DIY

The most common instruction in any window treatment forum is also the least useful: "just mount the blinds outside the frame." It sounds simple.

The common diagnosis for a sticky door is wrong more often than people think.

Hollow drywall is the reason most shelf brackets fail, and the fix is so simple that it borders on insulting.

Stud finders have become a reliable joke in the DIY world, and the punchline is usually a fist-sized hole in the drywall.

Thinset gets treated like an afterthought, the stuff that happens between the interesting parts of a tiling job.

The plumbing aisle at any hardware store sells a tool called a shower wrench, and it is one of the most dishonest products in the building.

The wiring is the part of an under cabinet lighting job that sends most homeowners running back to the hardware store for a different fixture. Picking the light itself is easy.

The moment arrives at the kitchen sink, usually during the morning rush.

There is a moment in every kitchen renovation when the homeowner realizes the drawers are the problem.

The draft coming off the bottom of a window frame is a specific kind of cold. It is not the ambient chill of an unheated room.