Paint Me a Picture - No - Paint Me a Hall, DIY Style

Painting is one of the easiest DIY projects around. Novice DIY weekend warriors often begin with their DIY home improvement projects by repainting fences, hallways, doors, windows and walls.

Important tools

To be able to do painting jobs around the house, you would need the following:

1. Roller brushes of different sizes- you need different sizes, depending on the job. Roller brushes that are more than six inches in length are good for walls. Smaller roller brushes can be used to paint the bottom of walls. Small roller brushes can also be used to paint tables and chairs.

2. Synthetic brushes- synthetic brushes come in all shapes, sizes and colors. However, as a rule of thumb, purchase those that have fine yet durable strands. Synthetic brushes should be at least two inches wide. Larger brushes should have longer handles.

In addition, large brushes are heavier, so you have the option of attaching them to poles for hard to reach areas, such as the corners of ceilings.

3. Supply of old newspapers- you can use newspapers or similar recyclable papers. Use these to protect furniture and other surfaces when you are painting. Use plenty of paper when painting large surfaces such as walls and ceilings.

4. Plastic paint pans- pans can be bought from hardware stores. These specially made pans hold the paint on one side, while uneven surfaces allow you to remove excess paint.

5. Thinners- thinners will allow you to remove excess and encrusted paint on your roller brushes. Hard, encrusted paint can damage your roller brushes in the end. Never use water, as it will take too long to remove all the paint.

How to paint a hall

It seems daunting at first- the idea of painting a hall. But in reality, some tools and a bit of patience, plus lots of fun will get the job done.

The first step is to clear out your hallway. Put all the stuff in your hallway in another room. This eliminates the need to put newspapers all around. The risk of paint spots on your stuff is reduced to zero.

Second step is to clean the walls with a wet sponge and some soap. Rinse the walls and allow it to completely dry. If there is glossy paint, use a sandpaper to make the surface a bit rougher.

With a roller brush, apply the primer. Proceed to applying two coats of paint. Let the paint dry for a day or two.

Start re-adding things to your hallway. Old, useless things like unused golf bags should not be added to your hallway again. This process will de-clutter your hallway.

To beautify this space, consider adding plant life. Potted plants are a good choice. The potted plants need not be real. You can use plastic daisies or synthetic roses. Just make sure you clean your plants regularly with a wet piece of cloth to preserve their color.

If you do not have a clock in the hallway, consider adding a wall clock. Wall clocks can be either modern or completely classical with swinging pendulums.

The author of this article is Benedict Yossarian. Benedict recommends Roof Bond Foam Roof Insulation and Dekorbeton Concrete Stamping for your DIY needs.

Advantages of Framing With Steel Studs

I have heard all sorts of stories over the years of the advantages in framing with steel versus wood studs. One time I even heard you could build an entire house with the amount of recycled steel from a large automobile such as a Cadillac. I find this hard to believe unless you're building a very small home.

My personal favorite for framing with steel studs is that they are extremely straight. I have built nonbearing partition walls using 12 foot 3 1/2 inch wide steel studs and after the drywall you can lay an 8 foot level to check it for straightness on the wall with amazing results.

If you use 3 1/2 inch wide steel studs with 5/8 of an inch drywall you will get an extremely durable and sturdy wall. Framing was steel studs is common in office renovations or remodeling. Most of the steel stud framing is done via the drywall contractors.

Steel studs and termites do not mix. You'll never have to worry about these little buggers or other uninvited house pests damaging your walls.

Over the years I have heard stories that steel framed buildings are earthquake and fire proof. They might be more resistant to fire than wood but keep in mind when metal is hot enough it will bend and warp making it unusable.

When I hear people talking about a fireproof building built with metal framing components my first thought is all of the other materials used in building the house that are not fire resistant. Don't get a false illusion when buying a house framed with steel studs and think it is 100% fire proof.

As far as steel framed buildings being earthquake proof this is another story. I really can't comment too much on earthquake damage to a steel building. The problem with earthquakes is they seem to create fires. So even if you're building does survive an earthquake it could get damaged by a fire in the area.

I have framed more wood homes than steel homes over the years and my steel stud construction is limited to nonbearing partition walls usually located in office buildings. I love framing with metal because of its light weight and ease of construction.

