Grandma always had a favorite home remedy for an ailment and Grandpa always had a favorite trick for home repair jobs.
A lot of Grandma’s remedies may be out-of-date today, but chances are, the advice Grandpa offered years ago may be just as good today as it was then.
Every industry has its tricks of the trade-the kind of “inside information” that has been handed down from journeyman to apprentice-and the home improvement business is no exception.
These tips can make a home-improvement project simpler-even in this day of cordless, microprocessor-driven power tools-and quicker.
Tight spots
One of the most frustrating tasks facing a do-it-yourselfer is trying to manipulate a screw into a tricky hole that your fingers can’t reach. “I was once trying to reassemble a dishwasher and had a difficult time starting this screw because it was well into the machinery,” says Walter Sopola of Chicago-based Fine Woodworking Co.
His remedy: a piece of double stick tape on the end of the screwdriver to hold the screw to the screwdriver. “It works wonderfully,” he says.
A screw loose
Among the most misplaced items are the small screws that hold a light switch cover plate or outlet cover plate to the switch or receptacle.
When removing those plates to paint or repair a wall, simply replace the screws in their designated holes, guaranteeing they won’t get lost, says Matthew Murphy of the Chicago remodeling contractor Keller & Associates.
Dust busters
One repercussion of repairing a plaster wall or drywalling is the dust that seems to travel throughout the house. A way to minimize that dust is to place a window fan in an open window so that it exhausts the room.
“That negative pressure makes a big difference,” says Ken Keller of Keller & Associates. “Taping the bottom of doors shut in the room also helps.”
Yet another way to prevent the spread of plaster dust is to use plastic wrap and tape to seal the cold air returns in the room in which you’re working.
“The cold air return sucks air out of the room and it will suck that dust into the furnace and spread it around the rest of the house,” says Alan Foss of the Professional Remodelers Association of Chicago.
Moving the fridge
With kitchen projects, home improvers often find themselves struggling to move appliances. “The problem is if you drag them, they can really tear up the floor,” says Tony LaPelusa of the Chicago branch of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry.
A secret to easily shifting appliances is to squirt a little dishwashing liquid under the legs or casters, says LaPelusa. “The appliances will slide out like they’re on grease without damaging your floors,” he says.
Cheap facelifts
When restoring old doors and windows, an easy way to remove paint and tarnish from brass, bronze or copper hardware is with an inexpensive home remedy, says Beau Kimball, a manager with Salvage One, a warehouse of old house parts and artifacts on Chicago’s Near South Side.
Place the hardware in a bucket outside and cover the pieces with ammonia, the hardware-strength type you can buy at a home improvement store. Then pour an equal amount of boiling water into the bucket.
When the water is warm to the touch, use a scrub brush to remove the buildup on the hardware. “This method will not only remove tarnish but old paint,” says Kimball.
When dry, shine up the piece with extra fine steel wool and polishing paste.
“This method not only saves you the $5 or $10 it takes to professionally restore a piece such as a doorknob, but it eliminates a lot of the elbow grease,” Kimball says.
A way to eliminate the rubbing that comes with polishing door hardware is to soak the pieces in a pint of vinegar to which a tablespoon of salt has been added, says Pat Johnson of the Chicago-based Specialty Millwork Co.
“Soak the pieces overnight and you’ll eliminate the need for polish,” he says. “They’ll come out nice and shiny.”
Sticky windows
Old wooden windows tend to expand and contract between the seasons, and moisture can also cause wood to warp. A way to free up a sticky window without having to tear it apart is to spray the inside tracks with silicone spray, LaPelusa says. “This works especially well with old wood windows in which aluminum tracks have been added,” he says. “And it prevents having to remove the chains and ropes and adjust the weights.”
Throw the switch
When doing electrical work, home improvers often find themselves jogging up and down basement stairs to see if they’ve shut off the right circuit breaker or removed the correct fuse.
A simpler, faster way is to plug a radio into the receptacle or circuit you want to shut down and turn it up loud. “When you hear the radio go off, you’ve hit the right breaker or fuse,” Keller says.
Knots landing
Whenever you rewire an old fixture or lamp, Kimball suggests tying a knot in the cord before it exits the lamp. “That way, if someone pulls the cord, it won’t rip away from where you wired it to the socket inside,” he says. “Plus, you won’t have a broken cord that’s dangling and that could give someone an electric shock.”
