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How to Add a Breezeway Between Your Home and Garage
A connected breezeway running between your home and garage gives your property a luxury feel, offering a covered space for outdoor entertaining and lounging. It improves traffic flow in your home and can even add a covetable architectural element to your home’s exterior. Like any home addition, your options abound when designing a new breezeway.…
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How Healthy Is the Air Inside My Home?
We hear about the air quality outside all the time. But what about the pollution inside your home? While you may not exactly have a smokestack in your living room, dust, pet hair, tracked-in pollen and other irritants can affect the purity of the air indoors. And surface treatments, like paints, sealants, flame-retardants, and other…
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What is a Time and Materials Contract?
Your contractor will present either one of two types of contracts for you to sign. One is a fixed point, or fixed price, contract. The other is a time and materials contract. Depending on the scope of your HVAC, solar, windows, or roofing project, a time and materials contract may be the best option for…
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When you picture your dream home, you may think of an eco-friendly haven in the woods with ample natural sunlight, or an urban flat that’s always up for entertaining. But if you’re a book-lover, your coveted dream home feature is most likely a personal library—a fantastical or cultural haven where you can bury yourself in knowledge…
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Homeowner 101: How to Build a Privacy Divider Wall
It seemed fine when you took the tour. But now, filled with the TV, the sofa, the dining table, and your sometimes-squabbling family, your new home feels less roomy than it did on the walk through — and privacy feels very hard to come by. That’s where a privacy divider wall can come in handy. Privacy walls…
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Install a Window Box Planter for Instant Curbside Appeal
Affordable window updates are few and far between, but a hanging planter installed outside the kitchen or under a set of living room windows is a cheap way to add natural beauty to your home without emptying your checking account or planning out a major remodeling project. Window boxes are so simple, in fact, they…
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How to Get Smooth Wall Texture With a Skim Coat
Before moving to Texas and building a house, I didn’t realize the wide variety of texture finishes that are possible on drywall. Where I grew up in Utah, walls were always smooth, and the heavy texture that seems to be the norm in Texas and many other southern states feels unfinished to me. So, I’ve…
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Tips for Saving Energy in Your Home: Cooling
Climate control is the largest energy expense of a typical U.S. home. It’s easy to cut back a little on water use or turn off the lights when you leave, but it’s harder to make compromises when the comfort of your family and guests is at stake. Thankfully, there are small and moderate energy-saving changes…