Olivia Harvey is a freelance writer and award-winning scriptwriter from outside Boston, Massachusetts. She’s a big fan of scented candles, getting dressed up, and the 2005 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightley. You can make sure she’s doing okay via Instagram and/or Twitter.
Arielle Tschinkel is a freelance pop culture and lifestyle writer whose work has appeared on Shape.com, WomansWorld.com, FirstforWomen.com, Insider, HelloGiggles, and more. She loves all things Disney and is making her way to every park around the world, and is a die-hard Britney Spears fan for life. She’s also obsessed with her Bernedoodle, Bruce Wayne.
In Hour 1, hear our suggestions for matching wood posts to vinyl, cleaning old wallpaper, and more.
Doug May has a great view of the Blue Ridge Mountains on his covered back porch. But, the view of his porch isn’t as pleasing.
“The upper part has vinyl sleeves over the top of the posts. Everything’s covered and it’s nice and smooth and white. But down below, it’s just pressure-treated wood, with all the cracks and gaps,” Doug says.
He wants the wooden support posts on the ground to match the white vinyl posts on the porch above. What’s stopping him from covering the wood posts with vinyl is the diagonal wood braces. He’s worried about the hassle of connecting the many vinyl pieces on the diagonals and sealing them.
“What I want is the smooth look and feel of the vinyl on the posts below. Is there a way to do that?” Doug asks.
Vinyl sleeves are expensive! If you want the posts to match, try this budget-friendly option:
First, clean the wood posts and apply a coat of primer.
Then, use auto body filler (like Bondo) to skim out the cracks. Once that dries, lightly sand the posts.
Then, caulk the areas where the diagonal braces meet the vertical posts.
Finally, apply two coats of acrylic latex paint.
Once you do this, no one will know one set of posts is vinyl and the other set isn’t! The acrylic paint will give it a glossy look and seal the joints.
If you decide you want to cover the posts with vinyl, remove one post at a time, including the diagonal supports, and attach the vinyl sleeves to each piece.
Miter cut the ends of the sleeves to fit the diagonal brace posts, and thoroughly caulk each seam so water doesn’t get in.
Don’t caulk the bottom of the diagonal brace pieces where the wood meets the post. If water were to get inside the vinyl, you want it to be able to drain out and dry.
Sandi Knollenburg bought a 100-year-old farmhouse in Bloomington, Ill., five years ago, and she’s been renovating it little by little.
Right now, she’s working on the stairwell area. The walls that extend from the first floor to the second are covered in wallpaper from the 1960s. She loves the pattern, and the wallpaper is still in pretty good shape! All it needs is a good cleaning.
She asks, “What’s the best way to clean and preserve the wallpaper?”
Most modern wallpapers have an acrylic or latex coating that makes them washable and, in some cases, scrubbable. Older wallpaper is just plain paper, so you don’t want to get it wet. If you do, it will peel off the wall.
Try these options to remove the dirt and dust:
To remove skids and scuffs, use a gum eraser. You can buy these at an art supply store. Another option is a dry Magic Eraser. If that doesn’t work, lightly dampen it.
In Hour 2, learn how to prevent wood rot in a shower window, remove sediment from water, and more.
A caller needs advice on tiling around a window in his shower. The wood frame sticks out slightly, so he can’t tile over it.
“What do you do to treat that to make it so that the water is not damaging that wood and causing wood rot, and more importantly that water is not getting behind that and causing damage to the shower?” he asks.
A lot of older houses have this problem. Typically, at one point in time, the bathroom had just a tub with a window above it. Then somewhere along the way, a shower was installed.
I’ve seen a lot of homeowners put a shower curtain over the window but rarely does that last long.
To protect the wood frame from water damage, encapsulate the window frame with the tile.
Before you lay the tile, be sure to caulk and paint the frame. Bring the tile up to the wood and then overlap extra tile over the window frame. This will protect the frame from the water and give it a nice, pronounced look.
If water can still hit it directly, install a waterproof window.
To completely eliminate any chance of rood rot, remove the window and replace it with a vinyl one.
