A stocking holder earns its keep twice each December. It keeps a loaded stocking off the floor and turns a plain mantel into a holiday display, and because the piece comes down with the decorations, it has to survive years of seasonal handling. Homemade holders beat store-bought hooks on three counts: you set the size […]
An old mirror with a tired frame does not have to be replaced. Spray paint can take it from dated to fresh in a single afternoon, and the whole project costs about ten dollars in materials plus an hour of working time. You can refresh a mirror you already own, hunt a thrift store for
An old mirror with a tired frame does not have to be replaced. Spray paint can take it from dated to fresh in a single afternoon, and the whole project costs about ten dollars in materials plus an hour of working time. You can refresh a mirror you already own, hunt a thrift store for
An old mirror with a tired frame does not have to be replaced. Spray paint can take it from dated to fresh in a single afternoon, and the whole project costs about ten dollars in materials plus an hour of working time. You can refresh a mirror you already own, hunt a thrift store for
Walk through a room when the light rakes low across the wall and you will see them: small circles where nail heads push through the paint, often cracked in a ring around each bump. These are nail pops, the most common cosmetic flaw in drywall that was hung with nails instead of screws. They rarely
Cleaning gutters protects your home and foundation from expensive water damage by keeping water flowing from the roof to the ground and away from the house. The standard approach uses a ladder and some time, but climbing is a real obstacle for many homeowners, especially on two-story houses. Falls from ladders send thousands of people
Clothes dryers are simple machines. They use a fuel source to heat air and a motor and fan to blow it through the drum, and when something stops working, the failure is usually one of a handful of parts. Before you dial a repair service, know that you can fix a surprising number of small
Super glue, the common name for cyanoacrylate adhesive, cures in seconds and grips nearly any surface, which makes it a favorite for quick repairs and a headache when it lands where it does not belong. Plastic is the surface most likely to suffer, because the same chemistry that locks the bond into place also resists
Food splatters inside a microwave turn into hard, baked-on crust the longer they sit, because every reheating cycle cooks the mess again. That crust traps odors, and a heavy buildup can even slow the appliance down by forcing it to work around a dirty interior. The fix does not require caustic sprays: lemon, baking soda,
The internet is full of conflicting advice about combining bedding and bath linens in one load. The practical answer is yes: sheets and towels can be washed together with good results, as long as you sort by fabric type and color first. Combining them is better than letting either pile sit unwashed, because a full
