Categories » Lifestyle » SHOPPING » DIY Do It Yourself Stores 

Photograph of DIY Do It Yourself stores

Looking for DIY stores in your area? Searching for timber, sheet materials, sand, cement, admixtures, hammers, drills, screws, nails, fixings, shelves, lighting, wallpaper, paint, glue, plants? Then look in here. Do It Yourself. Rather than purchasing an item ready-made, or having a custom item made by someone else, the DIY project involves assembling and/or constructing something from parts and materials purchased, collected, and/or fashioned by the hobbyist.

Why not click on one of the companies listed above?

Are you a builder? Do you work in the DIY, home improvement or home repair industry? Then add your website for free to our directory.

Article: 25 helpful household tips

An informative and helpful list of household tips that help clean toothpaste off the wall, keeps the mirrors from steaming up in the bathroom, and takes kitty odor away.

Helpful household tips can be used to full advantage when working on anything from menial tasks to tasks that require a little elbow grease. The following household tips will help with everything from personal hygiene to keeping infestations to a minimum. Remember, a little soap and water go a long way!

1. Apply a top coat of shaving creme to the bathroom mirror. This practice keeps mirrors from steaming up.

2. Applying mud to a bee sting will take away the sting, as well as the stinger.

3. Use fabric sheets to pick up that unslightly dust on the TV, end tables and other areas.

4. A cup of vinegar goes a long way to reduce tangles and keep your hair soft and shiny. Apply as a final rinse.

5. Another good hair rinse and hair lightener is lemon juice. Again, use the lemon juice as a last rinse, then stand in sun for a sun-kissed look.

6. Toothpaste applied to a wet washcloth is a good ink remover, especially on walls and wallpaper. But, be careful with wallpaper. It will still work, but don’t press too hard or you’ll rub the wallpaper finish off, as well.

7. When reheating a slice of pizza, run the bottom under the faucet. The water will cause a small amount of steam in the microwave which will keep the crust from becoming hard and brittle.

8. Dip hands in bleach to get out ground in garden stains or vegetable and fruit stains caused when peeling fruits and vegetables for home preserves.

9. Baking soda dumped into carpets takes out odor. The recommended method is to sprinkle the baking soda thoroughly throughout the carpets, leave for several minutes, and remove with a carpet sweeper.

10. Sprinkle cinnamon and cheyenne pepper along house exterior to prevent ants from entering your home. Ants will not cross the line.

11. Dish soap and water sprayed on flowers is an excellent bug deterrent. This is particularly useful with roses, hollyhock, and daisy. It also will depend on what kind of bugs. Some aphids are resilient and will return. Japanese Beetles, also can be a deadly foe to your flowers, act quickly and drench thoroughly for several days until problem is resolved. You may have to repeat the process throughout the summer months. If the soap and water trick doesn’t appear to be working after a week, call a Master Gardener. Removing some bugs is a big task.

12. Cola poured on a car battery will eat away the corrosion.

13. Pour beer–any kind, they don’t appear to be choosy--into a plate and leave it in the garden to attract slugs

14. Another way to corner slugs is to place boards in the garden. In the morning the slugs will have congregated on the undersides.

15. To find out if you have fleas, and then to attract them quickly before they breed to intensively, spread a white sheet on the floor. Set several shallow dishes of warm water on the sheet, then light a lamp. The warmth will attract the fleas and drown them. A nightlight will also work, but remember to put a dish of warm water right underneath it.

16. Place a slice of white bread inside the cookie jar to keep cookies soft. An apple slice also is effective, but it can attract fruit flies.

17. Never cut lettuce with a metal blade–it will turn the edges brown–use a plastic knife or tear the lettuce leaves off of the head. The tearing method is preferable.

18. Use old crumpled up newspaper and vinegar to wash windows, but be careful around light colored paint on windowsills

19. Never use ammonia on urine stains–it strengthens the smell. Blot the spot with plenty of soap and water, then let dry. When completely dry, use baking soda and vinegar as a scrub. This should eliminate the ordor.

20. Plant marigolds in your garden to keep bugs away.

21. Use applesauce in place of oil when baking. This will cut down on the fat content.

22. Boil cinnamon to eliminate house odors. But watch the pot, it boils over very easily!

23. Sprinkling salt into a pot before boiling eggs prevents the eggs from cracking open.

24. Dab perfume on light bulb to scent a room.

25. Place fruit in a brown paper bag with a ripe banana for quicker ripening.

___________________________________________

NEWS: Do your own ceiling texture

How to texture your own ceiling

Have you had water damage to a ceiling or remodeled your home and now need to do something with the bare sheetrock? Have you priced the cost of a painter/contractor to finish the work for you? If so, you have probably been hit with a daunting total cost from his or her estimate.