Silent assistant
For do-it-yourselfers working solo, a couple of 2-by-4s and a few long screws can serve as a second set of hands, says Dan Zolkowski, a home remodeler with Artifex Co. “For example, if you’re installing cabinets, screw the 2-by-4 into the wall so that the bottom of the cabinet can rest on it while you fasten it to the wall,” he says. “Then remove the bracket and patch the screw holes with drywall compound.”
The stripper
An easy way to strip long, narrow pieces of wood-such as a picture rail or door molding-is to remove the piece and place it in a sealed piece of aluminum gutter. Then fill the gutter with stripper, immersing the wood, Kimball says. You can place weights on the wood to keep it submerged. “It’s what the professionals do,” he says.
You can accomplish the same task by placing the piece of wood in large piece of PVC pipe that has been capped at one end and is standing upright. Then fill it with stripper. Build a brace so the pipe doesn’t tip over.
Another stripping trick is to add sawdust-not wood shavings-in with stripper to remove paint from fine details in wood pieces. Push the sawdust/stripper combination into crevices with a wood bristle brush.
“The sawdust saturates the stripper so it doesn’t get all over the place and it will also act as a grit, loosening the paint from the wood,” says David Crampton of Evanston-based Stripaway Refinishers. “The wood bristle brush will get the paint out of the detail without damaging the wood, as a wire bristle brush would do.”
A hole in the wall
One of the hardest things to patch is a baseball-sized or smaller hole in drywall. “What people will do is try to repair the hole by filling it with drywall compound, which can be very frustrating,” says Rose Geier-Wilson of the Building Research Council, a Champaign-based public information group. “But the drywall compound will often fall right into the hole.”
The trick, says Geier-Wilson, is to take a thin piece of wood such as a paint stirrer and apply construction adhesive to the ends. Place the piece into the hole and pull it back so that the glued ends come in contact with the inside of the wall. You can use a piece of string if you can’t hold the wood with your fingers.
Wait a day until the glue dries and then cut a piece of drywall the size of the hole. Attach the drywall piece to the wood with glue or a small screw. Then patch the area around the piece with the compound.
For larger holes, cut a piece of drywall about twice the size of the hole, says Artifex’s Zolkowski. Then, in the middle of the piece, cut a patch that mirrors the hole. Gently crumble away the plaster surrounding the middle patch, so that all that remains is the paper.
“Cover the back of the paper with drywall compound, insert the patch into the hole, and cover the front of the paper with compound,” he says. “Then sand the compound when it dries.”
Preservation
Paint brushes are often thrown out because they get muddled with paint at the base of the bristles. To prolong the life of brushes, dip (don’t saturate) them first in water or mineral spirits before dipping them respectively in water-based or oil-based paints, says Mimi Cooper of Saxon Paints and Home Care Centers.
“The water or oil prevents the paint from traveling down to the base of the brush, making them easier to clean,” she says.
You can also save paint thinner by allowing it to settle after use, Cooper says. “The solvents will go to the bottom of the can and the clean thinner will come to the top,” she says. “Simply pour the clean thinner from the top of the can into another container to save it.”
Pick your flavor
For those home improvers who are aggravated by the odor of paint, place a drop of vanilla in the can to take the edge off the smell, says Keil Morek of Southtown Paints. “It will make the job more tolerable and not affect the paint,” he says.
Paint can lids
Another frustration faced by painters is the buildup of paint in the rim of paint cans, which is often caused by dabbing brushes against the side of the can. To alleviate that buildup, LaPelusa suggests driving five or six notches in the inner rim of the can with a screwdriver and hammer.
The notches will allow the paint dabbed on the can to flow back into the can, keeping the rim relatively clean and saving paint as well.
It’s your turn
Got an invaluable home improvement trick that has saved you hours of frustration and thousands of dollars in psychotherapy?
Send it to us. We’ll publish the best 15 or so tricks in an upcoming Know-how article. Deadline is June 1.
Write down your trick-whether it’s an old family secret or something you invented last week-along with your name, address and home phone. Send it to: Tricks of the Trade, Chicago Tribune, Your Place section, 435 N. Michigan Ave., 4th floor, Chicago, Ill. 60611. No phone calls will be accepted.
