Sometimes when you’re working on a home improvement project you need to throw away the rules and get a little creative. I recently had to do this when I was refinishing my basement and had to frame out a room while still allowing easy access to a drain clean out. I could have just slapped up a closet door, but that would have looked a little weird in the middle of a wall in my basement office, so I decided to try something a little more fun: I made a removable drywall panel and disguised it as a …

One of the best and least expensive ways to lower your utility bills all year round is to replace the manual thermostat in your home with an electronic programmable thermostat. Installing a programmable thermostat is not a difficult home improvement project if you follow the directions for your model of thermostat closely. If you’re not comfortable doing it then most heating and air conditioner repair companies will install it for you at a very reasonable price.

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If you have any sort of forced air system in your home, including a central air conditioner or forced hot air heat, then you almost certainly also have an air filter in that system that needs to be changed fairly regularly. There are actually lots of regular things you should do to maintain your air conditioner, but changing the filters when they are dirty is probably one of the most important.

You can see the clean air …

It was while I was in the middle of framing and insulating my basement that I first found the mysterious leak in my basement. One sunny day I was happily putting up steel framing and when I returned the next rainy day I found a pie-plate sized puddle forming right where the basement foundation and cinder block walls met.

My basement has always been bone dry until I found this leak, which suddenly had me wondering if I should even bother to refinish …