Gold Brick Mystery in Texas Houses

Threasa Brown lives in an Irving, Texas neighborhood that has a perplexing mystery. Many houses have one sole gold brick in the front wall. Here's what Threasa says: "Most of the houses (built in the 1970's) in our neighborhood (including ours) has a single gold brick on the front exterior wall by the porch. I have […]

Kitchen Lighting Ideas

DEAR TIM: Now that we're past Christmas, it's full steam ahead on our kitchen remodel. One of the things that I've never liked about our kitchen is the drab lighting. All we have is an ancient surface mounted center light that takes two 75-watt bulbs. There are shadows everywhere. If I could hand you a […]

Painting Concrete Patio

Ronald A. Carleton has trouble with paint peeling on his patio in Port Clinton,Ohio. Perhaps paint is not practical. How's that for alliteration? Here's what Ron wrote to me: "What's the best product to apply to pre-painted cement on a outdoor patio? The pre-painted area in the sun area flakes off while the shaded area stays […]

Fence Building Tips

DEAR TIM: I plan to build a privacy wood fence as soon as the weather breaks and want to do all my planning now while the ground is frozen. I've got many questions, not the least of which is how to secure horizontal wood framing members to the vertical fence posts so the weight of […]