials being glued together or spills onto an unintended surface, it can be difficult to remove without the right method. Home DIYers that make regular use of glue should learn how to get rid of glue without damaging the underlying material. It’s also worth finding out how to remove superglue, which can come with its own share of challenges.
11. Hang a Heavy Frame
Putting up a small picture frame is often as easy as driving a nail into the wall and simply hanging the frame, but when you want to put up a large or heavy frame, you can’t rely on a single nail to support the weight. Learning how to hang a heavy frame can save you a lot of time and effort, as well as sparing your wall from having multiple holes punched into it only for the frame to tumble to the ground. When you’re dealing with a tricky frame, these picture hanging hacks come in handy, including steps and alternative methods for hanging a heavy frame.
12. Fix a Leaky Faucet
Whether it’s in the kitchen, laundry room, bathroom, or even outside, a leaky faucet can cause a lot of problems, though the most obvious is the extra cost you have to pay on your water bill. Fortunately, learning how to fix a leaky faucet isn’t as difficult as it may seem, which is why it is a task most DIYers can tackle without needing to involve a plumbing pro. The sooner you fix the drip, the more money you can save. Given that most leaky faucets are caused by a faulty O-ring or seat washer, this repair is both quick and inexpensive.
13. Silence a Squeaky Door
Doors are a necessary part of any household, providing a simple, effective method to secure the home from the outside and to create barriers between rooms for peace, quiet, and privacy. Unfortunately, the hinges on a door can start to stick or squeak when they are exposed to high levels of moisture and humidity, such as the steam produced by a hot shower. They may also start to squeak due to dirt or aging, making an awful noise every time someone opens or closes the door. Fixing a squeaky door is relatively straightforward and can usually be handled with no more than a few squirts of lubricant, making this a great project for newbie DIYers.
14. Unclog a Toilet
Just about every homeowner has experienced a clogged toilet, which is why most bathrooms are equipped with a readily available plunger to handle toilet clogs. DIYers who haven’t had to unclog a toilet on their own won’t have trouble learning the simple process used to clear toilet paper and waste that has gotten stuck in the toilet, though it may take a little more learning until you are able to use a drain snake or a drain auger to get rid of clogs that are sitting deep in the toilet drain pipe.
15. Patch Drywall
Dents, dings, and holes in drywall are common problems that can be caused intentionally when mounting objects and wall decorations or the damage may be the result of an accident. Regardless of the reason for the damage, DIYers can learn how to patch drywall so that they don’t need to stare at an unsightly hole in the wall or pay a pro for work they can handle on their own. With just a few simple tools and supplies you can repair the drywall, then touch-up the paint, so the wall looks as good as new.