Category: Home Improvement

Winter is coming! Just like spring cleaning, every homeowner should do a few simple tasks in late fall to prepare their home for the St. Louis winter. These tips and tricks can save you time, trouble and money. No senior discount.
Another great way to get hands-on experience with home improvement projects is to volunteer at your local Habitat for Humanity, or any other home-building project in your area. In some cases, you’ll find yourself building a home from the foundation up, other times you’ll be inside the house, roughing out the interior or putting the finishing touches on the kitchen, bathroom, or bedrooms. If you make it a bit of a regular thing, you’ll accomplish two goals: You’ll do something good for your community, and you’ll learn home improvement skills you can put to good use when you get home.

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For more in depth instruction than a home fair might provide, check out your community adult enrichment program. Ours has a 3 part course on home improvement for women or further instruction about dry walling or electrical work.

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Many home improvement stores like Home Depot, Lowes, and Menards all have free classes that give you the basic information about various projects. My spouse went to a tiling class at Home Depot and found the information to be good for beginners just starting new projects.
The fastest way to get some hands-on experience with the tools and projects you may want to do in your own home is to do the work in someone else’s. If you have friends or family tackling their own home improvement projects, they’re likely looking for help. You’ll have the opportunity to go hands-on with the tools you want to learn, and the projects you want to know how to do—and ideally you’ll be able to learn from someone who knows how to use those tools and already has a plan for the project that you want to tackle. After all, your friend needs help with their project, and you need some experience doing home improvement work, so it’s a win-win.

Home Improvement Ideas

Remember, part of owning a home is being responsible for it. There are just some repairs and projects you shouldn’t tackle without the right tools, know-how, or manpower. If you’re in over your head, admit it and get outside help. You don’t want to wind up hurting yourself, seriously damaging your home, or wasting a ton of money on a half-assed repair or improvement that should have been done properly the first time. Like we mentioned above, you can always hire someone willing to let you shadow them or help out a bit, and see how it should be done, take your lumps, and get it right next time.

Dear Recovering Renter, Congratulations on your new home! It can be daunting to move into your new home with the understanding that it’s really yours, as in, you’re responsible for not just its maintenance and upkeep, but you can do whatever you want with it as well. The flip side of that though is that if you’ve been renting your whole life, the broadest extent of your home improvement experience may be watching HGTV and whatever you could do in your rental without risking the ire of your landlord.
Most hardware stores, especially large national chains like Home Depot and Lowe’s, both host classes and workshops designed to help new homeowners get comfortable with doing their own work around the house, making their own improvements, and fixing their own problems without spending a ton of money on contractors or specialists. For example, Home Depot’s weekly workshops will show you how to do things like install decorative moulding, install tile flooring, properly paint interior walls, and more—all things you may never have had to do as a renter.
While the internet has a wealth of information (see 9 and 10 below), books are still the best non-hands-on source of DIY home repair knowledge. If I’m looking for information about a particular project, I’ll search Amazon.com for reviews of the best books related to that topic and then check them out from my library.

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Don’t worry, there are plenty of ways to get the skills you need to properly maintain your new home, and even tackle those upgrades and improvements you have on your list. Let’s talk about where you can go to learn some new skills.

Are Home Improvement Loans Interest Tax Deductible

Volunteering with Habitat for Humanity or a similar program is one of the best ways to get training in home construction and repair. I volunteered with a program with my church and learned everything I needed to know about how to use a crowbar. The next week I was tearing out hideous wooden paneling in my basement like a pro.
But there were a lot of more difficult, but not impossible, projects that needed to be done. Replacing garage siding or installing lights in a ceiling fan were things that we had never done before and no one in our immediate family or group of friends knew how to do.

