Best home repair books according to redditors

https://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Kids-Read-Dummies-Tracey/dp/0764540432

I hope this helps mate :)

Love it. Let yourself get swept away. Also, get this book:

https://www.amazon.com/New-Father-Dads-Guide-First/dp/0789208156

I taught myself how to cook out of self defense because n-mom and e-dad were completely incompetent.

It can be done, especially thanks to the Internet these days. If there's anything you feel you should know, but don't, ask away! I'm sure this group is ready to help.

PS - Two books that will change your life:

(starting at $0.65 + $4 shipping)
"How To Fix Damn Near Everything"
https://www.amazon.com/How-Fix-Damn-Near-Everything/dp/0517662000

(starting around $5 w/ free shipping)
"US Army Field Survival Manual"
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1566190223/ref=mp_s_a_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1493567143&sr=8-8&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=army+field+manual&dpPl=1&dpID=413349XBSCL&ref=plSrch

Both of these are frequent fliers on the Barnes and Noble bargain rack.

Binge watch episodes of This Old House. 40 years of solid advice for the homeowner.

Build a library:

https://www.amazon.com/Popular-Mechanics-Complete-Home-How-To/dp/B0041T4SXG

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Yourself-Manual-Newly-Updated/dp/1621452018

https://www.amazon.com/New-Fix-Yourself-Manual-Everything/dp/0895778718

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-Book-Home-How/dp/1591865980

Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. You learn things that will last a lifetime, and you are making people's lives better; one nail at a time.

Also try out a guidebook such as this one: What You Wear Can Change Your Life. It helped me get a better sense of what looks good on my body and what colors work best with my skin tone. :)

you're a fucking idiot LOL. Sea_Still is officially illiterate. here's a book on teaching kids how to read for dummies, it's about $16 so I'm sure you can skip out on some meth for a bit so you can afford it!

edit:

here's another one for you, some easy to read books for beginners. after some practice you can probably learn to read the reports rather than listening to morons talking on AM radio.

Get this book. It is a month-to-month guide for the first year. Each month is only a couple of pages, really good helpful stuff.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Fix-Damn-Near-Everything/dp/0517662000

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0895770105/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=&sr=

Those two should be your first purchases.

You sir, have two of the greatest assets in human history, cheap books on Amazon, and the second is YouTube.

Almost anything you have ever wanted to repair is detailed on YouTube. If you watch ten or twenty videos on a topic, it will give you a pretty good idea on how to tackle it yourself. It's an amazing resource.

Plus, if you hire any repairman who comes to your house, you'll learn a lot just by watching. Don't talk to him any more than you have to or you might annoy him, just ask a very few well thought out questions and you'll be amazed at the knowledge they'll share.

I have a small section of these: https://www.amazon.com/Time-life-Home-Repair-Improvement-Set/dp/B008271QRE

And they are pretty awesome. While out of date, they provide an extreme amount of useful knowledge.

The Big Orange Book by Home Depot is also good.

At this age this is just how it is, discipline is mainly redirecting, they have literally zero impulse control at 16 months and the fact that you're getting angry shows me that you have age inappropriate expectations.

Th highest rated comment has good advice, but not for a 16 months old child, there's a huge difference cognitively between 16 and 24 months.

But if you want to learn about child development and age appropriate discipline I recommend this book which came recommended to me by a family therapist when I had trouble with my daughter and I think it's an awesome book and how to parenting guide.

If you want the real scoop on living off-grid in the desert, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of "Rancho Costa Nada: The Dirt Cheap Desert Homestead."

http://www.amazon.com/Rancho-Costa-Nada-Desert-Homestead/dp/1559502363

It's been my source of inspiration these last 10 years or so.

A Handmade Life

It's kind of cheesy, but I have been really happy with books like this and this and this and this.

Allow me to recommended you a book my good sir!

