DIY Fixes for Pesky Household Problems

Are you bothered by the tiny little things that need fixing up in your house? Me to; here are a few quick DIY fixes for those little problems that bug us all.

Torn window screen – annoying eyesore that’s just asking for bugs to come inside and pay you a visit. To patch the little inconvenience simply apply clear nail polish to both sides of the tear in order to patch the tear. 

Squeaky Floor Board – Objectively annoying and a general nuisance. Squeaky floorboards are caused by something being loose. There are two things you can try. You can either tightening the hole the nail holes that may be too big by stuffing it with a toothpick or something else small enough to fit into the space. You could also work talcum or graphite powder into the cracks between floorboards.

Dry Wall Hole – Random holes in your drywall are both annoying and embarrassing. Try filling them in by taking a cheap makeup sponges and cutting a piece slightly larger than the hole and fit it in. Then spackle over the spot, sand it smooth and cover the whole thing with paint. Now you can pretend it was never there.

Wall Cracks – A similarly annoying problem that can be solved in a similar way. Get baking soda and some crazy glue, mix a little bit of them together, fill in the crack in with the mixture. Then sand it down and paint over the spot and once again the problem is gone. 
Scuffed Spots on Floor – Annoyingly easy to cause, thankfully it has a simple solution. Use a tennis ball and rub it against the mark. Buff for a little while and it’s gone! You could also try using the bottom of a clean sneaker, the sole is likely to remove the mark.

There you go, with one article you’ve solved a handful of your little annoying problems and the solutions were relatively easy and they were all cheap! What more could you want?! Now you just have to build up the energy to actually fix them… I can’t help you with that part, good luck.

Firepit Types

Do you love spending time outside? I can’t relate. However, if I must be outside, I must
be comfortable, and nothing quite says outside comfort like a firepit. Especially, if you
must be outside in the winter, when it’s cold outside there’s nothing quite like sitting in
front of a firepit. So, if your thinking about building a firepit here’s a couple of styles you
could get.

Naturalistic Firepits

Rock Firepit: It’s traditional and pretty simple to DIY. You know what I’m talking about.
It’s the circle of rocks that you place the wood in middle and voila, fire pit. If you live
somewhere where you can get decent sized rocks it would be easy to forage them for
yourself and you can, in fact, buy rocks and Home Depot or something like that.

Pond Firepit: Did your property come with a nice, quant little water feature that you’re
completely unwilling to upkeep? Fish are a lot of work for living decoration. Turn that
pre-existing, rock-lined, hole in the ground to a firepit.

Salvaged pit: This kind of pit uses things you find in your own yard. Rocks, stepping
stones from a path you didn’t really want, leftover bricks and stuff from a build or the
construction of the house if you’ve just built. You can use salvaged wood to build
benches or other features.

Constructed Firepits

Tree Ring Firepit: Simple DIY build. If you don’t know, cause I didn’t, there are these
curved brick like fence… thingies that go around trees. They’re super good and
convenient material for building a quick firepit in about an hour. Make two circles, one
inside the other, Use the scalloped ones so they’re easy to stack, bottom facing up,
top facing down. You can use a small grill in the middle if you're super lazy.

Outside space: If you’re really going for it than go for it. Select a good amount of space in your yard, and section it off. At this point, if you’re really going for it, look at google images and Pinterest and get inspiration. Really build out the entire area. Stone floor, brick pit, built-in seating, etc. REALLY GO FOR IT.

See, mostly simple and can kind of be done on a whim. If you’re going to be outside, be warm and comfortable outside. Gathering around a firepit can also be great for parties with friends. If you get no other pleasure from a fire pit at least think about the s’more possibilities, you’ll gain. There’s nothing like a good excuse to make s’mores. Your taste buds and probably your friends will thank you.

Fireplace makeover

Baby it’s cold outside! So what’s better than a fireplace!? I apologize for the bad
pun but seriously, fireplaces are amazing in the winter time. It’s just an objectively
great feature to have in your home… unless it’s ugly. Unfortunately, it is very
possible that your fireplace might be ugly or maybe it just doesn’t go with your
aesthetic. Let’s face it, fireplaces often show the decade the house was built more
than any other piece of architecture, and sometimes… those decades sense
of interior style are garbage.

Decals! You can legitimately use decals. You’re going to have to put in a lot of
thought to make sure that the design your going for, goes on right but if done
right decals on tile could look amazing. Besides the mental energy it’s a pretty
simple project. It’s also a super cheap way of doing a high impact upgrade to
your fireplace.

Another DIY upgrade you can make to your fireplace that should be simple and
relatively cheap is painting it! You can paint just about any surface, not sure that
you should (don’t paint marble or granite, I’ll disown you), but you can! Tile, just
takes a little bit of forethought, a little bit of primer, and some acrylic paint and
you’ll have a brand new look. You can paint brick. You can do a wash over the
brick in any color you please to give the room a modern trendy look.
Continuing the color onto the walls, up to the ceiling can also add height to the
room! So that’s a really cool treatment that could enhance your entire space.
Uneven or stacked stone would probably look wired but you can knock yourself
out trying.

One other thing you can do to brick is dye it! This isn’t quite as easy as painting
but it looks more natural, like it was the bricks original color. You can go from a
classic brick red color to something softer like grey or vice versa.

Don’t have a fireplace? That’s to bad. You can check out our article on installing
your own fireplace. However, if you’re just looking for the aesthetic you can also
get a fireplace façade! Pick up a faux fireplace and make it interesting. Fill it to
the brim with logs or books or other interesting things. Go wild! It’s not a
permanent part of the house anyways.

Saving Money on Firepits

Do you like firepits? I do… I mean I don’t like being outside but if I’m already out there I might as well be
comfortable and sitting at a firepit. One thing about firepits though, they can be a great big time and
money hole. Seriously while you’re working on the firepit you might as well set your money on fire
while you’re at it. So, how can you get that beautiful firepit without it turning into a money pit?

First, if you’re trying to save money you should probably DIY the entire project. This isn’t the type of
project where at the end you’ll look at your bank account and find out you spent more money than
the quote you got to get it built out for you. Getting a firepit built will almost definitely cost more than
doing it yourself. You can even get firepit kits for around 200 dollars. Go ahead and build out a patio
while you're at it, it’s just an outside floor. I believe in you, watch a YouTube video, you can figure
\ it out.

Second tip, make a wood burning pit and not a gas burning pit. You’ll a thousand percent have to
hire several people to make a gas burning pit work safely (please, don’t burn down your
neighborhood). Also, a gas pit will add on to your utility bills… and why would you want that? If you
must have a gas burning pit make it close to your house. This will cut down on the plumbing bill
of running a gas line to your designated location. The further you get from the house, the more it
will cost.

Finally, keep the customizations down to a minimum. Built in seating will cost you and they cost a lot.
If you don’t mind using chairs then you’re solid. Besides, a lot of built-in seating is
uncomfortable. Also, unless you’re an artist and are making all of your own tiles (which is still
expensive) try to keep the unnecessary customizations down to a minimum. Getting super fancy
with a firepit could very quickly cost you upwards of thousands of dollars.

You’ve been sufficiently warned. Go build a firepit. Go outside (if you must). Have fun.