Hot Home & Garden Posts
How To: Install a sink-mounted boiling hot water dispenser in your home
How convenient are those boiling-hot water taps they have at some hotels and restaurants for coffee-making and such? It's not too hard to install one in your own home, and this video will teach you step-by-step how to do it yourself.
How To: Remove door material to install a mortise lock
In this video we learn how to remove door material to install a mortise lock. If you live in an older home where you have to take out a chunk of the door to change the lock, there are ways to prevent doing this. First take a spade bit and slide it over the lock. After this, take the mortise lock and hold it so it's flush with the door. Go below the hole and above the closest obstruction and put a mark. On the back measure slightly beyond what it would take for this to bottom out. Once you hav...
How To: Install easy instant molding with wallpaper or metallic tape
Do you want to add some zest to the walls of your home without spending a lot of money? You can do easy instant molding with wallpaper or metallic tape that will add a lot of flash for the buck, and this video will show you how to do it.
How To: Get tough oil-based paint off your skin
Oil-based paint is vibrant and durable, but all that means that getting it on your skin is a major pain. Watch this video to learn about some easy ways, including rubbing yourself with turpentine, of getting oil-based paints off of your skin.
How To: Make a medieval-style children's bookcase castle with Lowe's
Make reading more fun for your children with a satisfyingly medieval bookcase that your little prince (or princess) will use day in and day out. This woodworking project from Lowe's is a wooden bookcase with a castle top. It's completely functional, with plenty of storage for books and knick-knacks, as well as a storage drawer at the bottom. Best of all, the book castle can be easily modified to remove the castle top when your child's tastes change. Watch all four videos to see the build inst...
How To: Make the most out of the space in a small bathroom
If you live in a big city, chances are your bathroom isn't as big as you'd like. If you've had enough, watch this video to learn how you can maximize the space in you tiny bathroom by storing things more efficiently and even painting.
How To: Get the box spring of your bed to stop squeaking
Boxsprings make a bed much more comfortable, but when they get old they start to squeak obnoxiously. Watch this video to learn several easy ways that you can repair your box spring to return it to it's normal quietness and get your back to sleep.
How To: Grow a bonsai tree from a seed
Bonsai is a beautiful art that focuses on manipulating a tree to any shape you desire! If you've wanted to grow your own bonsai from a seedling to the full thing and are wondering where to start, check out this video! In it you will learn what sort of trees that you can plant to make into bonsai, as well as how to grow it from seed to seedling!
How To: Make a DIY paper tray from compact discs for your home office
Your home office is missing something… hmm… maybe something to hold your recycled printer paper, and what better to hold your recycle paper than a recycled paper tray? Nextraker shows you a neat hack involving a few dust-collecting compact discs that will make a eco-friendly paper tray to organize your desk. It's a amazing what you can do with a few old CDs.
News: Reverse Fountain Mind Screw
What appears to be an impossibly boundless volume of water is really an illusion created with the aid of a largely invisible acrylic cylinder. William Pye's "reverse fountain", entitled Charybdis (referring to the sea monster of Greek myth), was designed for Seaham Hall of Sunderland, England.
News: Would You Live in a Walking Robot House?
If you fancy yourself a nomad, check out Walking House, a mobile and modular dwelling system that is pneumatically powered, all-terrain ready. The vehicle-home crawls along at a snail's pace of 60 meters per hour, which equates to less than 1/2 a mile per hour. Akin in concept to the rolling house-on-the-go (except in the way cooler insect-like robot form), Walking House also boasts some cool eco-friendly features:
Grow While You Go: The Bus-Top Gardens of New York City
If you were to look on the roof of your local city bus, what would you find? A little bit of dirt, most likely, and a whole lot of space. Precisely the stuff you'd find in an empty container garden! Enter NYU graduate student Marco Castro Cosio's Bus Roots, a project which, through installing gardens on the rooftops of New York City buses, seeks to "reclaim forgotten space, increase quality of life and grow the amount of green spaces in the city."
How To: Build a beautiful cedar log coffee table using a chainsaw
If you loved the cedar log bench, try out your chainsaw skills on something for the inside of your home— a log coffee table. Using a chainsaw as your primary woodworking tool is dangerously unusual, but the results are well worth the risk! In this two-part video, learn the techniques to chainsawing your way to a beautiful log coffee table made from scraps. It's great for any outdoorsman's living room or den.
How To: Clean a dirty dishwasher using lemonade mix
If your dishwasher has built up lime and rust deposits, you can easily clean everything with just a few tablespoons of lemonade mix. Just load the mix into the solid soap dispenser and run an empty dishwasher on normal. Not only is it all clean, it smells great!
How To: Use QPR's All-In-One Melter Applicator for sealing small cracks
This video provides the operating instructions for the RTH08 All-In-One Melter Applicator, which is a hand-agitated, 10-gallon capacity sealant machine designed to effectively and efficiently execute small crack-sealing tasks. You'll learn about the safety procedures when using this Melter Applicator, startup procedure, sealant loading, heat settings and sealant application on pavement, as well as the shutdown procedure.
How To: Have healthier, greener grass with basic lawn maintenance tips from Lowe's
Want greener and healthier grass around your home? With some care and a little work, you could have the greenest landscape in the county. Lowe's has the tips you need in this five-part video series on lawn maintenance.
News: Fastest Lawnmower in the World Clocks in at 96 MPH
Lawnmower racing is a yankee sport, gosh darnit, so when British racer Don Wales stole the title for record speed (87.833 mph) back in May, former American champ Bobby Cleveland was challenged to win it back. And that he did.
How To: Recycle an old blank CD case into a toilet paper case or dispenser
If you need to protect your toilet paper rolls from overactive pets, or want a way to travel with tp without having it unroll, you can create a quick and easy toilet paper holder just using an old case for blank CDs and a box cutter.