What’s Home Improvement

For some home repair projects, you may want to hire a contractor. Come find out from our home repair specialist what you need to know to get that right. There are so many factors that influence your decisions: Is the job primarily repair, remodeling or new construction? Do you need a specialized contractor or general contractor and where do subcontractors fit into the picture? What’s your timeline, budget, who’s responsible for the materials and determines the logistics of the project? Don’t forget the paperwork, and oh yes: the clean-up! Join us and bring your questions. No senior discount.
Our experienced handyperson will show you how to measure, cut, and hang drywall. You’ll learn how to prep the room prior to installing the 2×4 framing, including proper layout. Instruction will include cut-to-size with minimal drywall seams and cut out for electric boxes. Also learn how to apply seam tape (both paper tape and self-stick mesh tape) and mud (joint compound). If you have a drywall project in your future, get to this class before getting started. No senior discount.
Of course, the classes at your local hardware store aren’t enough to really prep you to be a professional by any means. The classes are too short, and the instructions too vague. However, they are a good starting point for further research, and there’s plenty of additional information available online as well. Lowe’s has a how-to project center with walkthroughs for common household projects, as does Home Depot.
You’ll really pick up the skills you’re looking for if you become a regular though, and volunteer on those down-days when there aren’t big groups mulling about. If there’s anything I learned working on a Habitat site, it’s that work slows down when there’s a big volunteer group around—the vets have to stop actual work to give out assignments and show people how to do things safely. That’s a good thing for you, since you need to learn. Once you have the basics down though, your visits will be more productive and informative, so don’t give up! Keep going back—you’ll learn more every time.

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House flipping is all the rage these days, but there is a lot to consider before jumping on the bandwagon. If you are considering flipping a house for yourself or as a career come to this class to find out the nuts and bolts. No senior discount.
Our library also has some great DVDs on various home improvement projects. And HGTV is always fun to watch for inspiration. (It also serves as a warning of what can go wrong if you don’t know what you’re doing.)
Big box home improvement stores have good prices and great variety. But no one knows more about the home repair challenges of old craftsman bungalow homes than the owner of my local hardware store. I always walk out of there with exactly what I need for my weekend project.
Of course, not every handyman wants to do that—some will try to wave you away because you’re slowing them down, others will conveniently withhold information so you wind up needing them anyway. Expect some of that, and when you interview your prospective handyman or check up on your future contractor, make it clear that you want this to be a learning exercise for you—that as long as it’s safe and practical, you’ll want to help out. Explain you don’t want to just to speed things up, you also want to learn, and you want to know how to properly repair the work in the future. If the person you’re interviewing has a problem with that, look elsewhere.
A series of events helped me realize that home improvement was perhaps something I could tackle — all I needed was a little training. And, it turns out there are numerous ways to get home improvement advice and training. Now, a year and a good amount of training later, I enjoy spending a weekend working around the house. Here are 10 free options for DIY home improvement advice and training

In the United States, Home Improvement began airing in broadcast syndication in September 1995, distributed via Buena Vista Television (now Disney-ABC Domestic Television) and continued to be syndicated until 2007; in a manner similar to Seinfeld and The Simpsons after they began airing in broadcast syndication, episodes of Home Improvement were not aired in order of their production code number or original airdate. It has previously aired on cable television via TBS from 2002 to 2013, and WGN America from 2002 to 2007. It also aired on Nick at Nite from September 3, 2007 to October 2009[65] and again on Monday mornings only starting on September 27, 2010, and aired on TV Land from January 4, 2010 to 2013. The show aired on The Hallmark Channel from September 3, 2013 until January 2014. As of January 8, 2016, The Hallmark Channel airs Home Improvement Monday through Friday at 2 p.m. ET until 6 p.m. ET[66]

Home Improvement For Beginners

Each episode includes Tim’s own Binford-sponsored home improvement show, called Tool Time, a “meta-program,” or show-within-a-show. In hosting this show, Tim is joined by his friend and mild-mannered assistant Al Borland (Richard Karn), and a “Tool Time girl” — first Lisa (Pamela Anderson) and later Heidi (Debbe Dunning) — whose main duty is to introduce the pair at the beginning of the show with the line “Does everybody know what time it is?” The Tool Time girl also assists Tim and Al during the show by bringing them tools.

