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An old house is not frozen in time. And as the decades leave their marks, each owner leaves an imprint, too, based on what seems in the best interests of the house and its occupants. Compromises are involved. Tastes change. Consider the story of this circa-1900 Dutch Colonial Revival and its current owners, Tyler and Katie Judkins. Located in Cumberland, Maine, just north of Portland, where the two both work, the house came with a kind of catalog of its home improvements: a photo album compiled by Carolyn Murray, whose family lived in the house for decades (she still lives nearby)....

For instructions on interior doors, read How to Install a Prehung Interior Door. How to Install an Exterior Door The key things to remember are setting the door level, shimming the frame so the gaps between it and the door are even, and taking steps to waterproof the installation. 1. Remove the old door. Starting at the bottom, take the hinge screws out of the jamb. With all the screws out, take the door from the frame and trash it....

SKIL ½” Corded Drill Another feature we appreciated on this drill is the two-finger variable speed trigger makes it easy to adjust the speed as you work for when you need to speed up or slow down. COMOWARE Countersink Drill Bits Set The eight-piece drill bit set includes bits that are 3mm, 4mm, 5mm, 6mm, 7mm, 8mm, and 10mm, and it also incudes a hex key wrench to adjust or disassemble the drill bits as needed....

Resources: Expert assistance with this segment was provided by the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI).

Resource Expert assistance with this segment was provided by the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI).

Talk about a stress test—the pandemic has had many folks using their homes more intensely than they ever did before. Where once there was the ebb of occupants going off to offices and schools, it’s mostly been flow, with everyone trying to make their spaces do double and triple duty. For some who could, one solution has been to move—into bigger digs, often outside the urban core. But for those staying put, the question is: “How to improve?...

Admittedly, an ice-cold shower or a leaking heater makes it more urgent to get a new heater hooked up quickly. But if you choose one based solely on the speed of delivery, you may end up with a unit that can’t keep up with demand, costs more to operate, and fails sooner than it should. Hot Water Heater Sizes Even if you were happy with the old tank, don’t automatically assume it had the suitable heating capacity....

What Is the Best Wood to Make a Fireplace Mantel? Made of ¾-inch veneer plywood, our mantel is layered with elegant pilasters that are wrapped with stock moldings and baseboard, and topped with a trimmed-out shelf. As with any fireplace project, safety is paramount. National codes require at least 6 inches of clearance all around the firebox and an additional 1 inch for every ⅛ inch a mantel protrudes from the surface; local codes might be stricter....

Tool

Better just cut your losses and cover it up. As This Old House technical editor Mark Powers demonstrates on the following pages, with a little weekend carpentry and about thirty bucks’ worth of MDF and molding, you could customize a cabinet to hide the radiator and reclaim some wasted space. Add a fresh coat of paint and a gleaming metal screen, and the venerable radiator, a living legend, will once again look as hot as it feels....

In most cases, these bath accouterments will be mounted using wall anchors, so getting through the tile is only part of the job. You also need to drill through the substrate behind it in a way that doesn’t cause damage which would prevent the wall anchor from working. Steps for Drilling Through Tile Step 1: Figure out what kind of tile you have In general, there are three kinds of tile:...

Steps for Building an Art Supply Organizer You can build it using scrap wood and is easy enough for kids to get involved in, too. 1. Size the Pieces Using a miter saw and the cut list provided, cut the 1x6 board and 1x4 boards to length. Mark the center point along the top edge of each 1x6 end. From the center point, clip the top corners of each board at a 45-degree miter to create the “point” of each pencil....

Where to Start: TOH mason Mark McCullough: This kind of repair is fairly straightforward, but I would recommend that you rent a shrouded grinder to cut into the old mortar and a tool triggered vacuum that works with the grinder to collect the dust it generates. The work will go faster, and you’ll be better protected against breathing in the silica in the mortar. Plug the grinder into the vacuum, and attach the vacuum hose to the grinder’s dust port....

Approaches to repairing chipped concrete steps vary—it all depends on how big and badly damaged the area is. A small chip (less than ½ inch deep) can be fixed simply with a few tools, but larger missing chunks of concrete require a bit more know-how. No matter how big or small your repair job is, though, we’ve detailed the steps to guide you below. What You Need to Know About Fixing Concrete Steps...

Of course, you could call an HVAC technician for an emergency house call but considering that others invariably have the same problem, you may not get help for quite some time. To avoid this uncomfortable scenario, it’s a good idea to perform some annual furnace maintenance in advance of winter. Here’s how. Start By Making Sure You Have a Clean Filter Plenty of dust can collect on the furnace’s filter during use, and one of the easiest ways to ensure your system’s optimal performance is to replace the filter....