Reddit reviews Black & Decker The Complete Photo Guide to Home Repair: with 350 Projects and 2000 Photos (Black & Decker Complete Photo Guide)

This was probably done by some "Flip-the-house" wizard who thought he could do it all himself. If you're one of these people spend $20 for fuck's sake. It will pay off 100x in the long run.

I walked into a "flipper" house once...the guy was repainting the entire thing with forest green gloss paint that was being pasted on the walls so thickly you'd have thought it was done by a 5 year old. All over the baseboards, plug panels, switches, you name it. I thanked him for his time and laughed my ass off once I was out of earshot.

When I first started out with my home I picked up these two books:

Black & Decker Home Repair

and

Black & Decker Home Improvement

They served as great references and overviews for nearly every major challenge I faced in three years and were a great deal more handy than sometimes scattered Internet resources. Strongly suggest you pick up the red book, or they're almost certainly at your local library. They don't explicitly deal with maintenance unfortunately, but I recall them offering up lots of tips on how to maintain things before repairs are needed.

Good luck with your new home!

Buy a good, basic repair book. I like this one.

Keep in mind that you won't learn how to do these things, until you have to do them. The trick is that when you have to do them, you research on how to do it the right way.

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-Complete-Photo-Repair/dp/1589234170/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265391130&sr=8-1

Get this book. 6 months ago I wasnt able to use a hammer to save my life. Last week I put down a kitchen floor from scratch, the week before I completely redid a bathroom ceiling (drywall and edging), and so on and so on.

Something like this Black & Decker The Complete Photo Guide to Home Repair.


When I bought our first house, Home Depot / Lowes / Menards gift cards were the best thing I got.