Home Repair & Care Resources

House Beautiful
House Beautiful magazine on iVillage provides feature articles (e.g., "Convert a cramped attic into a comfortable and beautiful home office") but its many interactive features are the big value-added over the print magazine. Interactive tools include quizzes and features such as a Maintain Your Home tool that "...helps you bring out the best in your home by providing you with the essential information you need to clean and maintain your antique furniture, hardwood floors, silver, windows, and window treatments. It offers a wide variety of useful and important tips, from how to determine what type of finish is on your hardwood." The site also provides several discussion forums on topics such as kids rooms, kitchens and baths, using color, and "Tiny Rooms, Huge Solutions."

Soothing Walls offers many different kinds of beautiful indoor wall fountains, large and small, and of different materials.

Building Your Water Fountain is Only the First Step - Maintenance is Important Too!
If you want to keep your water fountain working properly for a number of years, you need to take the time to maintain it regularly. This is not a time-consuming proposition at all. In fact, by taking just a few minutes each week to add some more water and clean the pump, the water fountain will give you hours upon hours of enjoyment. Find out how to deal with mineral stains and the procedure for pumping out the water from a large water fountain; these should be part of your regular maintenance activities.

Advice on Glues and Adhesives
A creative, easy-to-use website that allows visitors to pick a material (metal, glass, rubber, etc) and specify another material they would like it to stick to. By clicking "Let's Glue", a corresponding webpage opens, giving the user specifics about which product will work best. The description of the preferred glue includes a link to the manufacturer's website, adherence time and toxicity specifications. A "Glue of the Month" section completes this site's vast knowledge of sticky specs.

Also at Soothing Walls you can get outdoor water fountains.

Household Helper
Here you can get free answers to household problems. They deal with the following topics: appliances, attic and roof, automotive, electrical, garden, lawn care, lawn equipment, plumbing, stain removal, and swimming pool. Each topic section lists questions and answers about the topic. If you can't find your question, you can email an expert for free. You'll get personal replies quickly. The site also provides checklists and resources such as a handyman search by region, archives of past tips, and helpful links to related sites.