How to Provide Ventilation

Ventilation, a free flow of fresh air, is essential in a home, not only for humans to breathe, but also to prevent condensation occurring. There are three main areas of a home that need ventilation: the main living space, the spaces under suspended timber floors, and the roof space. You may also need to ventilate [...]

How to Make a Hinged Window Seat

A hinged window seat is supported on all four sides -by two or three hinges (or a full-length piano hinge), fitted at the back to a batten secured to the back wall, by two battens secured to the side walls and by a simple ladder timber frame at the front. You will need 50 x [...]

DIY Window Security

Window security: people talk about it as if it’s something that has only been required since the Seventies – I do mean the 1970s. It seems that prior to that decade, in the Swinging Sixties, we didn’t worry about it because we were all too busy being sexually liberated. Or was it that we didn’t [...]

How to Renovate Your Living Rooms

Main living areas are busy places and often serve more than one purpose, acting as a play space, dining room and study, as well as somewhere to relax. So before the lids come off the paint pots it’s important to consider your needs carefully. Maximizing Options Obviously, seating will be your first priority. The chances [...]

How to Repair Damaged Flooring

Of all the types of floor/covering, tiled finishes can be the easiest to repair, since individual tiles can often be lifted and replaced. The way you do it depends on whether the tile is hard or soft and on how it has been secured to the floor. Even damaged carpet can be patched effectively, but [...]

How to Repair Damaged Plaster Before Decorating

I can hear my dad saying to me time and again, all those years ago, ‘The finish is only as good as the prep work that goes into it!’ How right he was! You can expect to spend two days preparing and half an hour painting, rather than the other way round. Above all, you [...]

How to Repair Cracks and Holes in Floors

Before laying a new floorcovering, it is essential that the existing floor surface is sound and smooth. As well as repairing or replacing floorboards, you may have to fill cracks and holes in wooden floors, and deal with unevenness, and possibly damp, in solid floors. Any faults not rectified will eventually show through the floor [...]

How to Repair Steps and Repoint Brickwork

Solid concrete steps are very prone to damage, especially at the edges, while the mortar in brickwork all around the garden is likely to need replacing at some point, or at least freshening up. You need only a minimum of tools to carry out the necessary work, but make sure you have the right safety [...]

How to Renovate a Fireplace

Where an existing fireplace just needs a bit of cleaning up, its construction will dictate the way you do this. Cast iron Most of these fireplaces have been painted over and it’s worth going to the effort of stripping the paint off. The easiest way is with a peel-away stripping system, a paste which is [...]

How to Soundproof Your Home

Noise pollution is becoming an ever-present aspect of modern life. You may have reconciled yourself to the fact that unwelcome sounds may never go away, but they don’t have to ruin your life – it is possible to find solutions by blocking or damping down excessive noise. Sources of Noise Noise from outside the house, [...]

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