I still love framing with wood. There is something about what framing that I have always loved and always will.

Greg Vanden Berge is working on the internet to promote the education for creating simple to follow guides and home building books to help professional building contractors as

well as the weekend warriors. He is currently working on more Building and Remodeling Library and adding useful content to help solve problems created by the lack of construction knowledge in the building industry.

Visit us and get more information on House Framing Ideas

Building a Garage Addition on to Your Home

One of the most rewarding home improvements I made to my house was to build a garage addition. For years I contemplated building a garage addition while I scraped the ice and snow from my cars and waited for them to warm up during the winter months. About 5 years ago I finally made the decision to build a garage onto my home.

The first big decision I had to make after deciding to build the garage addition was to determine how large to make it. I wanted a large enough garage to fit two cars comfortably and that would be of proper proportion with the rest of the house. I also wanted space to include a work bench and to allow room for the lawnmowers or snow blowers. I decided on a 26 foot wide, by 24 foot deep garage. Since my house was 36 feet in width, this gave me a garage that was about 2/5ths of the entire home frontage.

I also needed to make sure that the roof pitch and the elevation of the garage would be consistent with the rest of the home.

After taking these issues into account, I created some drawings of the garage including: the foundation size, the location of the garage doors, the maintenance door and windows, and the height profile of the roof. From these drawings I was able to discuss with a number of general contractors my garage and home plans.

After selecting my general contractor, I generated some additional drawings that provided all of the framing details necessary to pull a building permit. Because of the specific contour of my property, my garage plans also included a bonus room that would reside above the garage. Thus, I needed to include additional drawings of the bonus room, e.g. interior walls, doors, windows, closet, and entrance way and stairwell to/from the main house.

After excavation and installation of the foundation, the framing crew had the garage frame up in about a week. Three weeks later I had a completely enclosed garage, with all the outside doors and windows installed and the shingles installed on the roof.

From this point forward, I took over the electrical and insulation work, after filing for these specific permits.

Once the insulation was installed and approved, I called in the drywall contractor to install the drywall, and to tape and mud. I also had them apply a coat of primer and one coat of builders grade paint. It is well worth the money to have them do this.

I then finished the electric, installed the stair railing, interior doors and baseboard trim and the garage was nearly ready to move in.

The finishing touch was the installation of two garage door openers and a final application of paint in the bonus room.

The total cost of my garage addition was about $30,000. I had been quoted as high as $50,000, however with a little negotiation and sweat equity I was able to get a lot of garage for a reasonable price.

A few years have gone by since I completed my garage addition and every winter when I see people standing by their cars in the driveways scraping, I am reminded of one of the best decisions I ever made.

About the Author: Over the past 20+ years Mark Donovan has been involved with building homes and additions to homes. His projects have included: building a vacation home, building additions and garages on to existing homes, and finishing unfinished homes. For more information about Home Improvement and Home Additions, and Home Remodeling and Repair visit homeadditionplus.com and homeaddition.blogspot.com

Fireplace Books

Stair Building Books

Where do we go to buy stair building books? Do we go to the major retailers like Amazon or Barnes & Noble? I have found over the years the information in most of these books I have purchased from these stores has a lot of fluff with very little common sense stair building application.

I bought one stair building book that had information on handrails. The front cover looked great and I thought this was going to be a great book reading the reviews from Amazon. When I finally got the book in the mail, I would say about one third of it was math tables for building elaborate wooden hand railing's. These tables were not easy to understand along with the rest of the book.

Back when I bought the book on building stair handrails it dawned on me that most of the construction workers I have met during my 30 years of working in the field were not very good outside of basic math. Now I knew a lot of carpenters that could read a measuring tape and use a framing square pretty good. But when it came to advanced geometrical construction projects like a stair hand railing system this was out of our league.

Reading this book or should I say parts of it gave me an idea to write a book of my own, starting with basic stair building I took all the fluff or the hard to understand advanced stair building applications out of my book, How to Build a Straight Set of Stairs.

I put a lot of time into creating an illustration for every possible part of building a simple set of stairs. I have probably built over 2000 sets of stairs during my lifetime and have explained and taught basic and advanced stair building to other carpenters. Understanding what parts of the stair construction process they understood, I was able to improve my skills as a stair building teacher.