How To: Recycle an empty cereal box into a magazine holder
Start with a cereal box, then measure and cut away the top corner at a diagonal. Once you've cut out your magazine holder, you can further recyle magazines as decorations, or paint and stencil your own! Hold papers, books, magazines or anything else.
How To: Turn old CDs and DVDs into coasters for hot drinks
Don't throw away your old CDs and DVDs! All you need is a little felt, some glue and an X-acto knife to turn obsolete software into techie home decor. Just glue the felt to the disc, and then cut out once the glue is dry.
How To: Make your own organic and all natural toothpaste
Concerned about the unpronounceable chemicals you see on tubes of toothpaste? Clean your tetth and keep your breath fresh without having to introduce unpleasant chemicals to your system! All you need is some baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, essential oils (mints are best) and a few drops of stevia (optional). Combine together, and smile! You have homemade toothpaste!
How To: Cut a piece of plexiglass without it melting or chipping
Plexiglass is the pleather of glass, and it has disadvantages vs. it's natural cousin. For one, it's much harder to cut because it melts and chips easily. Watch this video to learn how to cut plexiglass safely and accurately.
How To: Clean mildew off of sheetrock
No one likes having mildew on their belongings, and having it on the wall of your house is even worse it threatens the structure rigidity of the sheetrock. Watch this video to learn how to remove mildew from sheetrock walls.
How To: Replace a broken toilet handle
The handle on your toilet is the most common way you interact with the device, and if it breaks your toilet is much harder to flush. Watch this video to learn how to remove the broken handle and install a new one.
How To: Use ammonium chloride to give copper a fake age patina
Copper is one of the many material that looks it's best after it's aged for a while. If you don't want to wait five years for your copper to develop that perfect patina, watch this video to learn how you can use ammonium chloride to age copper at home.
How To: Get vegetable oil stains out of clothing
If you use vegetable oil a lot in your cooking, you probably know the frustration of having it leap out of the frying pan and onto your shirt, staining it. Watch this video to learn how to get any vegetable oil stain out of clothes.
How To: Measure a window and curtains to determine what size curtain rod you need
Most curtain rod are adjustable in length to make sure that they can be used for many different windows. Determining what size you need is still important though, and this video will show you where and what to measure to ensure that you know what size rod to buy.
How To: Detassel corn plants to help them cross-pollinate
If you plan on growing a corn garden, you should know that detasseling your crop is a great way to help them cross-pollinate. Watch this video to learn how to detassel corn plants and how doing so will improve your harvest.
How To: Get the wrinkles out of silk or satin
Silk and satin are notoriously hard to take care of, and when they get wrinkled you may think your life is over. It's not. Watch this video to learn what you have to do to get wrinkles out of silk or satin at home.
How To: Remove wrinkles from polyester
One of the great things about polyester is that it doesn't wrinkle as easily as cotton and other natural fibers. It still can though, and you can't iron it, so watch this video to learn how to get the wrinkles out of any polyester item.
How To: Get the mildew smell out of towels with vinegar
Towels get wet more regularly than any other type of cotton clothing, and mildew can easily get all over them and make them stink. Watch this video to learn how some vinegar and your washing machine can get that smell out of your towels.
How To: Glaze windows so that they hold temperature better
Glazing your windows can provide a nice decorative touch while keeping heat inside in the winter and outside during the summer. Watch this video to learn how to glaze your own windows and get this home improvement job done yourself.
How To: Install a chandelier (and most decorative hanging light fixtures)
Gary Clark shows you what it takes to hang a beautiful new chandelier in your home, and believe it or not, the installation is simple! No matter what kind of hanging light fixture you're installing in your ceiling, the process is generally the same, where you first need to cut a hole in the drywall and run some wire to the panel. Then make sure you have a junction box that can support the weight of the fixture.
How To: Get oil out of carpet and clothing
Oil gets on everything and is nearly impossible to get out again. Cooking, motor, it doesn't really matter. If you've got oil on your clothes, your carpet, or some other fabric, watch this video to learn how you can get it out with vinegar and other household products.
How To: Figure out why your water pipes are noisy and fix them
Plumbing is best left to plumbers. The results of DIY plumbing are almost always disastrous. However, with the help of this video, you can do a little self-plumbing by diagnosing the cause of your noisy pipes. The video also explains, in general terms, how to fix each type of noisy pipe.
How To: Take care of Fuschia plants in your garden
Fuschia flowers are very pretty, and they aren't too hard to grow if you've got a nice garden to work with. Watch this video for all kinds of tips on caring for Fuschia plants, like when to deadhead them and when to start and stop adding fertilizer.
How To: Get wax stains out of clothes
Wax is one of those material that you use all of the time that is also nearly impossible to get out of clothes without the right chemicals. Watch this video to learn the steps your need to get wax stains out of clothes.
How To: Fix a leaky toilet with basic steps
Is there toilet water all over the floor and you have no idea why? It could be a leak toilet, which is pretty common if you have faulty supply lines, or the wax rings have worn out. But don't worry, you don't need to call a plumber to ease your woes, in this video you will learn how to fix your leaky toilet with a few household tools and some extra knowledge!
How To: Build a green wind tunnel insect trap
Killing bugs used to be the domain of fancy chemicals that, it turns out, hurt us as much or more than the bugs. If you have a flying pest problem and need a green way to control it, watch this video to learn how to make a DIY wind tunnel trap for your insect nemeses.
How To: Replace a broken toilet flange
The flange on a toilet is the part that joins the toilet to the ground, and is very important to proper toilet function. If your toilet wobbles, smells bad, or leaks, your flange may be broken. Watch this video to learn how to remove the broken flange and install a new one.