Do It Yourself


DIY – Making A Mudroom

The first room you enter in your home is typically a catch-all area for shoes, bags, sports gear and more. While some houses are designed with space for this clutter, other homes are in need of a designated junk drop area. Enter the DIY mudroom. If you’re on a budget and cannot add square footage for your […]


DIY – Patching IT UP

Sooner or later, one of the walls in your home will probably suffer some kind of damage. Sometimes, cracks appear from your home settling. Other times, a hole may be made in the wall from children playing, or perhaps some minor damage will happen when you are moving a piece of furniture. Small cracks, […]


DIY – Furniture Refresh

Got a hand-me-down piece of furniture that’s not exactly your style? Or a curbside treasure that needs a little TLC? Maybe there’s an antique piece you’d like to modernize, or a beloved piece that’s beginning to look worn. Whatever your furniture makeover goals, refinishing is an affordable approach. Prep Work Whether you’re going to re-paint or […]


DIY – Fancy Faucet

Today, many modern kitchen faucets come with a single handle including a sprayer instead of dual handles for hot water and cold water and a separate sprayer. If you are installing a single handle faucet, it may require an adaptor or plugs for covering the holes if you have a three-hole sink, but the […]


DIY – Planting For Posterity

Driving along Texas byways, especially country roads, it’s not unusual to spot an overgrown patch of land with an almost falling down, weather-beaten house. But breaking through the brush bravely are flowering bushes, untrimmed shrubs and irises, in a hue of colors, telling a passerby, that long ago, a gardener tucked them into the […]


DIY – Painting on Point

While home decor magazines and social media accounts may still be dominated by white and neutral shades, some designers suggest a more colorful future on the horizon. Neutral colors still make sense, letting one add in pops of color and change accent pieces seamlessly from season to season. And although the farmhouse feel is […]


DIY – The Glory of the Patio

If you’re considering making your own backyard into an outdoor haven, you’re following time-tested patterns set by hardworking people in every nation. In Texas, we use the Spanish term patio to indicate a simply civilized backyard. Combining definitions from dictionaries like Merriam-Webster, Cambridge and Collins, we find a patio to be an open-to-the-sky courtyard […]