Author: Kip

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My Favorite Home Improvement Resources

Here are some of the places I go most often to get advice and inspiration for my own home improvement work. I hope to add more soon! I don’t receive any compensation for these...

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Tools for hanging things on walls

Hanging things on walls — we have to do it all the time. Pictures, mirrors, coat racks, bulletin boards, and on and on. It’s a straightforward task with a few simple requirements, namely that...

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Hang your bike from garage joists

Let’s face it: bicycles are a pain to store. They’re long from front to back. They seem narrow from side to side, but they have handlebars and chains and pedals sticking out. They have...

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Composting Basics

We have two large maple trees in the backyard, so late fall means dragging leaves to the curb to be picked up by the city. The last few years, I’ve started using some of...

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Firewood and how to split it

When I bought this house, I had a fireplace for the first time in my life. Fun! And also a whole bunch of new stuff to learn. I’ll save for another post the expensive...

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Landscape edging for flower beds

When it comes to landscape edging, you may think: why bother? You’re not a person obsessed with order, you don’t need everything “just so,” you’ll let the plants grow where they want. It won’t...

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Installing a pre-hung door

When we moved, the doors and trim in our house all had an oak finish. All except for one. For some reason, the main level bathroom door was white. This was a case where...

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Uncovering a buried electrical box

Sometimes home improvement means undoing someone else’s mistake. Recently I found a kind of buried treasure: an electrical box with live wires right where I needed an outlet. It was hidden in plain sight....

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Painting wood paneling

Some former owner of our house loved wood paneling. They paneled virtually every wall of the basement. Let’s not judge — it was the Sixties. Or maybe the Seventies. Could have been the Eighties....

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Shower heads for small spaces

If you have a shower, you probably want a handheld shower head. Back in the day we called this a telephone shower head, but soon no one will understand how the thing resembled a...