Hot Home & Garden How-Tos

How To: Clear a Blocked Sink

If you have a blocked sink, there are multiple solutions. This video tutorial will see to it that you find the right fix for your clog. For more information, as well as to get started unblocking your own sink, watch this helpful plumbing tutorial.

How To: Choose & Install Garden Lighting

Want to bring some light to your garden and make it look fabulous at night? You may want to consider installing garden lights. As for what sort of lights to install, that depends on your garden and the type of effect you wish to achieve. For detailed instructions on choosing the right garden lights for your home, watch this video guide.

How To: Propagate Plants from Cuttings

If you want to propagate plants from cuttings, this horticultural how-to will show you how. Make certain you prepare your pot with a propagating mix and make a small hole with your finger. Take the cuttings and strip your leaves. Next, dip your cutting into a hormone gel or powder before putting your cutting into your pot. For more, including complete step-by-step instructions on the propagation process, take a look.

How To: Choose the Right Fertilizer for Your Lawn

To keep your lawn healthy, you'll want to fertilize it twice a year: once in fall and once in spring. But what type of fertilizer should you use? The answer, of course, has to do with the type of lawn you have and the sort of results you want to see. For more information on choosing the right fertilizer for your own lawn, watch this home landscaping tutorial.

How To: Start a Vegetable Garden

It's always a pleasure to grow your own herbs and vegetables. Start with good, healthy soil and add lots of organic material. To grow your herbs and vegetables: you can use either seeds or seedlings. Seeds are more cost effective but take longer to grow whereas with seedlings you'll have an instant garden. For more information on starting a vegetable garden, watch this friendly DIY home gardening tutorial.

How To: Cut tile

Learn how to cut tile with this DIY video tutorial. If you need to make angular and circular cuts, use an angle grinder and fit a diamond disk. You'll need to fit a continuous diamond disk, not a segmented one, because a segmented disk will chip the tiles. And if you're using an angle grinder, don't forget your personal protection equipment, ear muffs, dust mask, and eye protection.

How To: Recaulk a bathtub or shower

There’s nothing that will brighten up your bathroom faster than re-caulking an old, mildewed bathtub or shower. You will need a utility knife, bleach, a small bucket of water, a toothbrush, a tube of caulk, a clean rag, a silicon caulk remover, a plastic caulking tool, and painter's tape. Watch this video plumbing tutorial and learn how to re-caulk a bathtub or shower.

How To: Clean latex paint off your paintbrushes

Despite your best efforts, do your paintbrushes always end up too stiff to reuse? Keep them forever with these cleaning tips. You will need water, a clean rag, a paintbrush comb, a clean container, liquid fabric softener, a rubber band, and a ruler. Watch this video interior design tutorial and learn how to clean latex paint off paintbrushes.

How To: Repair a garbage disposal

Is your disposal not working? Follow the few steps outlined in this video and perhaps you'll be able to avoid calling that service person out to your home. For step-by-step instructions on troubleshooting, and repairing, a faulty garbage disposal, watch this handy home how-to.

How To: Operate and maintain a chainsaw

This two-part chainsaw safety maintenance and operation instuctional video was developed to give chainsaw operators the basic information needed to properly and safely use a chainsaw. Although this program covers a wide variety of subjects, you should always read and fully understand your own chainsaw's operation manual. For more information on using and maintaing chainsaws, take a look.

How To: Unlock a zip tie

While zip ties are great tool for taming unsightly tangled cables and wires, most would agree they're not very reusable. But were you aware it's possible unlock a zip tie in a matter of a few seconds using a needle? You can and this tutorial will show you how. For step-by-step instructions on undoing zip ties, take a look. Unlock a zip tie.

How To: Repair the flange on a rocking or leaking toilet

If you walk into your bathroom and notice there's a little moisture around the base of your toilet, or there's just a little more rock than there should be, it's time to get it off the floor and see what's underneath. There's a good chance your flange may be broken. Fortunately, this video tutorial will walk you, step by step, through the flange repair process. Take a look.

How To: Prune fruit trees in the summer

These helpful instructions will help you trim back apple trees for optimal fruit growth and easy harvesting. Pruning trees is largely an intuitive process but it's important to direct air and light into the center of the tree for healthy, balanced growth. For step-by-step instructions on pruning your own fruit trees, take a look.

How To: Clean a pan of hardened caramel

Love cooking desserts with caramel but dread cleaning up the hardened caramel left on the pot? Then watch this Cooking Light magazine how-to to learn the quick and easy way to clean your pan. All you'll need to do is add water to the pan and bring it to a boil. For step-by-step instructions, take a look.

