Home Care

A guide to the renovation of an entire house provides tips on working with professionals, decorating techniques, and other essentials.

"The Money Pit," hosted by Tom Kraeutler and Leslie Segrete, is a syndicated call-in radio program that airs every day in almost every North American market on 195 stations as well as on Sirius and XM Satellite Radio and the Discovery Radio Network. Home improvement is the nation's fastest-growing industry, and Tom and Leslie are at the cutting edge of reaching home owners who need real information on how to get things done. Their straightforward and friendly style gives clear advice on home renovations and building, and now their first comprehensive book will become the instant standard for home owners everywhere.
This reference guide contains sections filled with sidebars and illustrations about every aspect of your home: flooring, painting, decorating, heat and air systems, kitchen renovation, bathrooms, media rooms, garages, basements, patios, gutters, and much, much more. The authors recommend that every home improvement project start with the homeowners getting real about three key things: what outcome they really want; what their abilities are to contribute to the project; and what their budget really is. Each chapter also helps readers assess which projects are worth the effort. The multiple appendices include a guide to what may need replacing depending on the age of your home; best return on investment for home projects; and the life expectancy of home components.

Design and installation techniques, tips, and shortcuts used by professionals.

Provides step-by-step instructions, timeframe for completing plus skills and materials lists.

"Wisdom of the Aisles" on every page guarantees success.

Details how to design, layout, maintain, and work with a variety of materials in building patios and walkways.

Features walkways using soft set paths, hard bed paths, brick and paver patterns, and boardwalks.

Expert tips to spruce up the front of any home

Anyone who buys or sells a home knows that, when it comes to real estate, books are judged by their covers. Creating curb appeal is a key way to accomplish preserving and protecting the value of what is most likely to be a family's biggest single investment.

Unlike most books that focus on projects to enhance a home's backyard, Quick & Easy Curb Appeal focuses on projects that help make the front of the house more attractive.

Pulls together information from Better Homes and Gardens' rich library of content

Projects for tackling walkways, driveways, porches, and more

Ten must-dos for re-selling a home from real estate pros

Part inspiration and ideas, part resource guide, and part home maintenance reference, this book arms readers with everything they need to let their home give its guests a great first impression.

There is a romance to owning an older home - the wonderful satisfaction of living in a house with character while adding personal touches and modern comforts. REVIVING YOUR HOUSE tells you how to make any home livable and lovely without breaking the bank. It details all the problems you might encounter, such as peeling paint, wet or low-ceilinged basements, sagging porches and roofs, crumbling masonry and chimneys, and old door and window casements that stick in the summer and leak in the winter. Author Alan Dan Orme offers inexpensive solutions in non-technical, easy-to-understand language. He pays particular attention to detail, ensuring that your improvements will blend in with the original materials and designs of your home.

Signposts for Country Living is a step-by-step guide to finding your dream home, settling down, becoming part of the community and avoiding the pitfalls often experienced by the in-comer. Preparing for the forthcoming transition and putting in that little bit of extra effort at the beginning could just make the transition from townie much more successful and far less painful, rather than just blundering about and trusting to luck. Rejecting the temptation to simply list a patronizing catalogue of dos and don ts, the authors instead adopt the magazine approach of a style both informal and inclusive and draw on the experiences of a wide variety of people with both humor and anecdote."

This new book is more than a simple engine repair manual. Designed for the beginner with little or no mechanical experience, Small Engines & Outdoor Power Equipment is a graphically appealing, step-by-step guide that covers all of the most important engine maintenance and repair skills you'll need to keep your equipment running at peak performance. It also shows exactly how to perform mechanical upkeep and repairs on the most common outdoor power implements, including lawn mowers, snow blowers, chain saws, power washers, generators, leaf blowers, rototillers, wood splitters, lawn edgers, and weed whips. With clear 'how-to' photos and detailed diagrams, you'll see exactly what needs to be done. A comprehensive troubleshooting guide helps you define problems and enact solutions. With Small Engines & Outdoor Power Equipment in your library, you won't need to haul the lawn mower off to the repair center and wait a few weeks just because a filter is plugged or the old gas needs to be replaced. Among the many skills you'll learn are seasonal tune-ups, changing oil, servicing spark plugs, cleaning filters, replacing muffler, servicing the fuel tank, overhauling the carburetor, servicing brakes, inspecting flywheels, replacing the fuel pump, and replacing a rewind cord.

