BUILD
PAINT
CLEAN
MAINTAIN
USE
DESIGN
INSTALL
CHOOSE
GROW
How To: Stain a Wood Deck
A wood deck is certainly a thing of beauty, but only if it is well maintained from year to year. If your deck is showing signs of weather and wear, some simple maintenance and a fresh coat of stain or sealer coul...
Air Plants: Growing Tillandsia
Air plants—or tillandsias—are one of my favorite indoor plants. I bought my first little pup about a year ago and since then, I’ve divided it into three larger versions of the tiny original. Some growers choose t...
Top Tips for Reorganizing Your Kitchen
We recently painted our kitchen cabinets, which involved clearing every cabinet, drawer, and countertop. In addition to keeping sanding dust off our foodstuffs and kitchenware, doing so offered a golden opportun...
How To: Clean Your Toolbox and Workshop
While spring is generally considered the month for cleaning windows, airing out the house, reorganizing the cupboards, and tending to general home maintenance, your workshop and tools know no season. Whether you ...
Top Tips for Choosing Kitchen Cabinets
The first things we chose during our eight-hour selections appointment for our new construction home were our kitchen cabinets. Cabinets are chosen first during these meetings, because they are the biggest invest...
Top Tips for Growing Tomatoes
There’s really nothing better than a vine-ripened tomato plucked from the plant in your vegetable garden and still warm from the sun. Well, that will come later this season. Now it’s time to get your tomato seedl...
How To: Get Clean, Chip-Free Cuts in Melamine and Veneer
Melamine-coated particleboard is a great material for storage, basement, garage, home office, and kid's room projects. It's less expensive than plywood and has a much cleaner finished look than painted MDF or fib...
How To: Keep a Christmas Tree Fresh
It’s the time of year when Christmas tree lots start appearing around your community, bringing with them a difficult decision–will bringing home your evergreen so early in the season mean having a Charlie Brown-s...
Top 10 Ways to Deal with Bees
Bob Vila recently contacted me because he had a bee infestation in his attic. I've made several visits to his house since then, removing insulation to get to the bee hive, removing the hive, and then cleaning up ...
How To: Use a Saw Properly
PreparationPreparation is the most important ingredient for making clean, accurate, safe cuts. To properly prepare for a cut, you must follow a strict regimen of steps: Determine and set up the saw and blade bes...
