DIY Resource: Building Science Corporation

Building Science Corporation is a great resource for serious DIY'ers. It has a large library of construction articles and reviews.

My current project, a patio cover, needs to be connected to the house properly to ensure we don't get water problems leading to rot (especially in western Oregon). I referred to a number of articles on siding and flashing to make sure I did it correctly, and that it would compatible with a "rain screen" design that I will be adding later.

Here are a couple of images from an article on water management I used:


The picture above shows basic drainage plane design, while the one below is how to flash a window to ensure any water that gets in drains back out again with no damage. In this case, my patio cover roof connects to the house right under a window, and I wanted to make sure the roof flashing would connect properly to the window pan flashing.



Disclaimer: The main focus of this blog is documenting my own DIY projects. When I do feature a site, it's one I have personally used, find useful, and is not sponsored.

Monkey See, Monkey Do...

Here is another recommendation (non-sponsored) on DIY resources: Monkeysee.com. It was featured in our local paper's home and garden section this week. I checked it out and was fairly impressed.

The site seems to deliver good quality, comprehensive how-to videos. I reviewed two series: how to build a new closet and how to wax skis. Both were produced by professionals, and they went into plenty of detail. I think the series on building a closet gave all the information you would need to tackle the project.



I subscribed to the RSS feed for home and garden content, so I will get an update whenever there are new videos posted in this area.



I am planning on waxing my skis during the Christmas holidays, for the first time. I will definitely use the videos here to learn how to do it.

Book Review: Home Plan Doctor

I just finished reading Home Plan Doctor by Larry Garnett, and I was very impressed by the topics and content. I checked the book out at the library, but I plan on buying it and keeping it as a reference.

What I like:

• A systematic walk-through of the house, giving the most important design elements you should consider
• Design suggestions based on livability, not show
• Clear discussion of design concepts without using over-inflated phrases like "vernacular", "dynamic forms", etc.
• Great diagrams

If you are designing a house or planning on remodeling, I think it's well worth the read.

The Handy Guys Podcast

I have been listening to podcasts for a couple of years, and I finally ran across a DIY one that I think is worth checking out: The Handy Guys Podcast.

Most of the DIY / remodeling podcasts I have listened to so far are basically a bunch of product placement ads, with very little actual content (just what we all need more of). These guys do feature sponsored products, but there is also a fair amount of actual information in their shows. The hosts also do a good job at keeping it interesting with personal stories.

My favorite so far has been their basement refinishing series, which goes into quite a bit of detail on the whole process.



I have made this a sidebar link under resources both on this site and my other site, 10K Kitchen Remodel.

Garden Shed #7 - Resources

Here are some of the free / online resources I found for building the garden shed. I will continue to update this post as I collect and review them. These are resources that I truly found helpful, and I have no commercial connection to them.

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Ideas and Photo Sets

At the top of the list: Here is a blog dedicated to garden sheds. It's very nicely done with a number of inspirational photos. My favorite is the water wheel shed.



There are over 10K pictures on flickr.com - search for garden shed. It takes a while, but you can see just about any kind you would imagine. There are also a lot of good photos of storage and interior setups.

Gardensheds.com is a commercial site, but the photos are really nice. These are definately high-end and classy buildings.

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How-to:

Here are a few articles from Fine Homebuilding (my favorite magazine):

A Firm Foundation for a Backyard Shed - showing some good methods for building the shed foundation

Shortcuts to a Shed - this article shows some good cost-savings techniques

Greenhouses and Potting Sheds - this is not a "how to" article, but has good photos

Popular Mechanics has a good on-line article with lots of detail on contructions techniques. I really like the cut-away diagram showing all the main points of shed construction:


Click on the image below for a good set of detailed shed plans by Southern Pine in their DIY section.


For you hardcore green builders, here is a site that shows in fine detail show to build a large shed out of pallets. I am not quite to the point of using pallets to build things, but I admire the design and technique shown here.

More Resources on Building Closet Organizers

I found a fairly good on-line magazine: Extreme How-To. After I got over my personal prejudice against the overuse of the word "extreme', I found the publication to be OK (and free is a good price)

I just received the current version yesterday, and its has an indepth article on building your own closet organizers. There is enough information here to get you through the entire project.

It details how to layout, assemble and fit the pieces into your closet. My general estimate is that if you DIY this from basic materials, you will save 50% of the cost. Even if you do buy a kit and install it yourself, the techniques shown here will help you be succesful with it.

One thing I really like about the magazine is that you can either look at it online or download an executable file to read it off line. Since I travel quite a bit, I download it and save it for an upcoming flight.

Ace How-To Site

As noted in my last post, I found the Ace Hardware How-To site to be a real help in getting a list of dimensions I needed for the closet organizer I'm building. I took a further look at the projects they have posted on the site, and I am pretty impressed.

The thing I like about this site is that they don't focus on selling you their kits, but give you the technical details for various projects. For being free information, I would rate this site an "A". I have added it to my sidebar links.

Note: I am not affiliated with Ace Hardware, I just like what I see here.