Our pals over at Extreme How-To have a great article on how to remodel your attic space. Writer Mark Clement takes you through the entire process from design to painting, giving a solid overview of each phase (and its complications). Although the project is an attic, most of the information is transferable to any remodeling job, and therefore, the article is useful to just about anyone getting involved in a medium-sized home improvement project. Everything from dealing with an ancient, uneven floor to trimming out skylights is covered. There is also an overview of the major tools used in the project.
A clean chimney is important (ever heard the sound of a chimney fire?) and if you've got a manageable roof, there's no reason why you can't do the cleaning yourself. It's easy, relatively quick, and you can get all of the equipment you need for about $75 dollars.
Of course, if you've got a steep roof, don't do it yourself. Hire a professional; he knows how to get up there and how to not kill himself. We repeat. If you're not comfortable on your roof, DO NOT TRY TO CLEAN YOUR OWN CHIMNEY.
We've assembled a few articles that can give you some help with this yearly clean-out.
We're going to be doing some tiling next week, so we figured we'd hop on the internet to see if we could find any good advice on how to handle the initial layout. Well, as expected, there's a lot of information out there and we sifted through it and now we're passing on the three best articles we found on the subject.
Extreme How-To - This article is great for floor layout. It doesn't go into great detail on how to deal with oddly shaped areas like under cabinet backsplashes, but if you're going to do a nice wide open space, it would be worth your time to read it. Article here.
Doityourself.com - This is a nice article on how to layout a shower/tub surround. It's pretty basic, but it's a nice place to start. Article here.
FloorsTransformed - We think this one is the most helpful. Not only are the written instructions, detailed and clear, but there are nice diagrams mixed in as well. It covers counter tops, tubs/showers, and backsplashes. In fact, it takes the method that Extreme How-To used and applies it directly to backsplashes. Article here.
A while ago, we posted up a video showing how to cut a circle with a table saw. Well, reader Joe went and tested it out and from the picture he sent us, it looks like he had great success. The end result is way better than anything we've ever seen with a jigsaw.
This is a new one to us. It's a video from youtube of a guy cutting a circle with a table saw. He does it pretty quickly; faster, in fact, than it would take with a jigsaw, and the result is pretty good. Might be worth a try over the weekend if you've got nothing better to do.
There’s a good chance that you’re paying too much to cool and heat your house. In fact, we’d wager 100-1 that your house isn’t as tight as you think it is and that a lot of your precious (and expensive) AC is slipping out through little cracks around your windows, doors and probably up through your attic too.
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy has a great guide to home energy savings. The article talks about the option of getting an energy audit and it mentions the following places as likely candidates for leaks:
Home Depot has 24 projects for your backyard ranging from the commonplace (storage bench) to the truly bizarre (10’ square lawn checkerboard). The projects are separated into three categories; play, entertain, and retreat and are mostly one weekend affairs, with the notable exception of the putting green. We’re pretty impressed that Home Depot chose such a strange selection of projects and really hope that somewhere out there someone is in the first stages of building an outdoor puppet theater.
If someone asked you to describe how your nail gun works, what would you say? Probably something along the lines of, “you see, there’s air that, like, comes in this hose and it’s under a lot of pressure and it, like, pushes the nail out, right?” Well, thanks to Tom Harris over at howstuffworks.com, those days of sounding like a boob are over. Harris is the author of a fascinating article called, How Nail Guns Work.
The article covers a wide variety of nail guns including pneumatic, electric, and combustion. For each type of gun, Harris gives an overall description of how it fires and then a step by step breakdown of what exactly happens when the trigger is pulled. Each description is accompanied by a cool little interactive schematic where you can fire the gun by clicking on the trigger. It’s pretty captivating, even if it does have that “children’s museum” feel to it.
It’s a good article and worth at least a few moments of your time. Read it here.
Is your workshop a total mess? If it is, it’s probably not built around a thought out plan, but rather it has formed itself out of convenience; as things come in, you sweep off a counter and find a place for it and that’s where it stays for all eternity. Yup, we’ve been there and let us tell you that it’s worth spending a weekend thinking through how you really use the space and how to maximize it, tailoring it to specifically to your needs.
In that spirit, we found this extremist over at instructables.com who went so far as to make little scale (1/4” to 1 foot) models of his tools. This gave him the freedom to move them all around his little workshop diorama with practically no effort. He could do in moments what would normally take an entire afternoon of exhausting labor. Imagine shuffling a drill press from one side of your shop to the other only to find that it gets in the way of the tablesaw outfeed.
If you’re thinking about painting your house this summer, then you should know by now that the first step is somehow cleaning it. There is no faster or easier way to do this than with a pressure washer. But pressure washers are powerful tools and if you’re not careful, you’ll end up with half of your shingles in your neighbor’s yard wondering how you managed to get your bedroom floor wet. That’s why we recommend you read The Art of Pressure Washing, brought to us by the good people at Fine Homebuilding.
We ran across this interesting article at ehow.com and think it's worth reading for anyone who owns a home. It deals with how to make your front entrance safer from intruders and it offers some sound advice on the subject. First, they suggest installing a deadbolt. This is pretty much a no-brainer and if you don't already have a deadbolt, it's just a matter of time before that new flatscreen comes up missing. Other tips include changing out your hinge screws with longer ones (3 inches or more), and replacing your strikeplate with a larger one. Once you've done that, you'll need a SWAT team to kick down the front door.
The article also includes advice on how to lessen the chance of break in of you go on vacation (stop regular deliveries, have a neighbor park in your driveway).
Don’t laugh. We’re always surprised when we see what people do when they swing hammers. Even many carpenters hold the hammer in the wrong place or swing it the wrong way. If you use a hammer a lot, doing it incorrectly can put a big strain on your body, slow down your work, and with dents all over the coffee table you just made, it can cause a lot of frustration. We found a few articles on the subject; here, here, and here. But, essentially, they all say the same things:
Hold the hammer in middle of the grip. Don’t choke up on the head.
Swing from the elbow, not the wrist. This is probably the most important part.
When the hammer connects with the nail, make sure that the face of the hammer is parallel with the head of the nail. If it’s not, you’re going to end up straightening a lot of nails.
Let the weight of the hammer do the majority of the work.
If you're still having trouble with these concepts, check out Ed the Handyman.
How-To Remodel Your Attic Space
Continue reading: 
We ran across this 
Newsletter
Subscribe - RSS
Duo-Fast 903000 Cordless 20 Degree Framing Nailer - Review