How To: Make a lock miter joint

Watch this instructional carpentry video to woodwork a lock miter joint with a lock miter bit and set up block. Join materials at 90° by cutting a 45° miter and a matching tongue and groove glue joint. This joint not only increases mechanical strength, but also increases glue surface area and automatically aligns parts.

How To: Unshrink clothing

This instructional housekeeping video shows you how to take those old shrunken clothes you have and make them wearable again. You will need white vinegar, a sponge and a zip lock bag. Coat the entire t-shirt in the vinegar and load the shrunken shirt and wash it in a hot wash, after a few minutes, add detergent to wash out the smell of vinegar. After throwing the t-shirt in the dryer for about thirty minutes, the shirt should have expanded several inches in every direction. Don't throw away c...

How To: Coat drywall around boxes with joint compound

Watch this instructional video on how to coat detail work around boxes and pipes with joint compound. Spackling drywall is a delicate art, but anyone can create a perfectly smooth surface with a metal putty knife and a fresh bucket of spackle. Learn how to lay dow thin coats of putty around details and box shapes to avoid heavy sanding in the second stage of prepping a room for painting.

How To: Coat butt joints with joint compund

Watch this instructional video on how to coat butt joints with joint compound. Spackling is a delicate art, but anyone can create a perfectly smooth surface with a metal putty knife and a fresh bucket of spackle. Rock the putty knife back and forth to coat a butt joint with joint compound. Once you are ready, try out to bonus trick for spackling masters.

How To: Coat ceiling joints with joint compound

This instructional video demonstrates how to coat ceilings with joint compound, without dripping mud on your face. Spackling is a delicate art, but anyone can create a perfectly smooth surface with a metal putty knife and a fresh bucket of joint compound. Spackling ceilings is one of the more difficult tasks in prepping a room for painting, but this video provides tips on how to lay down thin layers of putty to avoid heavy sanding after the spackle dries.

How To: Coat a cornerbead with joint compound

This is a video demonstration on how to coat cornerbeads with join compound. Spackling is a delicate art, but anyone can create a perfectly smooth surface with a metal putty knife and a bucket of fresh joint compound. Learn how to spackle a corner in thin coats to avoid heavy sanding in the second stage of prepping a room for painting.

How To: Putty coat drywall

Here's a way to make your drywall project perfect. Mix up some thin joint compound, using more water than normally required for spackling holes in the wall. You can roll the putty onto the wall with a think rolling brush. After the joint compound dries, it only requires a light sanding. Watch this instructional video to create perfectly smooth drywall surfaces with liquid spackle.

How To: Make a geothermal slinky

Watch this training video for making Earth Loop Geothermal Slinkies. Geothermal technology takes advantage of the earth's natural heat-storing ability. A geothermal system include three main pieces of equipment: underground piping, a heat pump and an air-handling system. The geothermal process is based on a simple premise: Below the frost line - usually about six feet deep – the earth is a constant temperature of about 50 degrees Fahrenheit all year long.

How To: Grow a grass lawn in summer weather

Gardener P. Allen Smith give us some tips on how to care for our lawns during the hot summer months. You need to choose the correct type of grass seed and soil to suit your area and local weather conditions. In the summer, let your grass grow a little longer so that the blades of grass can shade the roots. Watch this instructional gardening video to learn how to maintain a fresh summer lawn, without dumping unnecessary fertilizers onto it or over watering the brittle grass.

How To: Harvest rainwater

P. Allen Smith talks with Shawn Hatley of Brae Water about the rain water harvesting system at the Garden Home Retreat. Begin by digging a very large hole. Simple rain tanks conveniently fit into the large dugout. This instructional landscaping video to save up to half a million gallons of water in a single year. Collecting rain water is a cost efficient way to save water and energy while maintaining your garden.

How To: Build a home-made wind generator using basic tools

Suffering from high energy costs or simply looking to live in a more environmentally sustainable fashion? In this video tutorial, you'll find instructions for building your own wind generator using simple hand tools. For more, as well as step-by-step instructions to building a your own rotary wind generator, take a look at this how-to video.

How To: Grow and care for gardenia bushes

With its glossy green leaves and perfectly shaped, exquisitely fragrant pure, white flowers, it could only be a gardenia. Gardenias are some of the more popular flowering shrubs but they never seem to flower as much as we'd like them to. For a start, it's important to be patient: gardenia flowers consistently is consistently warm. For more information on growing, and caring for gardenias, such that they'll grow well, watch this gardenia flower how-to. Grow and care for gardenia bushes.