Browsing Tag

DIY

raised planter box

How to Build a Raised Planter Box

We built a raised planter box to introduce our son to the responsibilities of tending a garden and enjoying the fruits of his labor.…

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5 DIY Tasks to Get Your Car Road Trip Ready

Our family loves road trips. Living in Los Angeles we are blessed with a myriad of day trip options as well as fun weekend trips. But before we embark on any adventure we always check to make sure our…

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How To Build a Sawhorse Table

You can build this basic sawhorse table in a couple of hours and have money leftover for a night out on the town.…

simple firewood rack

How to Build a Simple Firewood Rack

Here's how we cut down an old tree in our backyard and used it for firewood. We built a simple firewood rack to keep all of the freshly cut wood secure and accessible.…

pallet shed

DIY Pallet Shed Plans

Clean pallets make a great and sustainable building material that can be used to build a DIY shed.…

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Pool Shed Makeover

Our new home has a beautiful pool, but the pool shed we inherited is nothing more than a frame and a tin roof to cover the pool filter and non-working heater. After staring at the ugly pool equipment all…

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How to Install a Swing Bar Lock

Home security is important to us, which is why we wanted to add another lock in addition to the deadbolt on our front door. We decided to replace the old chain lock with a swing bar lock from National Hardware.…

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Habitat for Humanity Workshop

On Saturday July 30th, I'll be at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Torrance, CA, leading a workshop demonstrating how to build quick and easy sawhorses. …

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A Little Help Finishing Our Closet

Whether you’re an avid DIYer or just getting started with tackling your own home projects, it doesn’t take long to learn that there will always be that one project that never quite gets completed. …

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DIY City Guide: Vancouver, Canada

Vancouver Canada is full of amazing Victorian homes and the city has the do-it-yourself resources to build and maintain these fine works of art.…

diy books

5 Pointers for Researching Your Next DIY Project

Just because a website says adding to existing plumbing is as easy as 1-2-3, doesn't mean really anything without the experience to back it up. Find the best resources for your next DIY project.…

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DIY City Guide: Oakland & East Bay

The East Bay is chock full of DIY resources with everything from lumber, awesome hardware stores, educational resources and upcycled home supplies…

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Fix a Dripping Kitchen Faucet

Our Delta Faucet is 50 years old but replacing the seats and springs is still an easy fix for a dripping kitchen faucet…

8 Tips to Do-It-Yourself While Pregnant

Since this isn’t my first time being pregnant amid approximately a million home improvement projects, nor is it the first time that being pregnant necessitated some of those projects, I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve learned…

DIY Backyard Smoker

There are a lot of plans available for building backyard BBQ grills but this is this is the first do-it-yourself smoker we’ve seen and it’s courtesy of Popular Mechanics. They’ve provided a great step-by-step tutorial that requires a few…

How to Install Stainless Steel Kitchen Countertops

Installing new countertops is an ambitious do-it-yourself project no matter what type of material you choose. These homeowners shared their journey to install stainless steel countertops which look great and are a huge upgrade to their previous formica. They…

Build a DIY Beer Case for those BYOB Parties

We’ve got the perfect woodworking project that you can build in time for your Super Bowl parties. A reader submitted this project and you know he arrives at BYOB parties in style with this DIY beer case he made.…

How To Build Your Own Record Crates

We are big time fans of Wood & Faulk (we’re really partial with anyone who uses an ampersand in their name) and his camping stool is still one of our all-time favorites. His latest masterpiece is a basic woodworking…

Protect Your Hands with Ansell Gloves

Protective gloves are one of the best investments for a do-it-yourselfer. They not only protect you from cuts and scrapes but also from damage due to chemicals as well as simply keep your hands clean so at the end…

20 Ways to Upcycle an Old Yoga Mat

We here at Charles & Hudson are always looking for ways to be as green as possible in our everyday choices, as well as be as economical as possible too. So when it was time to replace our old…

DIY With Disabilities

We’ve often talked here at Charles & Hudson about things like universal design, how to DIY with temporary medical conditions (read: pregnancy), and what to do if you’re mid-project and injure yourself. But something we haven’t touched much upon…

