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New home improvement articles, more before and after photos, and more tutorial videos!

Yearly Archives: 2009

Cheap and Easy Way To Store Your Christmas Lights

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christmas-light-storage1

The sales and marketing of Christmas lights and decorations is only superseded by the even larger sales and marketing of wild and clever plastic containers and gadgets that are meant to be used for the storing Christmas lights and decorations. I’ve tried several different clever containers and methods for storing my Christmas lights from...
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Make Your Own Simple Christmas Tree Watering System

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Christmas Tree Watering System

Like a lot of people right now, I have a cut live Christmas tree in my living room right now. It’s decorated and covered with lights and I have a nice little tree skirt and the whole things looks green and great for the moment, though I know that if I don’t water it...
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Gift Ideas for the Home Improvement Enthusiast

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Gift Ideas for the Home Improvement Enthusiast

Trying to find gifts for the man or woman who enjoys doing a lot of his or her own home improvement projects can be challenging. Home improvement can be a very creative endeavor at times (painting, landscaping, planning your next project) and also very exacting and mechanical in nature (electrical work, plumbing, refinishing furniture)....
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How To Remove A Stuck Shower Knob or Faucet Handle

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Special Valve Wrench for removing shower knobs

Over the past couple years I’ve removed and replaced every shower knob and bathroom and kitchen faucet in my 50 year old home. I’m not a plumber but I’ve watched and learned from some professional plumbers and I’ve done just enough basic plumbing work around my house that I’m beginning to get a feel...
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Things To Remember When Buying LED Christmas Lights

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Christmas Light Trade In

The Christmas shopping season has begun early this year in most stores, and that can especially be seen in the larger chain stores. Home improvement stores are usually aiming for two holiday markets: the person shopping for that perfect holiday gift as well as the homeowner who is looking for new decorations to be...
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House Numbers Plaque Review

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House Numbers Plaque Review

This summer my wife and I spent a fair amount of time and energy on increasing the “curb appeal” of our home and the last official exterior home improvement we’re performed this year was purchasing one of those fancy new metal house number plaques! Our old house numbers sign before we painted our house....
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Wagner TurboRoll Power Paint Roller Review

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Wagner TurboRoll Power Paint Roller Review

After putting up the drywall and finishing the walls in my basement room it was finally time to apply some primer and paint. I was going to just use a regular paint roller, but I had a unique chance to try out the new Wagner TurboRoll Power Paint Roller and I’m glad I did....
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How To Get Rid of a Drywall Tape Bubble

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How To Get Rid of a Drywall Tape Bubble

After refinishing most of the drywall in my basement remodeling project I decided to try to tackle two little areas of drywall where my drywall tape had “bubbled up”. There was actually a layer or two of dried joint compound over these two spots, but they had popped out from the wall a little...
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Control Carpenter Bees With Copper Mesh

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Control Carpenter Bees With Copper Mesh

Carpenter bees are large bees that are often mistaken for bumble bees and are known for their destructive and annoying habit of burrowing into dead wood. For homeowners around the world this means that any piece of exposed wood on the outside of home could become riddled with small almost bullet-like holes that serve...
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How To Finish Drywall With Joint Compound

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How To Finish Drywall With Joint Compound

After I had put up the drywall in my basement refinishing project it was time for me to finish my walls with joint compound and tape and make them nice and smooth. I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t an expert in joint compound when I started this, and I’m certainly no...
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Making Sidewalk Art With A Power Washer

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Making Sidewalk Art With A Power Washer

Today’s consumer power washers are good cleaning tools but you can also have some fun with them and add a decorative flair to your home. Just about any type of small to medium pressure washer should work for this project, no matter how low the psi might be. With a little imagination and creativity...
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How To Hang Drywall – A Beginner’s Guide

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How To Hang Drywall – A Beginner’s Guide

Like many home improvement projects, hanging drywall is one half art, one half science and one half luck. I learned this first-hand as I completed hanging the drywall in my first real full room renovation. I’ve mentioned before that I’m refinishing a room in my basement that was framed out and paneled years ago....
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10 Cool Ways To Find Wood and Metal Studs in Walls

