Simple seasonal tips, winter home safety, and old-time woodworking tricks from the garage. Explore 20 fact-checked guides covering wood stoves, frozen pipe prevention, furnace maintenance, and weekend woodworking projects.
Most chimney fires start with creosote, the black buildup from smoky fires and wet wood. Here is how to keep it from building up, the warning signs, and what to do if a chimney fire starts.
A full cord is 128 cubic feet, and anything sold as a face cord or a rick can mean almost anything. Here is how to measure what you bought and how to tell if it is dry enough to burn.
Wood burning, or pyrography, was a parlor hobby a century ago and it is easy to learn today. Here is which tool to start with, which woods to use and avoid, and a simple first project you can finish in an afternoon.
A space heater can be safe if you follow a few rules: plug it straight into the wall, keep it 3 feet from anything that burns, and turn it off when you leave the room or go to bed.
One weekend in November can save you a frozen pipe in January. Here is a simple two-day checklist for outside faucets, pipes, the furnace, alarms, gutters, and an emergency kit.
A glued-up hardwood cutting board is one of the best first woodworking projects and one of the best gifts. Here is the wood, a cut list that adds up, the glue and finish to use, and how to keep it clean for years.
Check it every month and change it at least every three months, says ENERGY STAR. Here is how to find your filter, which way the arrow goes, and what the MERV number on the package means.
Ten simple projects you can build in a weekend with ordinary lumber store boards, each with real sizes: coasters, a tool tote, a bluebird box, a coat rack, a serving tray, and more.
Find the leak with a stick of incense, then fix it the right way: caulk where nothing moves, weatherstripping where it does, and plastic film or heavy curtains for the worst windows.
Pine, cherry, maple, birch, and poplar soak up stain unevenly and turn blotchy. Here is why it happens and how to stop it: even sanding, a washcoat or conditioner, gel stain, and a test board first.
Holiday cactus can live more than 100 years, and it blooms on a schedule set by long, dark nights and cool rooms. Here is why Grandma's plant bloomed every year, how to get yours to, and how to root a piece to pass down.
Whimmy diddles, limberjacks, Jacob's ladders, and push cars: the wooden toys that came out of home shops for generations. A little history, plus two you can build this weekend and the safety rules for little hands.
Six wooden ornaments you can make from the scrap bin: little trees from a 1x4, branch slices, block snowmen, scroll saw stars, wood burned rounds, and a keepsake with the year on the back.
A fresh cut, a big stand, and plain water every day. Here is how to pick a fresh tree, keep it drinking, and keep it safe, with NFPA's fire rules and what the research says about sugar and aspirin.
Before you strip Grandma's dresser, check three things: whether it's worth more as is, whether the paint has lead, and whether the top is veneer. Then here is how to refinish it step by step.
Both are old-fashioned oils that soak in and cure with air. Here is how tung oil and boiled linseed oil really differ, why many tung oil finish cans hold little tung oil, how to apply each, and how to handle the rags.
Eight Christmas wood projects with real sizes: a stacked 2x4 tree, a two-block date calendar, a twig star, a pallet sign, a card holder, JOY letters, a small serving board, and a candle box centerpiece.
A simple screen-bottom platform feeder you can build in an afternoon from a 1x2 and a scrap of mesh, plus Cornell Lab advice on seed, cleaning, winter water, and keeping birds off your windows.
Yellow glue, polyurethane, epoxy, hide glue, or super glue? Here is what each one is good for, plus the six reasons glue joints fail, straight from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory.
That old plane and box of chisels from Grandpa's bench can cut like new. Here is how to clean off the rust, flatten and sharpen the edge, and tune a hand plane so it takes thin, curly shavings.