There are two things you need to know about this video. First, it’s one of my most popular titles with more than 1.5 million views so far. And second, this video is part of my basement finishing course, though the…
I was 22 years old when I decided to move from the suburbs of Toronto to make a life for myself on a 90 acre patch of rural Ontario. That’s me below, in 1990, installing the main electrical cables into the…
Over the last five years I’ve been trying to understand a kind of beauty I see from time to time. It has to do with old brick buildings and I think I have it figured out. The most impressive brick buildings…
QUESTION: What should I do about the fuzzy surface fibers that developed on my deck? In the fall I stripped and pressure washed the wood and now it’s all fuzzy. I’m afraid that when I re-stain in the spring it…
Have you lost some asphalt roof shingles because of wind? Let me show you how to fix that with a job I did on my now house a while back. It’s got a steep roof, so it’s tricky to get up and…
Question: How can we make the floor in our house more soundproof? We live in a log cabin and the upstairs flooring is just one layer of tongue and groove planking on top of beams that forms the ceiling of…
Home generators have never been more popular because people are more concerned than ever about backup electrical power when the grid goes down. What’s easy to miss is that without pre-planning, most generators won’t offer much benefit for outages lasting…
What would it be like if your main reading material was one monthly newspaper? Read Steve’s account of a tiny publication that serves people who choose to live differently in most ways, including the information they choose to take in.
Sick and tired of leaky, clog-prone eavestrough? You might consider a trough-free alternative that Steve has used at his own place. Click to watch it in action.
The stuff you see here is mineral sediment from the bottom of a water heater. Annual flushing of tank-style heaters is essential for getting rid of this building up and extending water heater life. Click to see how.
More than one old-timer I know tells how new carpenters used to be judged on the job by their ability to build a sawhorse. If they could deal successfully with the required angles and joints of a sawhorse, creating something solid and…
Just for fun, here’s a two-minute peek over my shoulder as I use a super-sharp chisel and mallet to create a pocket for a hand-forged hinge for a wooden door I built. This is how all traditional hinges are installed.