April 12, 2007

This Old House - April 2007 - Review

This Old House Magazine is a consistent purchase. It’s like Maxim or Wired (minus the naked girls and keyboards) in that you can go cover to cover in one sitting, but you can always go back through and find something you missed, some little sidebar or review that’s tucked in the corner of a page. This issue falls in with that general idea and is crammed with information.

With Spring coming, most of the larger articles in this issue deal with the outside elements of the house. One lists out seven ways to upgrade the overall look of your house (use pavers and plants, upgrade your garage doors, etc), while another deals with how to clean a winter’s worth of grime off of your deck. Both articles are useful and worth reading.

Continuing with the outdoor theme, this issue’s weekend project is a raised planting bed. We’ve seen a lot of these and the one they suggest building looks particularly sturdy. They say the project should take about eight hours, but there’s digging involved, so make sure you probe around in the ground a bit before you start, just to make sure you aren’t putting your planting bed on a chunk of bedrock. TNT is not on the provided shopping list.

To us, the most interesting story in the issue is one on how brass hardware is made. The article walks you through the process and covers the basics of each step. Its five pages long and about 80% pictures, so don't worry, it doesn't delve too deep or get too technical.