- It is true that hiring a professional contractor to complete a home improvement project will cost you more money than a do-it-yourself project, but how do you know when to tackle the job yourself and when to consider a pro? If someone at the local hardware store tells you that the job is simple, how do you know where to begin?
- For each home improvement project you consider, get all the information you can and decide whether you feel up to the challenge, and whether you have the time to start and finish the project without a major delay. Most families are not patient when they are asked to live in a plastic covered, dust filled environment for weeks at a time.
- Any home improvement project requires planning, to be sure you have the right materials and tools, and to ensure you will start at the right place. When you tackle a larger project like a total renovation of a bathroom, you must plan the sequence of tasks, and complete each task in the right order, so you are prepared for the next task(s).
- When you are ready to consider the cost of siding materials, do not be too quick to choose the cheapest. While it may seem like a better idea, the more expensive the siding material, the better quality it is likely to be. If you plan to keep this siding for a number of years, choosing better quality materials is well worth your investment.
- If you are installing a fence that is going to wander up or down a hill, you can have the fence follow the slope of the hill or you can keep the fence level and reduce or increase the height of each post and the sections between so that the fence itself is of varying height but each section is level.
- If you are going to build the deck yourself, you have to design and size the deck to meet existing city, town or county codes in your area and use materials that are competent to handle the load and size of the deck you plan to build. To get your building permit, you really only need a simple drawing with associated dimensions.
- If you decide to build a patio, you may want to go with flagstones. They are fairly easy to lay and you can lay the border first and use that as a guide. Because flagstones are inconsistent in thickness, you will want to find the thickest pieces of stone in your batch to use as the border.
- If you are able to climb a ladder and look at your roof, you can easily see damage to shingles and missing shingles although you will not necessarily see the places where gaps or damage may cause leaks that will allow water into your house. Look for buckling, warping, cupping, dips, missing or loose nails, and loose or missing shingles.
- Roofing cement or tar is used to hold the shingle in place. If you have to fix these shingles, you can repair them by using roofing cement to refresh the adhesive. To take out a shingle or replace one that is damaged, bend back the shingle above the area that requires a new shingle and remove nails and scraps.
- Among the projects you may want to tackle in your kitchen is the replacement or re-facing of your cabinets. If you do nothing else in your kitchen, adding new cabinets or sprucing up your old ones can modernize your kitchen and give it a new look. Wooden cabinets lend a classy touch to your kitchen and can be painted, stained or distressed.
- You can purchase inexpensive, custom cut countertops in composite material and they are perfectly fine to use to update your kitchen to sell your home or just to give your kitchen a new look. Slate, granite and other stone choices are more expensive. Corian and comparable materials come in somewhere in between in terms of price, and are durable and attractive.
- Once have measured and planned your layout for your tile kitchen countertop, you can begin to set the tiles. Do not mix more adhesive than you can use in a half an hour or the adhesive will dry out before it is used. Set the edge tiles first. Apply adhesive along the front of the counter to accommodate the edge tile.
- If your tile did not come with spacing lugs, use plastic spacers to keep the tiles an equal distance apart. After you set a section of tile, clean up mortar that has squeezed between the set tiles, using a putty knife or a pencil. Sponge adhesive from the surface of the tile. If adhesive dries on the tile it will be difficult to remove!
- When you are laying edge tiles, you cannot use a trowel to lay the adhesive. In that case, you will simply put adhesive on the back of each tile and lay it in place. Be sure each piece is laid in place with good contact to the underlayment. Leave the tile to set overnight, or in damp weather, a bit longer.
- Remodeling your bathroom can be a big job. If you intend to install new tubs, shower enclosures, toilets, sinks, tile and wall covering you are in for a lot of work, and you’d better have a spare bathroom for the family to use while this project is in progress! Like kitchen remodeling, bathroom projects can be quite expensive.