Perhaps you are willing to do the painting but think you are unskilled in how to apply the texture you want to your ceiling. Believe it or not, the process is not that difficult or costly to do yourself. You will need a few basic things, though. They are an air compressor and hose, texture hopper, safety goggles and if you are under the height of 5’7” or you have ceilings taller than eight feet, and you will need some type of scaffolding. This scaffolding can be something as simple as a 2x10 or 2x12 laid across some chairs.

If the sheetrock needs to be taped, floated and sanded, there are many videos and/or books available on the subject. When purchasing your tape, you will find a paper variety as well as a fiberglass mesh type. The fiberglass type is usually the easiest for beginners.

Many people will already have an air compressor for nail guns, and other pneumatic tools. For those that don’t have their own, a compressor can be rented for about $25 - $40 a day, depending on where you live. If you only have a few rooms to do, the project shouldn’t take over a day.

A texture hopper is a type of spray gun that has a container “hopper” at the top that feeds the texture material into the hand-held trigger sprayer below. On the face of the gun there are several selections for texture pattern and thickness. It works with an air compressor and you will have to play with the air pressure while working with the texture material yourself. The thinner the mud, the less pressure will be needed to spray it on.

Before you ever pick up the hopper and add the “mud” to it, make sure you have safety goggles on. The mud follows Newton’s law of gravity and will without doubt, begin to come down upon your head, face and body.

The mud that you put in the hopper is a watered down version of the drywall compound. In the Houston area, the average price for a 50-60 pound container is $6.95. When buying your compound, go with the type that is in the plastic buckets. The boxed type with the plastic bag inside can cause a world of irritation as the mud dries on the inside of the plastic bag and drops chunks of hard material into your supply. These chunks will leave trenches dug into your wall putty and stop up the flow of your hopper.

Getting the right consistency of the putty is a challenge in itself. Often when you look in books, ask the paint department employees at Home Depot, or anyone else you can think of as to the proper thickness or consistency of the texture material needed for use in the hopper, you will usually get the same response “as thick as you want it.”

Never having done this before, how are you to know how thick it should be? An excellent starting point is to have it start out with a cornbread batter consistency and thicken or thin as needed. If you haven’t ever made cornbread, go down to your local grocery and buy one of those forty-cent bags and follow the directions. This will give you a perfect example.

For those that don’t wish to try the hopper method, there is a “popcorn” additive that goes into paint primer. Some people may prefer this method but others may find it doesn’t roll on with the ease that the manufacturer promises nor does it stick consistently. Another problem can be with the clean up of the rollers. If you are using the cheap, throw away rollers it may not bother you but it is almost impossible to get the textured paint out of the expensive lamb’s wool roller covers.

If you only have a small area to texture, rent a hopper for about $20 a day. If you have plans for extensive remodeling or you have relatives that my go in with you on the price, the hopper sprayers in the Houston area run $55 - $65. It beats renting from a company or borrowing from a friend or relative. Especially if you have the type of luck that if something is going to break, it will happen while you are using it. Another plus in owning your own is you can do the work at anytime and if it suddenly becomes very humid or rainy, you haven’t already put out the rental money. Taping, floating and texture should be done during weather that is preferably over seventy degrees and low humidity. If nothing else, when you are done with your hopper, you can always throw it into a garage sale and get some of your purchase price back.

For those who have never attempted remodeling, texturing, painting or anything else because you “don’t know how to do it,” there are educational options. Most lumber stores have how to clinics in the evenings and on weekends and there simply isn’t a project out there that there isn’t a book or video to be found that will also tell you how to do it. With a little initiative and effort, the chances are good that you can not only do the project, but you will also enjoy it and the sense of accomplishment you will have afterwards, not to mention the money saved.

_________________________________________

How do I build a brick wall

A well-built brick wall must have a footing sized for proper support. Find out the facts here.

In order to have a well-built brick wall you must first have a footing size for the proper support. Each course should be level, the corners and faces must be square, and the mortar joints neat and evenly spaced. There are so many brick patterns or bonds to choose from. But the most common pattern is called the American bond.

To begin start by clearing the area. Next you want to pour the concrete for you footing. Make sure to let your footing set up for two days or more so that it is nice and hard. You want to mark a story pole to indicate the top of each course or row. When figuring the height and markings for your story pole for proper vertical spacing, you want to add one joint thickness per layer. It is about 20 cubic feet of motar for every 100 square feet of double-brick wall.

Once your concrete footing has had the proper time to harden up, you want to wet the footing and a good quantity of bricks thoroghly so that they will not draw any water from the mortar. While the surface of the footings and bricks are drying, you want to mix up a batch of mortar. Next you want to measure and mark your base course on the footing with a chalkline.