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Ways To Find Wall Studs

Having trouble finding a stud in a wall is an almost universally shared problem that most homeowners have experienced more than once. Even people who don’t have any idea how houses are built know that to hang something really heavy you almost always need to screw or nail into a stud and not just...
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Paint Your House With These House Painting Tips

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Paint Your House With These House Painting Tips

One of the many outdoor home improvement projects I’ve completed this summer is a complete painting of a my home’s exterior. If you hire a professional house painting company you can easily spend between $2,000 to $5,000 for a general paint job, depending on the size of your home and the complexity involved. There...
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Improving the Cooling Power of Your Central Air Conditioner

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Improving the Cooling Power of Your Central Air Conditioner

Now that we’re into some of the hottest days of the summer those of you with central air conditioners might be finding that on the really hot days your home isn’t staying as cool as it once did. Maybe you’re even finding that your central AC isn’t able to keep up with a stretch...
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The Home Depot’s Home Improver Club

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The Home Depot’s Home Improver Club

The Home Depot is offering a new online home improvement service for DIYers called the Home Improver Club. It’s a free service and it seems to be alternative to the Lowes Creative Ideas, Garden Club and Woodpost magazines. You can sign up at the Home Improver Club website and it’s being advertised as “an...
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How to Remove Carpet Tack Strips and Staples

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How to Remove Carpet Tack Strips and Staples

If you have a home that’s a few decades old and has had multiple owners then there’s a pretty good chance that you have at least one or two rooms that have hardwood floors that have been covered with wall-to-wall carpeting by previous owners trying to save some money on flooring costs. Wall-to-wall carpets...
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Stop Wasting Water By Fixing These Common Bathroom Leaks

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Stop Wasting Water By Fixing These Common Bathroom Leaks

If you want to help the environment by saving water and save yourself some money then you should consider checking all your bathroom fixtures for leaks. If they do leak then you’ll want to repair those leaks as quickly as possible. This is one home improvement project that just about anyone can get a...
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Do-It-Yourself Gutters: Vinyl vs. Aluminum

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Do-It-Yourself Gutters: Vinyl vs. Aluminum

One of my home improvement projects this summer is to paint my house and while I’m doing that I figured I would also replace the old aluminum gutters that I currently have installed on my home. Gutters are an essential part of most roofing systems because they collect all the rain that hits the...
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How To Spread Mulch

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online-mulch[1]

I’ve been spending the last couple weekends creating some new landscaping around my house and one of the projects I’m dedicated to doing this year is properly mulching my flower beds and trees. In the past I’ve tried other forms of weed control like putting down plastic and even some fancy chemicals, but I’m...
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How To Replace Lawn Mower Blades

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mowerbladefeature

As part of any lawn mower’s regular maintenance and care, you should sharpen or replace a lawn mower’s blades once or twice every season or so, depending upon how much you use your mower. A sharp mower blade cuts your lawn cleaner while a dull blade can actually “rip” and pull at your grass,...
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Planting Grass Seed In the Rain

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Planting Grass Seed In the Rain

Yes, you can plant grass seed in the rain! As I’ve alluded to before, I’m a big supporter of laying down grass seed when it’s raining or about to rain. Whether you’re simply over seeding your lawn for the year or you’re filling in some bare spots in your lawn, I think rainy days...
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Scotts EZ Seed Coupon and Preview

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Scotts EZ Seed Coupon and Preview

One of the newest ideas in lawn improvement over the last couple years has been to create a simple product that includes everything all in one package: soil, grass seed and fertilizer. Scotts EZ Seed is now available from Amazon.com! The latest entry into the “all-in-one” market is Scotts Turf Builder EZ Seed mix....
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How To Hide TV Wires In Your Wall

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Cable wall plates

I’ve shown you ways to completely hide your flat screen TV, but a lot of people aren’t interested in hiding their entire TV as much as they want to hide the television wires, cords and cables. The easiest and fastest way to get your TV cords out of sight in most cases is to...
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Cheap Daily Tool and Hardware Sale Websites

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Daily Tool Deals

If you enjoy working on home improvement projects like I do, then you probably like tools. I generally buy tools based on the jobs I have to accomplish, but sometimes I pick up a little tool here and there because it either looks pretty darn cool or I really want to find home improvement...
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When Is The Best Time To Plant Grass Seed?