Throughout the show, Tim Taylor would often be wearing sweatshirts or T-shirts from various Michigan based college and universities. These were usually sent by the schools to the show for him to wear during an episode.[11] Because Allen considered Michigan his home state, the rule was that only Michigan schools would get the free advertising.[12]

In Canada, it previously aired on CTV from beginning to the ending (1991–1999), CMT and YTV. In Germany and Austria, Home Improvement has been shown in dubbing under the title Hör mal wer da hämmert (“Listen who’s hammering”). It ran on ARD (1993-1995), RTL (1996-2006), RTL II (1999-2000, 2007-2012), VOX (2004-2006), Super RTL (2008-2009), and reruns are currently shown on the private channels RTL Nitro and in Austria on ATV. It was also shown on M-Net on South African television, and reruns are showing throughout 2007 on the M-Net Series channel, available to DStv users. It is previously airing on TV Land at 2AM ET. In New Zealand, reruns of the show also currently play on the free-to-air channel Prime Television. In 2011, Asian Network Star World started telecasting the show in place of The Simpsons.

Home Improvement What To Do First

The Tool Time theme music, an early 1960s-style saxophone-dominated instrumental rock tune, was sometimes used as the closing theme music for Home Improvement, especially when behind the credits were running the blooper scenes that took place during the taping of a Tool Time segment.

Although revealed to be an excellent salesman and TV personality, Tim is spectacularly accident prone as a handyman, often causing massive disasters on and off the set, to the consternation of his co-workers and family. Many Tool Time viewers assume that the accidents on the show are done on purpose, to demonstrate the consequences of using tools improperly. Many of Tim’s accidents are caused by his devices being used in an unorthodox or overpowered manner, designed to illustrate his mantra “More power!”. This popular catchphrase would not be uttered after Home Improvement’s seventh season,[5] until Tim’s last line in the series finale, which are the last two words ever spoken.

The theme music for Home Improvement was composed by Dan Foliart. The theme song is unique for its sampling of power tools, most notably an electric drill and jackhammer, which is heard during theme song. Tim’s grunting was also sampled for the theme song. The flute and organ parts of the theme music were also used. From Season 7 until the end of the series, a remixed version of the theme song was used.

Beginning in season 2, Home Improvement began each episode with a cold open, which features the show’s logo during the teaser. From season 4 until the end of the series in 1999, an anthropomorphic version of the logo was used in different types of animation.[4]

Home Improvement To Do List Template

It has been mentioned on review sites about the lack of episode commentaries and bonus features on the DVDs (except unaired blooper reels). In an interview on About.com,[68] Tim Allen stated that it was a done deal that the DVDs would not contain interviews or episode commentaries. Whether this was before or after someone at Disney ordered the three commentaries available on the Season 1 DVDs is unknown.

How Much Home Improvement Cost

Home Improvement had been in the works between Tim Allen and the writing/producing team of Carmen Finestra, David McFadzean and Matt Williams since the summer of 1990. Originally, the project’s proposed title was Hammer Time, both a play on the catchphrase made popular by artist MC Hammer and the name of the fictional fix-it show within the series, which was also called Hammer Time. By the time ABC committed to the project in early 1991, Allen and his team had already changed the title to Home Improvement. The show hosted by Tim Taylor in the shooting script for Home Improvement was still called Hammer Time when the first pilot with Frances Fisher was filmed in April 1991. The catalyst for the series’ name change was to represent the aspect of fixing problems within the family and home life, as well as the use of mechanics and tools. Once the second phase of the pilot was produced, with all the actors that made the final cut into the series (including Patricia Richardson), Tim Taylor’s Hammer Time became Tool Time.

What’s Home Improvement

On August 3, 2011, in Pacific Palisades, California, the surviving main cast members reunited for Entertainment Weekly magazine, including Jonathan Taylor Thomas, whom the cast had not seen since 1998.[54]

Seasonal Nielsen Rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of Home Improvement on ABC.[62] The series finale became the fifth highest-rated series finale television program of the 1990s and the ninth overall series finale ever presented on a single network in television history, watched by 35.5 percent of the households sampled in America, and 21.6 percent of television viewers.

WatchMojo.com ranked Home Improvement as the #9 TV sitcom from the 1990s. The character with most honors was Wilson, who was ranked as the #6 unseen TV character and as the #3 TV neighbor. Binford made it to the #10 fictional brand. The video game Home Improvement: Power Tool Pursuit! was ranked as the #5 worst game based on a TV series. On Metacritic, the first season holds a score of 64 out of 100, based on 18 critics and the second season holds a score of 75 out of 100, based on 5 critics, both indicating “generally favorable reviews”.