As This Old House senior technical editor Mark Powers demonstrates, installing the blocks requires just a few basic tools and a rented saw for cutting through the asphalt. (A little muscle for lifting the blocks helps, too.) Plant colorful flowers beside the edging when the weather warms up and you’ll love how this project makes your whole front yard feel more spiffy. Shown: 11x7x4 Belgian block stones, around $4 per block at stone yards....

After you’ve taken a look at these amazing bedroom remodels, you can see all the entries at Your Old House. Soothing Master Suite Update: Before Who: Jenna B. Where: Wayne, Pa. In October 2005 my husband and I bought a 60-year-old brick Colonial on a wooded acre just outside of Philadelphia in Wayne, Pa. and have been renovating ever since. Our bedroom was clean but uninspiring before. Soothing Master Suite Update: After Who: Jenna B....

These 22 neighborhoods make hitting the local shops, restaurants, parks, and schools an easy stroll down a sidewalk. Union Springs, Alabama On Friday evenings about 35 people meet up at Union Pizza in the small southeastern Alabama town of Union Springs to discuss important matters, such as how to properly reglaze a banged-up window, which stain to use on heart-pine floors, or whether or not to restore plaster walls. Welcome to the Newcomer’s Club, an informal group from places as far away as New York City and even Belize, whose members have relocated to this struggling small town for one reason: to buy, fix up, and live in one of its many magnificent homes....

Dicor Self-Leveling Lap Sealant This product comes with four caulking tubes of sealant. The tubes have pointed applicators to make piping the sealant around the roof’s edges, air vents, vent pipes, leaks, and other areas easier. It also works on roof shingles made of a variety of materials, including vinyl, aluminum, and wood. Liquid Rubber Waterproof Sealant This five-gallon bucket of liquid rubber has enough product to provide several layers of sealant to a large roof....

Shown in the upper right-hand corner of the site plan, the structure looks out on the scenic Five Mile River and is the first of five duplexes to be constructed on a 2 1/2-acre suburban site just blocks from major shopping centers. Return Engagement With Covid 19 continuing to cause so many surprising challenges for the building industry, TOH chose proven partners for its second Idea House of 2021. Husband-and-wife team Jerry and Sandy Effren of Greyrock Homes designed our 2020 Modern Farmhouse Idea House, demonstrated their craftsmanship in the build, and got the project delivered in record time....

Resources: To weld the frame together, Jimmy used a MIG welder, which is manufactured by Lincoln Electric. The light generated from welding is harmful, so be sure to wear protective clothing and a welding mask. Never look directly at the light from welding. The structure of the coat rack was made using 2x2 square stock 16 gauge steel, which can be purchased from a metal shop. The coat hooks were made using salvaged railroad ties....

For this project, I’m using stock boards and a dowel from the home center, a miter saw to cut them to length, and a drill/driver to assemble the pieces with fasteners and polyurethane glue. Steps for Building a Wood Clothes Rack Step 1: Mark the legs To begin, we’ll mark the height of the shelf and location of the hanging rod on each of the four 1×2 Legs. To do so, make a mark 8 inches from each end of the boards....

An old house is not frozen in time. And as the decades leave their marks, each owner leaves an imprint, too, based on what seems in the best interests of the house and its occupants. Compromises are involved. Tastes change. Consider the story of this circa-1900 Dutch Colonial Revival and its current owners, Tyler and Katie Judkins. Located in Cumberland, Maine, just north of Portland, where the two both work, the house came with a kind of catalog of its home improvements: a photo album compiled by Carolyn Murray, whose family lived in the house for decades (she still lives nearby)....

The $564 Farmhouse Kitchen When Jillian Woods faced her kitchen’s dark rust walls and builder-grade cabinets, she figured out that opening up a room doesn’t always require knocking down walls. Jillian turned her attention to the cabinets. After removing doors from some of the upper boxes to lighten their look, she and her husband, Derek, installed a header capped with molding to add more height. A two-tone paint job—white on the uppers and gray-green on the base units—gave the cabinets a style boost....

For instructions on interior doors, read How to Install a Prehung Interior Door. How to Install an Exterior Door The key things to remember are setting the door level, shimming the frame so the gaps between it and the door are even, and taking steps to waterproof the installation. 1. Remove the old door. Starting at the bottom, take the hinge screws out of the jamb. With all the screws out, take the door from the frame and trash it....

SKIL ½” Corded Drill Another feature we appreciated on this drill is the two-finger variable speed trigger makes it easy to adjust the speed as you work for when you need to speed up or slow down. COMOWARE Countersink Drill Bits Set The eight-piece drill bit set includes bits that are 3mm, 4mm, 5mm, 6mm, 7mm, 8mm, and 10mm, and it also incudes a hex key wrench to adjust or disassemble the drill bits as needed....

Resources: Expert assistance with this segment was provided by the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI).

Resource Expert assistance with this segment was provided by the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI).

Talk about a stress test—the pandemic has had many folks using their homes more intensely than they ever did before. Where once there was the ebb of occupants going off to offices and schools, it’s mostly been flow, with everyone trying to make their spaces do double and triple duty. For some who could, one solution has been to move—into bigger digs, often outside the urban core. But for those staying put, the question is: “How to improve?...

Admittedly, an ice-cold shower or a leaking heater makes it more urgent to get a new heater hooked up quickly. But if you choose one based solely on the speed of delivery, you may end up with a unit that can’t keep up with demand, costs more to operate, and fails sooner than it should. Hot Water Heater Sizes Even if you were happy with the old tank, don’t automatically assume it had the suitable heating capacity....

What Is the Best Wood to Make a Fireplace Mantel? Made of ¾-inch veneer plywood, our mantel is layered with elegant pilasters that are wrapped with stock moldings and baseboard, and topped with a trimmed-out shelf. As with any fireplace project, safety is paramount. National codes require at least 6 inches of clearance all around the firebox and an additional 1 inch for every ⅛ inch a mantel protrudes from the surface; local codes might be stricter....

Tool

Whatever your intention, you can find plenty of trellises at plenty of prices at garden centers. If you go that route, pick a model that’s sturdy and not too tall to maneuver so that you can haul it inside in the winter. Alternatively, you can build one yourself without too much fuss. To make our pyramid trellis strong, lightweight, and weather resistant, we used ½-by-2-inch strips of cedar (they may be stocked as lattice at the lumberyard), which can be left unfinished....