Most people do not need advanced stair building skills to construct a simple straight set of stairs. If you are building a straight set of stairs and would like a stair building book with lots of easy to understand illustrations along with simplified directions you have found it.

We're building more stair building books to help contractors, carpenters, handymen and homeowners understand the stair building process.

Greg Vanden Berge is working on the internet to promote the education for creating simple to follow guides and home building books to help professional building contractors as well as the weekend warriors. He is currently working on more building stairs books and adding useful content to help solve problems created by the lack of construction knowledge in the building industry.

Want to Know How to Makeover Your Home For Less? Canvas Wall Art Prints

They say a picture paints a thousand words? We agree, and if your talking modern wall pictures for your contemporary home you cant go far wrong than considering a canvas artwork for your living space or office. There are a plethora of canvas art online galleries small and large out there - all of them offering different services at different prices. This article is aimed at providing a balanced view of what's hot and what's not in the world of canvases. We hope these somewhat abstract words of wisdom will help you in your quest to choose a great canvas art print for yourself.

A canvas print, also known as a stretched canvas or canvas art, is the result of an image printed onto a canvas which is stretched, or gallery wrapped onto a frame and displayed. Many sellers offer canvas art either stretched or unstretched. Stretched canvas takes the hassle out of the process for the buyer. Generally the canvas will be 'wall ready' straight out of the shipping box. However often you can save a little bit of cash buy asking for your canvas print to be shipped unframed, your print will probably arrive in a tube and you will then need to hand build a frame before hanging. I would always recommend spending a little extra of your hard earned cash on getting your canvas print framed. This way your leaving it to the experts to do what they do best.

Historically reproductions of original artwork have been printed onto canvas for many decades using what's commonly known as offset printing in the trade. In recent years the industry has exploded with the ever growing popularity of inkjet printers and digital photographic devices. Modern large format printers can print up to huge sizes up to 60 inches in width. This size and scale of canvas printing has meant an almost endless scope for design and decoration of photographic images and artwork. Walk into any contemporary restaurant these days and you can almost guarantee that you will find a huge macro focused image of the chef's latest culinary delight.

The growth of the internet in the digital age has had huge ramifications for the services that canvas art retailers can offer to their customers. Web 2.0 has meant development of many user generated software packages that allow anyone to load up photos, do basic effects to those pictures and reproduce them as canvas art prints. Some online canvas art sellers do nothing else other than produce artwork generated by users of their websites. Others have huge artwork catalogues that can be reproduced 'on demand' for customers rather than having to be pre made. We always recommend when considering which company to buy your canvas art from to check their delivery schedules before purchase. Some offer services within 48 hours others 2 weeks! Go for the 48hour option as weeks can often run unto months as the work builds up over busy periods.

The process of framing a modern canvas print takes skill and experience to achieve a professional quality finish. Make sure the print is tightly stretched over around the sides of a box stretcher frame when you receive it. Good stretcher frames will be professionally, accurately cut with a sloping profile that minimises contact with the front face of the canvas, preventing the impression marks. Without this slope you may find that over years rather than months the impression marks become so bad as to ruin the actual canvas picture. They should also be adjustable, supplied with tensioning wedges in each inside corner that can be tapped in slightly to allow occasional re-tightening of the canvas. To take the perceived risk out of the 'buying canvas art' equation look for sellers that offer no quibble money back guarantees for a period of time after receipt. Not only can you check out the quality against what we recommend in this article but you can also 'live with' the canvas wall artwork for a few days to check it matches your wall dcor and contemporary furnishings.

So what type of canvas art seller is best I hear you cry? Unfortunately we don't have a finite answer for that question but we have a few thoughts on things to look out for. Most wall canvas sellers come from a printing background... great you might think, what could go wrong? Well have a think, and look at the actual artwork they have on offer and compare it to other canvas sellers. You will see some similarities as they will probably buy images from stock photography sellers. As a piece of 'art' these canvas prints will be worthless over the long term. They lack a little integrity as they wont be limited editions signed by the artist, as there is no artist! Look out for information on artists, limited edition numbers and so forth, this is usually a good sign for the longevity of value for your canvas wall artwork. Make sure your canvas art retailer has one foot in the printing industry and the other dipped into the art world galaxy!