Pablo Sandoval in Willow Creek, Calif., is sick of sediment in his water. His home draws water from a deep well and all wastewater flows into a septic tank.
“For most of the year, the water supply is good, but every summer we have a problem with sediment that clogs aerators at sinks and showerheads. Plus, the washing machine takes forever to fill with water. What can we do to alleviate these issues?” he asks.
Sediment problems are more frequent in the summer because water levels are usually lower. There’s less water but the same amount of sediment in the system, so it finds its way to the pump and into your house.
You’ll need to have a well water contractor take a look at your pump. You might need a new screening.
Also, here are two options to consider:
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If your home’s primary entrance is in the garage, then you’ll want Chamberlain’s new garage door opener with an integrated camera. Learn More >> |
Improved Soap Dispenser — Kitchen-sink soap dispensers hold such a small amount of liquid soap that it requires you to constantly refill the reservoir bottle. Here’s a better option:
Now you’ll never have to refill the dispenser; simply replace the soap jug once it’s empty.
Watch: Soap Dispenser Filling Tip
Smooth Cut in Vinyl Siding — When using a hole saw to drill through vinyl siding, run the drill in reverse. That way, the hole saw will create a nice clean hole with no rough edges.
Once you cut through the siding, switch the drill to forward and bore through the wall sheathing.
If you have a comment, general question about home improvement, or something we’ve featured on Today’s Homeowner, please fill in this form:
Backyard gardening can improve your mental health with minimal effort on your part.
Join landscape designer and Done-In-A-Weekend Projects host Doug Scott to learn how.
This post is sponsored by Exmark.
The positive impacts of gardening are almost endless, especially when it comes to our mental and physical health. These benefits fall into two main categories: “active” and “passive.”
Active benefits are all about getting to work and doing something in your garden, helping you clear your mind while getting your hands dirty. Gardening, and similar physical activity outside, does your body wonders.
Studies show spending more time outdoors leads to fewer long-term health problems, according to the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. These benefits include improved heart health, flexibility, strength, and dexterity — all leading to better mental health.
Contrarily, backyard gardening’s passive benefits are about simply being in nature or outdoor space. It provides a positive distraction from stresses in your life.
Many studies show just being in nature has a positive impact on our stress levels and brain chemistry, according to the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley.
Backyard gardening also helps you “feel alive,” letting you take your mind off work while giving you a new sense of purpose outside of the daily grind.
The goal of backyard gardening is to create a yard and garden that reflect how you want to live outside. Doug recommends designing your mental health garden according to your five senses.
When designing a garden, create “rooms” connected by meandering paths that let you get away from it all. These rooms provide mini spaces that you can retreat to, so you can rest, unwind, and feel restored.
However, your outdoor spaces don’t always need to be quiet and sedentary. If you enjoy being outside with others, creating gathering spaces in your yard is a great idea. And, if you have an outdoor hobby like exercising, painting, or writing, you can create spaces to do just that.
You shouldn’t get ahead of yourself and start creating a ginormous garden right off the bat. Start small, simple, and stress-free, and grow your garden out from there. Pick easy-to-grow plants that require little maintenance or start a simple vegetable garden in a raised bed.
So, start backyard gardening today — your mental health will be better off because of it.
Looking for more tips to breathe new life into your outdoor spaces? Check out Exmark’s Done-In-A-Weekend project series, featuring simple, budget-friendly DIY projects.
In Hour 1 of the Today’s Homeowner Radio Podcast, we’re offering solutions for fixing patchy grass, advice on installing a new window and more.
Tim Kehoe is stumped by what’s causing the brown patches on his lawn.
In the 30 years that he’s lived in northern Wisconsin, he’s weeded, seeded and fertilized his lawn diligently. But, about five or six years ago, brown spots began to appear throughout his acre of lawn. And a drought last year only exacerbated the problem.
Now, he says, about 40 percent of his lawn is covered in dead spots that are an inch and a half deep. What can he do to get his green grass back?
Brown patchy spots on a lawn can appear for a number of reasons. We suspect a combination of fungal disease and dry weather conditions is the cause of his brown patches.
