Oops! If you’re a handyman and you’re going to steal pills and jewelry from a client’s home, for goodness sake don’t pass out drunk in the bedroom with your pockets full of the goods. Just sayin’. Full story here
Here’s an embarrassing situation: Your air conditioner stops working so you call out the repair company. When they arrive, they’re puzzled to see a bare concrete slab where your air conditioner used to be. Your AC has been stolen. This happens and not infrequently, unfortunately. Thieves can sell the copper in an AC unit for…
One of my favorite remodeling journalists of all time, Leah Thayer, has launched a new enterprise called Daily 5 Remodel. If you sign up, you get an email every weekday morning with all the news about the industry. Each day has a pertinent and perceptive news feed that looks like this: Morning! It’s the “all’s…
From the New York Times: Steven Derse, the owner of a corporate travel business in Nashville, cannot feel his house move, but he can hear it. “It’s an eerie creaking sound,” he said, and it echoes throughout his two-story Georgian-style house. It started two years ago when a severe drought contracted the soil beneath the…
The last time my sink clogged up, I tried muscle power and the force of a plunger to unclog the drain. When that failed miserably, I switched to liquid drain cleaner, then graduated to crystal drain cleaner and finally moved up to a thick gel. Nothing helped. At all. Finally, I called the plumber to…
The Japanese are at it again in the bathroom. This time, we see a large machine that shreds recycled office paper, mixes it with water to make a pulp and then turns it into rolls of toilet paper. This newfangled contraption is currently as large as a bathroom, but I can see a day when…
From architect Roger K. Lewis in the Washington Post: The sight of thousands of collapsed structures in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, may lead you to wonder whether a strong earthquake could cause equally widespread, catastrophic building collapse in an American city. Fortunately, diligent engineering, up-to-date building codes and sound construction techniques ensure that many structures in America…
While Wake Forest, N.C., National Guardsman Spc. Michael Spivey was finishing up a deployment in Iraq, his wife Christie was busy finishing up a surprise for him — a 1,000-square-foot addition to the couple's home that includes a workshop stocked with tools and a media room with a leather couch and a great big TV.…
• Living without air conditioning [New York Times] • International Shed of the Year 2009 [Jetson Green] • Reflective roof paint repels the heat [Los Angeles Times] • 10 recommended DIY blogs [CalFinder]