DIY Life

With the high price of gasoline, we're all looking for ways to stay home, rather than loading up the car with the kids and heading off to have some summer fun elsewhere. One solution kills two birds with one stone: building a deck will give you a place to hang out and entertain, and add equity to your home.

Of course it's no secret that DIY deck building takes some careful planning, some tools that you probably already have, and lots of elbow grease. What you might not know is the construction details and tricks that the pros use. Read on and you'll be an expert!

Stop looking for that perfect piece of art: convert that big empty wall into a rock climbing training wall!

OK, you probably wouldn't choose to build this in your living room, but a basement or garage might be the perfect place for a climbing wall.

Building your own rock climbing wall is a great way get exercise and improve your climbing skills, but this project isn't for the faint of heart. First, you'll want to carefully design the wall, taking into consideration your space constraints, your skill level, and your skill goals.

Essortment has a full list of tools and materials, along with detailed construction instructions. This project isn't for amateur builders, but if you have the experience to take it on, you'll have the coolest garage on the block.

When I was in high school, I had some friends that had a rock band... a very loud rock band. I liked to hang out at their practice sessions. To sound-proof their "studio" (spare bedroom) and avoid parental wrath, they did some pretty crazy things... things like stapling egg cartons to the walls.

Later, when I was a commercial carpenter, we had contracts to install fabric-covered architectural acoustic panels in churches, school gyms, and the like. Now there's a better solution for sound studios, workshops, or anywhere else sound-proofing is called for – sound-proof acoustical-grade drywall.

It's made by Quiet Solution, and it works just like dressing for cold weather: by layering as the panels are assembled. It installs and is taped-and-floated just like regular drywall, and comes in a variety of STC ratings. It's not cheap -- the cheapest panel is $39.95 -- but if sound-proofing is needed, it's an all-in-one solution that may be more economical in the long run.

Oh, sure, we've had a bewildering array of amazingly helpful home improvement articles here on DIY Life recently, particularly in the last few days. But whose head can be turned by sheet rock and plumbing when so much love is in the air?

That's right: Valentine's Day is coming up, so this past week, we spent a lot of time thinking about handmade gifts for all of our sweethearts -- and yours. If you're looking for ideas, you will enjoy the following posts:

• DIY Valentine's gifts -- homemade romance by Francesca Clarke: Thoughtfulness goes a long way, but there's more to it than that.
• Lovebird votive holders: perfect DIY Valentine's gift by Diane Rixon: Cut pretty bird silhouettes out of metal to instantly increase your romance quotient by an extra 79%.
• Homopolar motor for your Valentine by Alan Parekh: Use simple electrical principles to show your Valentine how they make your heart spin.

More ways to express your love this week (or any other time) await you after the break, along with several other recommendations which have absolutely nothing to do with either hearts or flowers. We'll also reveal this week's top three posts.

I wrote about gingerbread houses a few times last month, what with them being seasonally-appropriate and all, but one thing I noticed is that people who love building with food will do it whenever they want, not just in the last month or two of the year. There was a Valentine house, several houses that people mentioned waiting until January to build, and a few houses that, for one reason or another, didn't look "wintry" at all.

I think I have just found the ne plus ultra of cookie-and-candy building. Behold, friends, the Battle of Pelennor Fields from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Return of the King, done almost entirely in candy. This isn't technically a "gingerbread house": the base is made of cardboard and covered with icing. The only cookies involved seem to be the wafers used as the stones in the walls of Minas Tirith.

Yoo hoo, DIY'ers! Over here! Wanna feel some real pain? Check out the HGTV 2008 Dream Home. I'm talking about envy and a sliding feeling in your stomach also known as Renovation Depression. Well...that part I made up. But Renovation Depression could be a real condition. So many people pouring their hard-earned dollars and all their free time into endless home repairs and upgrades. Then along comes stuff like this to burst your achievement bubble, when you realize you'll never have anything half as impressive. Sigh.

You know, I don't necessarily want a house as pricey or perfect as this Florida palace. But when you dream of having a house that you love, where everything is arranged how you want it, where all the walls are finally painted exactly the right shades... Well, I don't know about you, but to me it can be painful seeing such housing perfection. Outdoor shower? Fishing closet? Yeesh. Even the family dog has its own cabana.

Visit HGTV to see photos of the interior and exterior of the Dream Home. Visit HGTV sister site, HGTVpro to view photos of the house's construction.

All my friends know that I'm nuts, so they all take it in stride when I tell them about my plans for building green. While there are lots of cool green methods that are becoming popular among those with lots of space to spread out or few neighbors to have to look at it. However, for those of us who have neighbors to consider or, like me, have wacky ideas about building a brand new 100 year old Victorian, there are some more traditional building methods available that have green written all over it.

As Americans, one of the biggest insults we make to our environment is our wastefulness. The lumber used to build houses prior to 1940-ish was typically harvested from old growth forests and while we would never stand for that nowadays, the wood is better quality than you can find anywhere in any developed country.

If you're a homeowner with a backyard, you most likely have a fence of some kind. Those fences serve to divide properly lines, keep dogs and kids in check and provide privacy for those backyard parties and barbecues. That is, unless yours is on the verge of collapse.

Ever thought of erecting a new fence to replace an old, decrepit one -- or just installing a fence where none exists? For wooden, stockade-type fences, the pre-built sections can be had pretty cheap from many hardware superstores and fence companies. To install the vertical fence posts and get everything put up right, though, takes some elbow grease and careful measurement and planning.

If you've ever been in a blackout or perhaps out in the country somewhere with unpredictable electricity service, the term "generator" has probably been in your mind more than once.

Problem: any generator that will be powering more than a few lightbulbs probably costs an arm and a leg. In fact, some cost more than a few whole human bodies. Okay, enough with the goofy analogies: let's move on.

Instructables user j schultz built this awesome letterpress at home to make wedding stationery. Anyone who's priced out professionally-printed wedding invitations knows that letterpress stuff is spendy, usually at least as expensive as engraving... and that's before you consider that you need more than just invitations. RSVP cards, thank you notes, maps, and so on: they really start to add up!

However, letterpress printing itself is medieval technology, and not too difficult to do at home, particularly if you don't have to set the type yourself. There are companies which will make printing plates for you; one is mentioned in the article. The inked letters and motifs are pressed deeply into the paper, giving you something that feels as beautiful as it looks: it's not cheap, but it's far less expensive than paying someone else to do the printing.

Gutenberg never had it so good. (He, after all, had to set his own type.)

I recently unearthed an old book of mine: '666 Science Tricks & Experiments' by Bob Brown. Dated from the 70's, it is a compilation of Bob's 'Science for You' series in the LA Times and syndicated elsewhere. Well some of the gems in here aren't just tricks, but fully functional objects you might find useful for DIY projects. For example, one of those wheels for measuring distances in a field.

The trick is to just make a wheel of the proper diameter so that one full revolution will equal whatever unit you wish to measure. In Bob's article, he uses a wheel of 11.46 inches in diameter. One full revolution works out to a yard. This particular measuring device is perfect for marking football fields.

Now take the 11.46" diameter wheel, put it at the end of a stick so it can rotate, and mark a big spot somewhere so you can easily see and count the revolutions. You can get fancy with this basic premise, adding a clicker to hear the revs, or even an optical encoder to count it all digitally. Getting really fancy would involve gears and math so you could measure other distances with one wheel. But It's really just easier to calculate the circumference using our old friend Pi*d.