The Historic District

Our house was coated with a flat Ben Moore stain in Navajo White when we bought it. It had been done approximately 15 years before and it looked like crap. The parts that the POs had built/reshingled looked better than the old shingles but that is to be expected. I do not pressure wash wood siding s...

Interestingly enough, my wife has been asking me to 'do something' with the floor of the sun porch....well, we are having some people over Saturday and she said to me last night "I want that floor taken care of by Saturday" I had purchased a new area rug to go in place of the old one that ...

When they were trying to put a 65,000 s/f facility on my back property line I called and talked to anyone I could think of. Some were useless, some wanted the facility (supposedly going to be an assisted living facility) and a few were willing to help. While I know small towns have the 'in crowd' wh...

I would give the varnish a good sanding to make sure it is well scuffed, clean with TSP and then paint with an oil based primer, which you can topcoat with a latex floor enamel.

Almost all of the floors in our 1907 cottage are painted. I used a porch and floor enamel which is from Sherwin Williams I think. Been here 12 years and I have recoated one high traffic area once in that time. There were some serious gaps that I filled and all the seams open up in the winter when th...

My rule of thumb for fences is to have 1/2 of the height below ground (i.e.: a 6' fence has 3' underground) A lot depends on what type of soil you are putting the posts in as well. If you have loose light soil, you may need a tight-packing stone chip to set the posts. If you have dense packed sandy ...

The 'food in a cooler outside' was our go-to method when we had power outages in the winter. Rarely did we ever have to worry about any of our fresh food freezing, but we did have to plan a lot of meals to use frozen meat if the temps weren't cooperating Sounds like you are making the best of a less...

I need to move the gas line anyways. Could I have them cut it and cap in the basement? I just don't know if I can get anyone out here (particularly since it's supposed to snow tomorrow) on 24 hours notice...and plumbers always hate to work on my house anyways since it's a rats nest. But I could giv...

Hi Jen, back at it I see Sorry about the ankle but nice score! Unless these puppies weigh in at over 200 lbs apiece, I wouldn't worry about the floor framing...imagine having a party and 10 guests. I doubt all 10 would weigh 100 lbs so 5 of these at 200 would be similar to that. Also, if you can sto...

According to this article wax only sits on the surface of the wood and does not penetrate v.s. poly which would: m From the article: "You can apply wax over any other finish and it will give the surface a soft sheen and smooth feel, but don’t put other finishes over wax." My concern with ...