Luke Hollingworth is an artist and business person from a rural area in the United Kingdom. He works for a canvas wall art company called Art By People - http://www.artbypeople.co.uk

Fireplace Books

Framing Basement Walls Can Provide Warmth and Comfort

If you have any experience at carpentry working with framing basement walls can be fun and save you a lot of money. If you have no or very little experience with carpentry you can still learn with the right desire.

So you have an unfinished basement in your home and would like to create another room like a recreation room or laundry room or basement study you can do it. The first thing you need to do is know there are two areas that you will be framing, the outside walls of your basement and the inside walls to create the rooms within.

The outside walls or perimeter walls are the walls that you can either construct to provide warmth and added comfort or just construct as walls to provide added pleasantness to the basement. Framing Basement Walls to provide warmth and comfort is the best way to go if you plan to use the rooms in the basement as part of your living area.

If you want the basement room to be warm and comfortable, you will need to use 2 X 4 wooded studs for your framing around the perimeter. This will let you use insulation between the studs to provide the warmth required between the outside foundation and the inside wall.

The interior walls will also be constructed of wooden 2 X 4 studs, but normally don't require insulation between the studs. If you want added noise protection adding insulation to the inner walls can help deaden sound.

When you spend time framing basement walls correctly you will have a more functional basement area to add value and comfort to your home.

Looking for ways to have an artful and creative basement wall? Discover practical basement remodeling ideas online and turn cheap basement ideas into dream basements at a budget.

Iron Gates - As Good As It Gates

Gates are pretty simple they must allow anything that is worthy of passing through and must block anything that is not. And it can't get any simpler. That is why, today, we design gates that do just that or probably a bit more. Just the thing that must be kept in mind is - that they must be sturdy. So sturdy that a gate is a guard, all by itself, all the time.

When the matter comes to sturdiness, there is, probably, no element to match the goodwill of iron. Iron gates have been in use since ages. And they will be, until a better element is discovered. Iron gates are made, pretty obviously, of iron. The choice of iron is made because of its sturdiness, ability to resist weathers of any season, and its visual beauty. Iron gates stand all extreme conditions and come out as winners all the time.

Cast iron is obtained by melting pig iron, along with considerable amounts of scrap steel and scrap iron. Various steps are then taken to remove any unwanted contaminants like phosphorus and sulfur. Later on, other elements are mixed into the melt before finally obtaining a form that is a produce of casting. This process, as is obvious, provides iron of a very superior quality. Such superior quality reinforces the trust needed to build iron gates. Due to its low melting point, excellent match inability ,cast ability and good fluidity, cast irons are famous with a wide range of applications, that include gates pipes, car and machine parts. Nowadays, cast iron gates are a common sight everywhere.

Wrought iron is commercially pure iron, with a tiny amount of carbon , but it generally contains some amount of slag. Wrought iron gates can be easily welded together and are very tough, malleable, and ductile. This however comes with a price. Wrought iron is quite soft, and hence, wrought iron gates are not a common sight today. Wrought iron is so called as it is wrought from a mixture of porous iron contaminated with slag. Wrought iron is not as strong as compared to its counterpart and is, hence, less used than cast iron. Although there may not be a visible difference between the two different types of irons, their differences in sustaining various conditions are obvious. Hence care must be taken in deciding upon the type of iron to be used for the iron gates. Generally, wrought iron scores a couple of brownie points over cast iron in terms of endurance.

Gate fences too are similar in nature they compliment the iron gates. Gate fences provide added security and more power to the iron gates. Generally gate fences are made out of iron, although whether to use cast iron or wrought iron solely depends upon the owner. Both cast iron and wrought iron gate fences are a common sight. These Iron Gate fences are generally barb-wire fences that are put around the iron gates to provide extra level of security.

Rob Hargreaves - An American Locksmith, living and working in New York City, for NYC Locksmith company - Mr-Locks Inc. To learn more about iron gates and other types of security gates - please visit: http://www.mr-locks.com and browse through our catalogue of iron work, call or email for additional inquiries about Iron Gates.

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