It’s also worth mentioning that when he’s seeded his yard in the past, Tim didn’t use the same type of grass seed throughout. So, because there are mixed types of grass, some might be more resilient to drought and diseases than others, which might be why not all of the grass is dying.
The only way to know for sure if a fungal disease is causing the brown patches is to send a soil sample to a lawn professional or a local extension office.
Once you get the results, you can treat the lawn properly and begin replenishing the grass. Your options include reseeding, transplanting sod or planting sod plugs. Go with a creeping type of grass, like Bermuda or St. Augustine, so it will spread to cover the bare spots.
For an in-depth look at lawn fungal diseases, read “How to Deal With Grass Fungal Diseases on Your Lawn.”
Mildred Smith’s husband plans to replace a window with a new vinyl one that’s the same size. However, he’s not sure how to get the old window out of the opening in the wall.
“This is his first major DIY project — and I’m hoping he doesn’t mess it up. Do you have any tips to share?” she asks.
The most important thing to do is get the correct measurements for the window. The last thing you want is to have a new window that’s too big or small for the existing hole.
Also, get some extra wood for framing adjustments. A few 2-by-4 or 1-by-4 boards will come in handy.
When taking out the old window, carefully remove all the trim so you can reuse it. If you can see where the nails are, use a nail punch to push them through the trim. Doing this helps to keep the trim from splitting.
Now’s the time to make sure the window is properly sealed and insulated. Once the new window is in place, spray in some window and door expandable foam around the perimeter. Don’t use standard expanding foam because it can expand too much and make the window bow.
If the framing allows it, pack in some extra insulation as well. Anything you can do to insulate around the window will make a big difference in your heating and cooling costs.
Next, apply a window membrane to the frame. This peel-and-stick material provides a waterproof barrier between the window and the trim.
In Hour 2, learn how to remove rust from a steel roof, keep squirrels away from bird feeders and more.
A caller tells us some of the panels on his six-year-old steel roof are starting to rust. He asks what can he do to remove the rust and prevent it from coming back.
The majority of metal roofs are set up to last 50 years, so you shouldn’t have any rust this early on. The rust could be a result of something scratching the paint and exposing the metal.
Always check with the manufacturer’s recommendation before trying to remove rust yourself. Most roofing manufacturers recommend oxalic acid to remove rust from metal roofs. Here’s how to do it:
You can also use a pre-mixed solution like Evapo-Rust Safe Rust Remover.
Once the rust is gone, prime and paint the metal roof according to the manufacturer’s recommendations to prevent it from returning.
When working on a roof, always follow the proper safety precautions. Only work in good weather conditions, wear non-slip boots to prevent falls and always use a ladder safely.
Tired of squirrels stealing your bird food? Here are some options to stop squirrels from raiding your bird feeder, so you can get back to bird watching.
If the squirrels are climbing up a pole, mix cayenne pepper and vaseline and coat the pole. The cayenne pepper’s strong, spicy odor will discourage the squirrels. Plus, the slippery vaseline will make it harder for the squirrels to climb the pole.
Another option for pole bird feeders is to install a baffle to prevent rodents from climbing the pole, and place feeders where rodents can’t get to them.
If you have a hanging bird feeder, place a dome over it. The squirrels can still slide down the wire, but the dome will block them from reaching the bird food.
If all else fails, offer the squirrels a decoy. Put out a second feeder with nuts or corn just for squirrels that’s easy for them to reach. By doing this, you can have the best of both worlds — watching the antics of squirrels while still being able to enjoy the birds at the same time.
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Bar-Clamp Assembly Tip — When you need an extra hand to hold a workpiece in place, reach for a couple of bar clamps.
Simply tighten one clamp onto the bottom, end of the piece, making sure the bars of the clamps face in opposite direction.
The clamps will hold the piece upright, freeing your hands to continue with the assembly.
Watch: How to Use Bar Clamps to Steady Woodworking Projects
Spade-Bit Planting Tool — Here’s a quick, easy way to plant small bulbs and seedlings.
Use an extended-length spade bit, which is 16 in. long, and a cordless drill to bore planting holes into the soil.
And if you hit a root, the spade bit will bore right through it.