Readers Digest Tricks, Shortcuts, How-Tos, and Other Great Ideas for Inside, Outside, and All Around Your House

Now you can work like a pro - and accomplish all your maintenance, repair, and decorating projects more easily, at less cost, and with better results than ever before. Illustrated with 800 full-color photographs and hundreds of clear instructional illustrations, 1001 Do-It-Yourself Hints & Tips takes you through every task you'll ever face as a homeowner, presenting handy hints and savvy shortcuts gathered from a host of experts and tested by people in their own homes, yards, and workshops.

1001 Do-It-Yourself Hints & Tips covers the basics of keeping the household in safe, working order inside and outside. There are tips on repairing damaged tile, plaster, and wallboard; cleaning a water heater; silencing squeaky stairs and floors; patching the roof; installing gutters and fixing gutters that leak; replacing wood clapboard and repairing timeworn vinyl or aluminum siding; and weatherproofing drafty doors and windows. Step-by-step directions show you how to eliminate dangerous or frustrating problems with appliances and fixtures - including how to rewire a table lamp; test and replace parts in ovens and ranges; snake a drain; install a new sink trap; level a wobbly washing machine; and even add RAM memory to your computer.

1001 Do-It-Yourself Hints & Tips is also packed with suggestions for improving the look of your home. The easy-to-follow instruction for painting and wallpapering are just the start. You'll also discover how to bring order to kitchens, closets, workshops, and storage spaces; strip and refinish furniture; reupholster, recane, or rewicker chairs; install wainscoting; and replace a ceiling fixture or put in track lighting. Ideas for spiffing up your yard and garden range from information on preparing and seeding garden beds to the best way to sharpen the blades on your lawn mower, to inexpensive methods for removing oil stains from garage floors and driveways. Home security is also covered with essential how-tos on installing home alarms, dead-bolt locks, and smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

Every project features a complete list of tools and materials, an estimated "degree of difficulty," and time-and-money-saving tricks of the trade - like how to shrink dowels down to size, keep the tools you're using on the shelf of a ladder, drive nails without splitting the surface, and much, much more.