Revised November 2, 2004Should electrical outlets be installed with the ground pin up or down?There is a lot of debate and few regulations on this question.The first time I got asked this question, it came from Newfoundland. You can see my answer to that question by searching for ""Outlets"" in...
We had to go to the Dimplex factory in Toronto to find out how they make a smoke-and-mirrors fireplace look really really like a real wood fire. It is quite amazing. The flames are a rotisserie of aluminum foil reflecting lights up and off a mirror.The bricks on the back of the fireplace are ac...
A Home Depot customer asked how to put an old cast iron bathtub over a terracotta tile floor, without cracking the tiles.My suggestion was to carefully plan the position of the tub so that she could put wooden tiles in the place of the four tiles where the feet land. The wood may dent with the we...
Paul Ferro has made a business of making new things look old, and he shows us how in his ARCANE shop in Toronto..It was interesting to see how he made a finish appear worn with the years. He applied the finish, let it dry, and then carefully sanded it down where normal use would wear it off, lik...
Ron from Uxbridge, Ontario suggests putting a golf "T" in the end of a caulking tube to close it off between uses.I had never tried that before so I gave it a rough testing. When the hole in the tube was small enough to be able to force the T into place, it worked quite nicely. If the hole wa...
One viewer suggested using spray lubricant on screws to get them to go into wood more easily, even without a pilot hole.It does work, but be aware that a spray liquid lubricant will stain the wood and prevent any good finish where the lubricant has squeezed off of the screw. There are other wa...
Pros do most nailing, tacking, or stapling of upholstery to furniture frames with pneumatic guns. For the do-it-yourselfer, regular staplers will often not be able to drive the staples in far enough, especially in hardwood frames. Lifting the rear of your stapler off the wood and pushing down v...
Lorraine Morgan loves gingerbread trim, but can't afford it -- so she makes her own. Once she found the pattern book, she perfected a technique of blowing up the pattern in a photocopy machine, tracing it onto both sides of the board, and then cutting and sanding the trim. One nice thing ab...
The ceiling always goes on first. That way the walls will support the edges of the ceiling, eliminating the need for perimeter nailing. If you put the walls up first, the ceiling may sag and drop down along the wall, cracking the plaster at the joint.Which way to put drywall on the walls is ...
I love working with Japanese saws, especially the double headed Ryoba or Kenzo saws. Japanese saws take less energy to use because they're sharper and are designed for shorter strokes. You do have to get used to the fact that the teeth on a Japanese saw cut on the pull, not the push stroke but th...