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When Is The Best Time To Plant Grass Seed?

A lot of people believe that they are destined to have an ugly lawn with bald patches just because they missed one grass growing season or some magical period of time in which to plant grass. Sure, lots of people claim there is an exact window of time when you can plant grass and...
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Home Improvement Tax Deductions and Credits

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Home Improvement Tax Deductions

A lot of people wonder if the home improvements and home repairs they perform on their house over a year are tax deductible or eligible for any money back on income taxes at the end of the year. Most people know that many of the home improvements which improve the energy efficiency of your...
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Toilet Keeps Running? Replace the Flapper!

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Replacing a toilet flapper is fairly easy.

If the water in your toilet is running intermittently or if it sounds like the water in your toilet won’t stop running, then the most obvious cause is almost always the toilet flapper. I had this happen to me recently and thought I’d explain how I fixed it. The more a toilet runs when...
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How To Replace and Install Wall Lights

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How To Replace and Install Wall Lights

I’ve been doing a lot of home improvement projects around my main bathroom lately and most of the work has been DIY plumbing projects, but this time I thought I’d show you how I took out an old dated bathroom light and installed a new light fixture on the wall. The process is relatively...
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Spring Fever Means Home Improvements For Me

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It’s the first full weekend of warm weather we’ve had here in New Jersey since about October, and my thoughts are already racing with about a hundred home improvement projects I’d like to get done around the house. On Monday people were sledding on the roads and shoveling their cars out from 10 inches...
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A Unique and Free Home Improvement Contractor Matching Service – ProjectTurtle!

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A Unique and Free Home Improvement Contractor Matching Service – ProjectTurtle!

There’s a new free web service available that aims to make the processing of finding a home improvement contractor a much more simple procedure than it’s been in the past. Most homeowners looking for a home improvement contractor follow the same pattern: they call around to the various contractors and describe the project they...
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Hiding TV Wires Outside Your Walls

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Hiding TV Wires Outside Your Walls

As flat screen televisions have become more popular, so have the innovative ways of hanging and mounting them. Years ago TV sets were so large and heavy they could only sit on the floor or on specially designed media centers, but today’s flat screen televisions, while being large, are also much thinner and lighter...
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Why A Pressure Treated Wood Fence is Worth The Money

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Pressure Treated Fence Advantage

I accidentally learned a valuable lesson about choosing to use pressure treated wood fence in my yard. If you remember, it was about seven months ago that I put up a new wood fence around my yard. In case you’re unfamiliar with buying wood or lumber for home improvement projects, let me quickly explain...
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Is Your Smoke Detector Beeping and Chirping with New Batteries?

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A beeping smoke detector may need replacing.

A constantly beeping smoke detector outside my bedroom recently taught me a little bit about battery-operated smoke detectors that I didn’t realize: In addition to replacing the smoke detector batteries every six months or so, you should also consider replacing the entire smoke detector every so often. This battery powered voice smoke detector is...
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How To Replace a Shower Diverter Valve

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How To Replace a Shower Diverter Valve

I have a combination bathtub and shower and over the past three months or so I noticed that whenever I turned the knob to “shower” I still had a fair amount of water coming out of the tub faucet. Basically, water was leaking from the shower valve and coming out my tub faucet. My...
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My Basement Remodeling Plan

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My Basement Remodeling Plan

My big home improvement project for this year will be the start of a large basement remodeling project. I’m going to start with a partially finished room we already have in the basement and then slowly expand the finishing to other parts of my basement that are currently concrete and cinder blocks. I’ve never...
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