Glam Up Your Cement Floors With Glitter

For a long time at our house, we’ve been discussing how to handle our basement floor. Despite being freshly (albeit poorly and incorrectly) painted before we moved in, a combination of bad workmanship, poor color choice, and the wear…

Refinishing A Claw Foot Tub, Take Two

Now that the weather finally has begun to cooperate, we're back at our February project of refinishing our cast-iron and porcelain clawfoot tub. …

Give The Gift Of DIY

We’re quickly approaching hard core wedding/baby shower/graduation/housewarming season, and we have a creative solution to all your gift-giving dilemmas — give the gift of DIY! There are plenty of ways to spread the DIY love, and we have a…

DIY A One-Of-A-Kind Doormat

We go through a lot of doormats at our house. Between the weather, outside animals, and the occassional vandal, doormats seem to be something we are always putting on the supplies list. This means we often settle for the…

Create Your Own Stencil Word Art

Looking around at all the design and decor mags in the past few years, we couldn’t help but notice a prevalence of stenciled word art pieces adorning people’s homes. From simple colloquialisms to lyrics of entire Bonnie Tyler songs…

How To DIY With Small Children

It’s been a little over six months since we introduced the littlest renovator to our crew, and we’ve tackled a couple of pretty large projects with more than just our menagerie of animals underfoot. With two kids under two,…

How To Install Crown Molding In A Weekend

Watching home improvement or real estate shows with my boyfriend really irks me. He laughs when couples get excited over crown molding in a house. I finally had to ask him why it annoyed him so much – and…

Design-It-Yourself With Unfinished Wood Furniture

Have you ever found yourself spending countless hours online, scouring the usual and unusual sites looking for that perfect piece of furniture? You know, the one that is the right style, size, and color — only to find it…

Problems When Refinishing a Clawfoot Tub, Part One

When we began this venture, we knew it was a gamble. This is our first turn at refinishing a tub, and we knew we might have to settle for less-than-professional results. This was okay by us, because we love…

Small Space Solutions: Tiny & Tall Closets

If you’re in the process of a renovation, something that’s likely to come up numerous times is the concept of storage. Namely, creating more. Whether you live in a 200-year-old house or a 20-year-old house, more storage always seems…

Make Your Own Antiqued Mirror

As you probably already know, we have an unbridled love affair here at Charles & Hudson with spray paint. So imagine our glee when we found this project at ECABonline.com, in which Elizabeth DIYed a vintage, leaded-glass window pane…

Track Current Kitchen Usage To Inspire Future Renovation

We’ve said it once, we’ll say it again: every successful renovation starts with a healthy dose of planning. Whether you prefer the structured approach of a workbook or something a little more free, making sketches and taking notes are…

Install An Exhaust Fan Timer In Your Bathroom

A hot, steamy shower on a cold morning — it’s one of life’s little pleasures, right? Yet there is a downside to the at-home indulgence. Excess moisture created by the steam can wreak havoc on your bathroom, warping wood…

When An Injury Derails Your DIY Plans

You have your plans all set for your next DIY project — tools borrowed, paint purchased, time set aside — and tragedy strikes. You hurt yourself, and not in a way that some hydrogen peroxide and a Band-Aid can…

The Home Depot Unveils Improved iPhone & iPad App

The Internet experience is becoming increasingly mobile, thanks to a proliferation of browser-enabled smart phones and tablets like the iPad. Although Home Depot has had an iPhone and iPad app for some time, the company recently redeveloped the application…

Let’s Hear It For The DIY Moms!

Recently we posted about DIY Dads and their declining numbers. While the article wanted to point out that today’s young men aren’t learning trade and fix-it skills from their dads as much as decades past, I think it’s only…

Knowledge At Your Fingertips With iScrew App

OK, we know — the iPhone as an actual home improvement tool? It’s a bit of a stretch. But with so many DIY-focused apps on the market, handy devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad can increasingly service…

Survive A Reno With A Temporary Kitchen

For most of us, one of the hardest parts of a large-scale renovation is dealing with the mess, confusion and chaos created by the project. Take the kitchen, for example, which is often the center of the home. If…

FSBO: 7 Tips For Selling Your Home Yourself

If you follow along with DIY blog Young House Love, you’ll know that they have decided to move and are selling their home themselves. After three years of renovations, decoration, tweaks, and even adding a baby to the mix,…

Are DIY Dad’s Becoming Extinct?