To begin the building process of your brick wall you want to start at one corner and make sure you put enough mortar inside your front chalkline for a row of three bricks. You want to set the first brick in place be getting it absolutely square in the corner. You may want to tap it with the heel of a trowel to place it firmly in place. Next you want to butter the end of your second brick and set it in place along your chalkline right against the first. Do the same procedure with the third brick. Make sure that the joints are equal and are the proper thickness and always make sure your bricks are level. Next put a line of mortar for your back row and set the first three bricks. Then go to the opposite end of the wall and set three bricks in each row there.

Now stretch a cord between the two corner bricks of the front row, using a mason's block at each end, which will put the cord about 1/8 of an inch from the front of the bricks. Put the bricks all the same distance from the cord. Check frequently with a level, it is very important that the base rows be square and level. Butter both ends of the last brick before setting it firmly in place. Shift the cord to the rear row and complete it in the same manner.

At one end, do four or five layers in both rows, extending three or four bricks. Check your vertical spacing with the story pole, and use a level to make sure the corners are square. This partial construction is called a lead. Repeat the same procedure at the other end of the wall.

When the leads are complete, stretch a cord at the second layer and lay all the bricks in it. Shift the cord to the third layer and complete it. Use both the story pole and a level to check your work for every layer. Do the front row first, then the back row.

When you reach the top of the leads, build them up a few more rows, then lay the bricks between. Cap the wall with rowblock headers. Position the last eight or nine bricks dry, adjust for equal joint spacing for a clean appearance.

Once the mortar has set up but not hardened, tool the joints to get the mortar compact and smooth. The finished joints should be the same in depth and profile.

____________________________________

News: Increase the value of your home

Thinking about selling your home? You need to know what to remodel in your home that will increase the value to your home.

Thinking about selling your home? You might want to take a look around your house and make sure it’s up-to-date. Nothing turns off potential buyers more than knowing they’ll have to sink a lot of money into their new home just to modernize it. But let’s say you don’t have a lot of cash—and who does? -You need to know what to remodel in your home that will add the most value to your home.

The first on your to-do list should be the kitchen. You can recoup the most value from a minor kitchen remodeling, up to 80%. So what should you do if you don’t have thousands of dollars to spend? Your first stop should be the paint store. Paint the ceilings white to reflect light and make your kitchen look bigger; if your kitchen is already big and you want to make it cozier, consider a warm neutral earth tone like taupe or sand. White is always nice, or consider something more daring and use some color. Add a border or stencil one yourself and you’ve given the room a whole new look for under $100.

Your next step should be to refinish the existing cabinetry. If you want to replace what you’ve already got, you’re looking at several thousand dollars, so consider painting the cabinets you already have. Use high-gloss enamel for durability easier cleaning. White is a good choice, especially if the walls are a color. Or if you have nice wood cabinets, consider refinishing then yourself. Take them outside, sand, and varnish, and you’ve got nice, new-looking cabinets. And don’t forget the hardware. You can get new handle and drawer pulls ranging anywhere from a few cents to several dollars; the choice depends upon how much you want to spend and the look you are after.

A new countertop is also a good idea, and you can get an inexpensive laminate one that will look much better than that ‘70s avocado green or baby blue one you have now. Technology has come along way, and the newest laminate countertops look almost as nice as granite or Corian. They’re even relatively easy to install yourself. The average do-it-yourselfer can put a new laminate cover on an existing countertop. The avid do-it-yourselfer can construct a completely new laminate countertop. Any good home improvement book can tell you how.

Another way to inexpensively update your kitchen is new flooring. If you have wood under whatever your floor covering is now, consider refinishing it yourself. Most homebuyers love wood floors. The least expensive flooring is vinyl sheet flooring and vinyl tiles. Sheet flooring is usually the least expensive and it is fairly easy to install yourself, but vinyl tiles are only a bit more expensive (about $0.50-$2.00 per square foot) and they are a snap for anyone to install. In a Saturday, you can have a whole new kitchen floor.

Don’t forget your window treatments. Clean or get rid of dusty old blinds and invest in some sharp new mini-blinds. If you can sew, you already know that there are an almost limitless number of ideas out there for curtains and valances. You probably don’t want long curtains in your kitchen; they can be a fire hazard. So some short curtains or valances will only need a couple of yards of material each. Get it on sale and you save even more money. Spend a weekend whipping up some new valances and you’ve got a great new look without spending a lot of money.

If you have a big enough budget, and you should if you follow the advice here, consider investing in some energy-efficient appliances. An up-to-date stove is the most popular kitchen appliance, followed by refrigerator and dishwasher. Shop wisely and you can get something nice for around $600 or less. Without appliances, you can do a very nice minor kitchen remodeling for about $700.

________________________________________

Why not add your website to our directory? Browse around for the most suitable category.