Ooo, I love getting to share this! So an increasingly common practice in recent history is to teach children to sign for things before they're capable of speech. Especially signs for "No", "Yes", or "More", where the gross motor skill is something the baby is capable of learning long before they have developed the ability to actually articulate sounds more complex than babbling. They'll consistently use the correct signs to discriminate between different things, and there's a whole field of books and flashcards and videos (stuff like this) out there to help parents teach their children. Because the child is able to communicate earlier, it eases some of the complications of them not having words yet.

This is just addressing the 'deliberate' part of your post above, but it's really fascinating because it means that we're allowing kids to communicate before they're normally able to.

And now I'm getting completely off track, but there are a bunch of similar branches of research designed to get kids able to do things before they should be able to do them--think of them as baby hacks if you like. One really cool example I got to see in person but can't for the life of me find a link to is basically a remote controlled car that the baby rides on top of. By moving their hands and legs in certain directions, the child can control the car, and navigate their environment. This is mostly used for kids who have some sort of muscular abnormality, and might miss that important developmental stage where exploration is so vital. But you can also use it with kids who just haven't learned to crawl yet, and even if they're late in developing that skillset, they won't miss out on exploration and the things that develop from exploration.

</oversharing>

Showing my age, but...yes, YouTube is GREAT, but I have really appreciated this series of books: http://www.amazon.com/Time-life-Home-Repair-Improvement-Set/dp/B008271QRE

I don't have all of them in the series, but the ones I have are well used. I can pour over them in preparation for a project and refer to them during. I don't need power nor internet to use them. I'm not a Luddite - I love technology. But when it comes to working around the house I go fairly low-tech.

My wife and I joke about how I measure the difficulty of a project; the formula is the number of Time/Life books + the number of trips to HomeDepot = project difficulty.

I'm a white-collar guy who has paid plenty of great tradespeople to do the "hard stuff" over the years. But at 52 I have a basement tool room filled with tools and gadgets I bought, used once, and said "next time I'm paying for someone to do that". But I wouldn't trade the bruised knuckles, sore muscles, and countless dust masks for anything given the satisfaction I have from doing stuff myself.

Good luck and have fun!

(BTW, the Habitat for Humanity suggestion is a GREAT idea!!)

/me heads to amazon
EDIT:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/190103304X

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1411603265

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1853917516

I recently picked this up and have found it interesting. Although really, if you already understand cabinetry, you have all the right understanding already: http://www.amazon.com/Boat-Joinery-Cabinet-Making-Simplified/dp/0070053073

As pointed out, "This Old Boat" also has some great inspiration.

My husband just let me know that the same author wrote The New Father: A Dad's Guide to the First Year. This may be more of what you are looking for. While Expectant Father is awesome it's more about pregnancy and labor from what I understand while this one is obviously about your baby's first year. Sorry if you unnecessarily bought the first one!

I would get a radial arm saw off of Craig's List, you can probably score one for $100 or less, it will let you rip or crosscut items. I'd go ahead and grab a Porter Cable 690 router and build a table for it, make sure to make a provision for a table and fence mounted featherboard keeping consistent pressure is a key to a good cut. Get the plunge base while your at it to go with the fixed base. It has the most jigs and attachments available for it.


Get this book http://www.amazon.com/Boat-Joinery-Cabinet-Making-Simplified/dp/0070053073/ref=la_B001KIV91U_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381961906&sr=1-1

It has plans for a homemade tablesaw that works great along with tons of other homemade tools and jigs including making grinders out of old motors. I'm a professional and I use his plans and tool notes on multimillion dollar jobs regularly using the finest materials (walnut, mahogany, maple, purpleheart).

Get a small compressor, if your not spraying finishes you don't need anything more than a 1 gallon or 2 gallon compressor. Dewalt and Rolair are my recommendations here. Get a nice 18gauge gun and a 23 gauge pin gun, do not get a pin gun that only shoots 1 to 1 3/8" pins, get the one that goes to 2".

Currently reading this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Talk-Teens-will-Listen/dp/1853408573/ref=pd_sim_14_5?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=F6FCK1V9TSZ0AVZA00KS.

I've read some of the others in the series already and they are all fantasically helpful.