The Telegraph raises an interesting point that we continue to hear whispers of each year. Are current 20-30 year olds less capable as do-it-yourselfers than their fathers? One could argue the modern man has many more resources to turn…

Submit Your Favorite Project to the ReadyMade 100

ReadyMade Magazine recently announced a big contest called the ReadyMade 100. This ambitious contest is seeking to celebrate the best 100 projects from around the world of DIY. They’re calling on the DIY community to submit their most “functional,…

Must-Have Tools For Home Repair Success

A DIYer without tools is like an artist without a paintbrush; a writer without a pencil; a blogger without a computer — well, you get my drift. The importance of tools to home improvement projects is undeniable, but the…

Save Big During A Renovation

We wall want to save big during a renovation and because we feature reader tips, tricks, projects and inspiration as often as possible, it’s no surprise that I love taking a voyeuristic peek into someone else’s home to follow…

Boost Your Home’s Value With These DIY Projects

Boosting your homes value is important to us all and we all know that DIY projects require a fair amount of planning: budget, specifics, tools, decor, etc. Yet it’s also worthwhile to plan farther out and decide when–or if–you…

Size Won’t Matter With Small Kitchen DIY Tips

Although I’m sure many of us dream of having a huge, open, airy kitchen in which we can cook culinary masterpieces and comfortably seat a small army of friends and family, sometimes the practical–and budgetary–realities say otherwise. When DIY…

Create Bathroom Bliss With A Converted Dresser

I came across a great DIY bathroom project from the brilliant minds at Better Homes and Gardens. Instead of purchasing a new vanity, consider converting an existing dresser into the perfect sink space, complete with plenty of drawers! The…

Thoughtful Changes Enhance Small Kitchen

Sometimes a renovated kitchen doesn’t have to mean breaking down walls and relocating to a different spot in the house. When I spotted this kitchen reno on CasaSugar I thought it was a great example of smart, small changes…

Refinish Your Wood Floors on a DIY Budget

Whenever I am visiting my family at home, my mother has the same complaint about her house: the wood floors. She’d love to refinish them but with an elderly dog, other projects to tackle and a limited budget, it’s…

Do Sustainable Kitchens Have To Be Small?

Contemporary design is hot, no doubt about it. And many modern designs are slim, subtle and sustainable. But when I looked at this award-winning design from Kristin Laass and Norman Ebelt, I began to wonder. Does having a sustainable…

Use Whitewash Or Pickling To Refresh Hardwood Floors

If you’re eager to alter the color of your hardwood floors but prefer a more classic, timeless hue, consider a gentle alteration using two techniques: whitewashing and pickling. Whitewashing, an ideal treatment for pine floors, brightens wood while allowing…

Mosaic Tiles Add Visual Impact to Bathrooms

Mosaic tiles are found in many different sizes, materials, colors and textures. In this NYC bathroom, the mosaic used here is a beautiful ocean hued matte stone finish. What impressed me was the notion to keep it SIMPLE, people!…

High-Tech DIY Home Security

Installing your own home security system no longer requires the expertise of a skilled technician. You can still invest in a full-featured system from one of the leading home security firms but you now have more choices when it…

5 Summer Projects Anyone Can Do

Now that summer is officially here, we’ve got 5 projects that anyone can do that will improve your quality of summer living. Build a wooden trellis Install a screened in porch Make a glass ball chandelier…

Mistakes To Avoid for First-Time DIY’ers

When my husband and I bought our house, we did so with every intention of getting all HGTV on the place. Despite neither of us having any home renovation experience, we naively looked around and assumed that small repairs…

Colorful Wood Stains

Buh, bye basic browns! Why stain that old adirondack chair in a basic wood when you can choose from colors like avocado and purple velvet? Olympic exterior stains has added to their wood tones with great colors for the…

DIY Kitchen Island

It’s amazing how versatile an $8 Ikea lack table can be. I spotted Kyle Freeman’s DIY kitchen island on Apartment Therapy last year and I still think about how clever he is. He used extra strong, double-sided foam adhesive…