- When designing your bathroom, consider that it must be accessible to a young child, and that you may want a wide enough door to accommodate a wheel chair for an elderly person. Think about ceiling height, size of the shower and tub enclosure, and other dimensions so that your bathroom is not too cramped. Doors should open inward, AWAY from fixtures.
- A bathroom tub attachment is typically hidden behind the wall, so you may have to wait to remove the tub until you demolish your walls. Before you start to remove any pipes or wiring, be sure water and electricity is turned off. Disconnect the tub drain tailpiece from the trap and catch the extra water with a bucket.
- Fiberglass and acrylic tub material is lightweight and may scratch easily, but if you want a large tub, you will find larger dimensions in this material. On the other hand, steel tubs are noisy when you fill them and the heat from the hot water you run will dissipate quickly. They are not expensive, but you have limited choices.
- Building codes will require that you insulate exterior walls and protect them with a vapor barrier. It is common to use fiberglass insulation because it is easy to work with it. A four or six mil clear plastic vapor is typical. Staple the vapor barrier covering to the wall and ceiling framing, and tape holes or tears in the barrier.
- The gravity flush toilet uses water held in the tank to flush through the system and remove waste. The pressure flush toilet injects water into the bowl and flushes quickly using pressurized water. Pressure flush toilets have a lot of power, but they are noisy, and some require and use a lot more water than the old gravity models.
- If your toilet does not complete the flush cycle, you may have a flopping flapper valve! Adjust the chain on the valve one link at a time until you find the right level. If your toilet makes a strange whistling noise when the tank is filling, you should get a new fill valve (new models do not close as slowly as the old ones).
- Buy a voltage tester to determine whether a circuit is live or whether it is turned off. These testers light up if the circuit is live. When you troubleshoot a problem, turn off the circuit before you do anything. To check the screw terminals to be sure connections are not loose; remove the cover plate on the plug you are working on.
- Overloading a circuit with too many appliances may cause a circuit breaker to ‘trip’. A tripped breaker appears to between the ON and OFF positions or sometimes (on older boxes) it will appear to be ‘OFF’. To reset your breaker after you have resolved the overload or other problem, simply turn it the off position, and then turn it on again.
- If you are considering replacement windows, vinyl windows are popular. They don’t require much maintenance, don’t have to be scraped, painted or replaced and are easier to open in high humidity. You can get custom sizes which means that you do not have to change the size of the opening in the exterior wall of your home to accommodate a new window.
- When you shop for windows, look at the ‘U value’ of the window (the metric of heat loss and heat gain) and try to find the lowest U value. You don’t need the most expensive windows on the market. But there is a range of quality in windows, so be sure to talk to your supplier about the window quality and life span.
- Replacing a door can be a frustrating process, but once you tackle the job for the first time, you will find it easy to do. You will take the door off the hinges, you will remove the trim or casing on both sides of the door, remove the nails that hold the jambs in place, and the ‘threshold plate’ or door sill.
- When the door is fitted and measured for the jams, you can mark the hinge installation points. Most doors have three hinges, though a security door may have more hinges. To mark the spots where you will install the hinges, start from the top. Mark 7” from the top of the door to the top of the uppermost hinge.
- If a door sticks on the hinge side, at the top near the top hinge, shim the top hinge and tighten the bottom hinge. Reverse the technique if it sticks at the bottom. If the door sticks at the top on the knob side, tighten the top hinge and shim the bottom hinge. Reverse the technique if it sticks at the bottom.
- If you own an older home, you may have to repair cracked plaster in your walls. To repair these cracks you have to first tape over the cracks with paper or mesh tape. Just filling the cracks will not work because as the wood in your walls shrinks and grows with humidity and temperature changes, so does the plaster shift and crack.
- Before you begin to hang wallpaper, you should be sure your walls are clean and smooth. Strip old paper and sand the walls if necessary. Fill cracks and holes in the walls. If you are putting up paper in a newly renovated room with fresh drywall, put a primer (sealer) on the walls (using the same base color as the paper).