Also just as an aside I came across this article earlier which is just a general guide for high school which was pretty good https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/sep/04/starting-secondary-school-survival-guide-parents.

In my case it's a bit of a minefield as she's beginning to display classic signs of anxiety so I've been reading a lot on managing anxiety in children as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Time-life-Home-Repair-Improvement-Set/dp/B008271QRE

Seconded, and I also enjoyed The New Father - A Dad's Guide to the First Year. I liked the timeline approach and particularly the tips about what's going on with Mom along the way.

Read The Concise Guide to Self-Sufficiency.

Do you have another fully functioning bathroom that can be used while in the process of renovating this one? If the answer is no, this might not be the best idea for a project to start out with...

To answer your question though, I'm not sure you will find a class that will address everything you are looking for. If you watch some YouTube videos or a few of the home improvement shows on TV, that should give you an idea of the things you will need to know how to do. Other than that, you might start here:

https://www.amazon.com/Bathroom-Remodeling-Dummies-Gene-Hamilton-ebook/dp/B004S82RV0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1465502132&sr=8-3&keywords=bathroom+remodeling

I think every mother in Australia has a copy of Baby Love by Robin Barker. It's not the kind of book you read from cover to cover, but you pick out chapters or use the index to find what's relevant in your situation. It's very very helpful, especially for those first few weeks when you're sleep deprived and overwhelmed and aren't sure if the colour of your baby's poo is normal (it probably is). I kept my copy next to me on the couch every day for at least the first 3 months.

> I had pretty much a portable woodshop

This problem is well known to people who work on wooden boats. To get anything done, you need to bring a portable workshop to the work, and this largely involves hand tools. Downsizing, and organization is key to being productive.

A well stocked and thought out portable tool box is the secret.

Fred Bingham is an expert on this, his book is an excellent read.

We have the set listed below. Hopefully the link works, but it's for the Time/Life home improvement series. We bought a new one in the series every month or some such.

https://www.amazon.com/Time-life-Home-Repair-Improvement-Set/dp/B008271QRE

How to fix stuff around the house. It's very useful, and if you get a book like this it can help you out tremendously.

this book
http://www.amazon.com/What-Wear-Change-Your-Life/dp/B000F5FR3A/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318656694&sr=1-5
seriously taught me so much about color schemes for clothes, its a bit dated, fashion wise, but its excellent for helping you find colors and clothing styles that compliment your body. definitely would recommend buying it, its super useful.

HOAs are originated by the building developers, not the residents themselves. Check out Privatopia for more than you'll ever want to know about HOA's and CID's.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Talk-Teens-Will-Listen/dp/1853408573

A radon test and a set of these: https://www.amazon.com/Time-life-Home-Repair-Improvement-Set/dp/B008271QRE

They got the Time Life series.

I also, have this book coming in the mail! but I can't speak for how good or not good it is yet. :)

Before there was Youtube I used a series of how to books published by Time-Life. They were sold by subscription, you’d get one a month. Each would on s separate topic, framing, wiring, plumbing, building decks and porches, masonry repairs and so on. They were carefully illustrated and well written. I subscribed for a while and then came upon a big stack of them at a yard sale. I’m sure they still show up for sale, no one puts them in the trash.

https://www.amazon.com/Time-life-Home-Repair-Improvement-Set/dp/B008271QRE

You might find this interesting:
http://www.amazon.com/Privatopia-Homeowner-Associations-Residential-Government/dp/0300066384/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1456910737&sr=8-1&keywords=privatopia

Here you go.

https://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Kids-Read-Dummies-Tracey/dp/0764540432

Ah yes, let me tap into impossibility and assume my rank before even getting placed!

https://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Kids-Read-Dummies-Tracey/dp/0764540432

That's not the only thing he said. Not even close. Learn how to read

https://www.amazon.ca/Teaching-Kids-Read-Dummies-Tracey/dp/0764540432

Link for you since I guess you can't understand that 1) I'd never do anything, 2) I'm not encouraging anybody to do anything, and 3) nobody, especially me, is going around threatening to murder everybody who disagrees with them.