DIY Life

Your front yard doesn't have to be perfectly manicured or professionally landscaped to look good. It is, however, your public face -- of sorts. Plus, your neighbors are forced to look at whatever you put out there!

Be a good neighbor: banish the following items from your front yard.

1. Plastic foliage. I'm talking anything you got from a craft store. Like this, for example. Plastic ivy. Faux dried sunflowers. Silk chrysanthemums. Plastic wreaths. Fake autumn leaves strung into streamers. Shudder.

Plastic flowers are tacky in the garden. They're unnecessary. After all, you have Mother Nature at your disposal! Why choose fake flowers? Finally, they evoke the cemetery. Enough said.

Looking for deals on DIY-related gear?

If you're staying home this 4th of July weekend, it's a good time to work on the house and yard. Let's visit the big boys of home improvement supplies: check out July 4th deals from Lowe's here, and The Home Depot here. Neck-and-neck as always, both stores are offering 10% off major appliances ($397 and up) and deals on carpet installation.

Lowe's is offering gift cards in return for purchases, too, starting at a $10 card for purchases from $99 to $199 and going up to $100 cards for purchases of $600 or more. Nice to get something in return for all that spending, huh? Oh, and Lowe's is also offering 10% discounts this weekend for military personnel and their immediate families.

Remodeling a kitchen, there are a lot of things to consider: appliance choices, layout, storage solutions, and finishing touches. When we renovated our kitchen, flow was a priority for us. We love to cook, and the previous arrangement of the kitchen was awkward and inefficient.

If you want to take the flow of your kitchen to the next level, why not consider applying some Feng Shui principles to your remodel? SheKnows has some tips on how to design your kitchen, feng shui style.

• Plan the stove to be facing the door, as you should never have your back to the door while cooking. You can do this by creating a cooking island or by using a reflective surface.
• Avoid red, pink, or purple in your decor, as these colors can cause you to argue with your cooking partner. Instead, whites, blues, and light greens are calming choices.
• Use full-spectrum bulbs to simulate natural light.
• The traditional triangular model for kitchens fits into Feng Shui: refrigerator, stove, and sink, all about six to eight feet apart.
• Fire elements (stove, microwave) should be separated from water elements (sink, refrigerator) by wood.

The article at SheKnows has more details describing how to create Feng Shui harmony in your kitchen. A Zen kitchen sounds appealing, doesn't it?

I usually forgo the iron in favor of a few extra minutes in the dryer. When I actually do haul out the ironing board and iron, you can bet that we're needing to press our clothes for a wedding or some other event.

Bringing out the iron only a couple of times each year, and typically only an hour before rushing out the door, means that if it ever did break down, I'd need an immediate fix -- one that I could do myself.

Fix-it Club offers this iron repair tutorial. The comprehensive tutorial reviews how the iron works, what could go wrong, diagnosing the problem, and finally the tools and methods for repair. Given that irons are simple appliances, well-made ones won't need regular repair, and when they do, you'll often find that the problem lies in the cord, handle, or steaming vents.

I don't imagine that I use my iron often enough for it to fail, but if it did, Fix-it Club would be my first stop. Better yet, I think I'll take their maintenance advice and prevent a problem before it starts.

[via:Dumb Little Man]

A few months back, the control knob on my clothes dryer broke. Since it involved only a minor DIY repair job, I thought this a fab opportunity to try shopping for spare parts online. Result? A 10 out of 10 experience. I used PartSelect and was really happy. Other likely-looking choices include PartStore and big box store sites like SearsPartsDirect, to name just two of the many sites out there.

I was thrilled with how easy it was to locate such a tiny and obscure plastic doo-dad via the Web. Thrilled because ordering it online was possible in the first place. Also thrilled because such sites make simple appliance repairs easier for the beginner DIY'er. Interested? After the break, I'll share what you should know before cracking out that credit card:

The Speed Factor. Buying spare parts online saves you lots of valuable time. In the olden days, you would have to flip through the phone book to find likely parts suppliers. Then you would have to make some phone calls. Next, you would waste at least an hour driving to and from the supplier.

Stumped by a difficult DIY task or a fix-it job gone wrong? Here's a possibility to consider: How to Mend it.com. This Brit site lets readers submit questions for other readers to answer. It's a lot like super-popular Yahoo Answers, but it's devoted entirely to fix-it topics. Car repair, home maintenance, renovations, large and small appliance jobs, computers, plumbing, lawn mowers, film projectors, boats, heating and cooling systems, toys, roofing, car alarms, and even musical instruments. Yep. They're all covered here.

Lots of questions seem to go unanswered. However, many others get one or even several replies. Worth a shot if you're having a problem and don't want to pay big bucks for a repair service. To test the site's mettle, I searched washing machine repair. This brought up over 15,000 questions on the topic. Problem is, (assuming you're searching for answers) you're going to have to hope that plugging in a more specific search term will take you to the questions best-suited to your situation. Obviously, you are not going to want to scroll through all those questions page by page.

Bottom line: if there's one fix-it this site could use, it's a more sophisticated search function. But give it a whirl anyway. It's free advice, people!

How energy efficient is your home? If your heating bills are out of control and your environmental impact is worsening then it's time to do a self check on your energy usage. This DIY home energy audit is a detailed, 9 step approach to evaluating and improving upon your energy consumption.

Getting to know your energy bills is the first step. You can't notice patterns and set goals if you don't know what you're spending and why. Once you know your bills you can start to work to bring them down. The full instructions explain how to examine your heating and cooling equipment along with your appliances. Looking for and repairing air leaks and energy sucks will make a big difference. You'll also want to replace your bulbs, and be mindful of light usage. Lastly, gauge your results. How have the changes impacted your energy bills? What changes can you continue to make? If you want added information or a more in-depth energy audit, this web based audit tool will be perfect.

Review the 9 step audit process and make changes around the house. You'll notice a savings on your energy bills and you'll lessen your environmental impact.

Major appliance repair can be a big job and an even bigger expense to have someone come in for. Even the greatest DIY'ers are often stuck by appliance repair problems. The most important thing, and where I think most people actually go wrong is in understanding how your appliances actually work.

If you don't know the mechanics of a washer machine, how are you supposed to know where to start working when something goes wrong. That's the thing that I particularly liked about this site. They first start by giving a quick "how it works" lesson for each appliance. The diagrams are a great help here too.