Anyone who has priced a kitchen has had this experience. Same room, same layout, three companies, and the numbers come back at eighteen, twenty six and thirty nine thousand. The instinct is to assume somebody is overcharging. Occasionally somebody is….
Walking down the pest control aisle at any home improvement store reveals dozens of products, sprays, baits, granules, foggers, each promising to solve a slightly different problem. That variety often leads homeowners to treat these products as interchangeable, grabbing whatever…
Utility spaces rarely get a second thought until something goes wrong. The area behind the water heater, the gap where a pipe enters through the foundation, the narrow space around the HVAC unit, these spots sit quietly in the background…
Every fall, Grand Rapids homeowners notice the same seasonal visitor working its way indoors: the brown marmorated stink bug. These insects show up on window screens, cluster near doorframes, and occasionally drop from ceiling fixtures at the most inconvenient moments….
Most homeowners think of exterior repairs as a matter of curb appeal or general upkeep. Replacing a section of siding or recaulking a window frame feels like routine maintenance, not pest prevention. Yet many of the small defects that go…
Walk into almost any newly renovated kitchen in Toronto, Vancouver, or Calgary and run your hand along the counter. Odds are good it’s quartz. Not the speckled, slightly plasticky quartz of fifteen years ago, but something that looks remarkably like…
Okay, so let’s talk about something that honestly doesn’t get enough credit—glass tile. Have you ever walked into a kitchen or bathroom and just thought, “Wow, this feels fancy!”? Nine times out of ten, it’s the tile. BELK Tile is…
Got old paint to remove? It’s probably got lead. Read Steve’s three-step paint stripping process that will get the job done safely.
High-end tools are usually the cheapest option in the long run, even for non-professionals. I know this sounds strange, and perhaps that’s why so few people seem to understand this fact. The problem is especially bad with do-it-yourselfers and their…
One of the most common wintertime problems homeowners face is condensation forming on the inside face of windows. Every winter for a couple of decades I’ve heard from distraught people wondering what to do to stop water from trickling down…
QUESTION: What kind of tradesperson fixes failed window seals? My windows are foggy between the panes with moisture but I don’t know who to look for to fix them. ANSWER: This is a common problem, but I’m not aware of any…
There’s more to gardening than digging a hole in the ground and planting something. Pots, planters and hanging baskets add a lot to gardening results. Check out how Mary and I do container gardening at our place on Manitoulin Island.