One of our viewers caught our cameras in a home improvement centre and asked how best to finish off his long slow job of stripping a staircase of paint.If you sand too soon, you will waste a lot of sandpaper because it will simply clog up with melted paint.If you do the whole job with paint strip...
Yes you can paint a brick fireplace but not of course inside the firebox.The first thing to realise is that once you paint it, you cannot un-paint it. The paint will be worked into the small holes in the brick and will not come back out.First clean the brick as best you can, probably using TSP.L...
Sam from Regina has a great tip for managing to paint both sides of a door while working alone.He puts two long screws or lag bolts into the top of the door and one into the bottom of the door. Then he positions his saw horses so that the door is suspended by these three screws. When he wants t...
The nozzle on your can of spray paint is clogged up? Don't throw it away yet.Soak it overnight in solvent. Then use a needle or thin wire, like that inside the tie-wraps, to poke through the holes. Then spray some oil through it by using a spray can like WD-40, if the tips are compatible.If yo...
Often we need to mix things around the house and don't always have the best tools for the job. In this TV segment I showed two inexpensive tools that really help in this category.The Odd Job, available at many renovation centres, is a small barrel that was originally made for mixing small batche...
Therisa Timan from Pittmetals B.C. wants to know what to do with her old paint cans. How do you handle paint waste responsibly?If you dump solvent wastes like paint and paint thinners down the street drains, they usually go straight into the lake or rivers. If you dump it down the household dra...
Good questions, since we are usually trying to take stains out of grout.First you should be aware that you can purchase coloured grout. The renovation stores will have three or four base tones to choose from, not too exciting. Go to a speciality tile store and you will discover a wide variety o...
-- Oil base, resin base and polyvinyl acetate caulking do not hold up. There are far too many better caulkings available to waste time and money with these old formulations.-- Latex based caulking is inexpensive, can be painted and has medium durability. It is acceptable for baseboards and caul...
Chloe in Kincardine, Ontario uses a double open-ended wrench to carry heavy pails so that the handle wire doesn't cut into his hand.A slit garden hose can help as well.
One viewer installed drywall, taped the joints, painted and then discovered that there were lumps and uneven areas in the joint plaster. What to do?It is certainly easier to perfect the sanding before there is paint on the wall, so the moral is to really verify your sanding job before saying it ...