House Hunters host Suzanne Whang and cowriter Bruce Cook take would-be home buyers behind the scenes of the real estate process, just like on the hit HGTV television show, to show them the best way to purchase a home.

The All New Illustrated Guide to Everything Sold in Hardware Stores is an updated edition of the everyone's favorite hardware shopping guide and reference book.

There's nothing more frustrating than making multiple trips to the hardware store because you purchased the wrong item. Those double--or even triple-trips to the big box store are a thing of the past with The All New Illustrated Guide to Everything Sold in Hardware Stores. You'll learn the difference between drywall screws and deck screws; between faucet washers and neoprene O-rings; and between red wire nuts and blue wire nuts. And that's before we even get to understanding nail gauges and drill bit sizes!

Looking through the range of products at home stores can be downright bewildering, but with this handy guide you'll know exactly what you're looking for and why. The next time you talk to a hardware store clerk, rather than asking for "screws about 2 inches long," you'll be able to ask for a #3 gauge 2-1/4-inch-long panhead screws with SAE 5/16" flat washers.

The All New Illustrated Guide to Everything Sold in Hardware Stores is filled with color photos that let you see in lifesize scale what different screws and nails and washers and bolts are called, accompanied by brief descriptions of their recommended uses--so you'll be able to ask for them with accuracy and use them with precision.

Helpful, practical information on remodeling and decorating a bath. Hundreds of full-color photos, many of them from the bath industry's top photographers and designers. Beautiful photos and descriptions of bath design styles, from American Country to Art Deco to Arts & Crafts/Mission.

A one-stop guide to everything you need to know to achieve stunning paint effects and decorative finishes on walls, floors, and objects.

Learn how to create and maintain a garden of fresh vegetables, from choosing and planning your plot, preparing the soil, selecting seeds or cultivating seedlings, proper watering, harvesting, and storing, along with planting guides and quick tips.

Nothing beats the taste of vegetables from a home garden, and with Vegetable Gardening it's never been easier. With over 80 varieties of vegetables to choose from, eating delicious, just-picked produce is a snap. Learn every step of creating and maintaining a cornucopia of garden-fresh vegetables: from choosing and planning your plot, preparing the soil, selecting seeds or cultivating seedlings, proper watering, harvesting, and storing.

From composting and mulching to caring for and harvesting vegetables, it's clear that most gardeners want to use organic methods and avoid chemical fertilizers and pesticides. But what happens when things go wrong and organic solutions don't seem to be working? The two authors of this book have different answers to this question.

Jane Courtier takes the view that organic methods are the "first, best choice," but she occasionally uses chemical fertilizer and will resort to chemical pesticides if a serious problem arises. Fern Marshall Bradley writes from the viewpoint of a longtime organic gardener who's chosen to never use any chemicals in her garden. Together they've created a book that looks at vegetable gardening from both points of view. There are substantive issues on both sides-and in the end, it's an individual choice. Let them help you make up your own mind!

Special-feature sidebars provide problem-solver tips, including:

Planting Guides with problem-solver tips on what and how much to plant, site preparation, and when to plant

Temperature alerts for the best growing temperatures

Quick Tips that give additional tidbits of information such as health tips, how to mark the crops, how deep to plant certain seeds, and more

Best of the Bunch provides information about the varieties available, how they produce, growing time, annual or perennial, and more

Guide to Vegetable Yields, Sowing to Harvest Times, A Guide to Seeds, and many more graphs and charts

Welding is a satisfying skill that will yield many rewards, Welding Complete shows you everything you need to know to become a competent and safe welder.

Welding is a fun and surprisingly affordable activity, with complete welding kits available at home-improvement stores for just a few hundred dollars. This book shows you everything you need to know to become a competent and safe welder of a wide variety of metal projects. Featured projects include a coffee table, magazine rack, wine rack, truck rack, firepit, and gate.

The time has never been better to learn to weld. New tools and equipment are lower in price and easier to use. Growing interest in metalworking has made supplies easier to come by, with most home-improvement stores now stocking a variety of metals and fuels. As interest in welding expands, the number of great plans and designs continues to grow. This updated edition of Welding Complete comes packed with fresh designs and up-to-date information, this new book is your personal metal shop teacher.