May 292013
Ultimate Guide to Home Repair & Improvement (Ultimate Guide To… (Creative Homeowner))
Creative Homeowner’s Ultimate Guide to Home Repair & Improvement is the largest, most comprehensive home-improvement book on the market-608 pages packed with over 3,300 photos and illustrations. This clearly written, sensible how-to book covers the home top to bottom, inside and out. The reader will find out about common repairs step-by-step, including wiring and electricity, plumbing, floors and stairs, walls and ceilings, basements and attics, improvements top to bottom, yards and gardens, dec
List Price: $ 34.95
Price: $ 17.48
Home Improvement – The Complete First Season
List Price: $ 20.72
Price: $ 20.72
This is a good book. Here are some others.,
This is a good book, but not very detailed. However, no one book can cover all the intricacies of home improvement and construction. So it’s best to try to look at the book you’re thinking of buying before you purchase it. Try a bookstore or library or home improvement store, if possible. I have purchased the following books that are available at Amazon and found them to be very helpful to me:
Ultimate Guide to Home Repair & Improvement (Ultimate Guide);
Do It Yourself Home Improvement: Step by Step Guide to Home Improvement;
New Complete Guide to Home Repair & Improvement (Better Homes & Gardens);
Encyclopedia of Home Maintenance & Repair (Wm. P. Spence) – This is a black & white book, but has very good explanations, especially of electrical.
Popular Mechanics When Duct Tape Just Isn’t Enough: Quick Fixes for Everyday Disasters (Popular Mechanics) – This is kind of a “Hints from Heloise” for the home fix’r up’r.
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|An outstanding book for any novice home owner.,
“The Ultimate Guide to Home Improvement”, is an outstanding general reference, and will imbue any novice or intermediately skilled DIYer with a general understanding of, how and why, virtually any home repair or home improvement project is to be executed.
My wife surprised me with this book for Christmas. I already own the “Home Depot: 1-2-3 Home Improvement” book, which I like. However, the Ultimate Guide is much better and covers a wider range of topics from: Home Emergencies, Wiring, Dry Wall, to Decks and Patios.
I disagree with the other reviewers for knocking this book for being too general. It is an excellent general reference, and of course, does not cover every topic in complete detail. Readers needing or wanting more detail on a particular topic will be best served by procuring an additional book covering the specifics of the project they are undertaking, i.e. for details on plumbing projects, get a book that deals specifically with plumbing.
I highly recommend this book, it makes a great gift and a fine addition to any beginning or moderately experienced Do It Yourself weekend warrior’s library.
PROS:
1. Covers the whys, and not just the how to.
2. Up to date and fully illustrated, covering the complete gamut of home improvement and repair topics.
4. Many excellent tips and tricks, e.g. ‘To kill bacteria buildup in and under the toilet bowel rim, pour a bleach solution directly into the toilet tank overflow tube.’
5. In addition to the standard TOC, it also has a Table of Projects so you can quickly look things up by project i.e. Insulation: Insulating Existing Walls.
6. Includes a Glossary and List of Resources & Suppliers for the various projects
CONS:
1. Only general topic coverage, no one topic is fully covered in depth
1. A some what weak index
2. Virtually no mention of US Building codes, though oddly there is a section devoted specifically to Canadian Building Codes, go figure.
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|Our homeowner’s Bible,
Take a geniune interest in home improvement, add a basic understanding of projects and then this book – the result is many more finished projects around the house.
Easy to understand, thorough, and great marriage of text and photo. Since purchasing, my husband and I have plumbed in a new kitchen and laundry room, replaced our knob-and-tube wiring with updated wiring and numerous other improvements to our 120-year-old house.
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|Does Everybody Know What Time It Is?,
I’ve only recently started to watch Home Improvement in syndication for the first time, and as soon as I got into it it has become one of my favourite sitcoms. The humoar is very original and the concept was very bright and fresh when it came along on ABC in 1991.
It wasn’t just that that made it one of the most popular shows of the 90′s, it was also the strengh of the characters. Tim Allen’s portrayel of accident proned chauvanistic tool man Tim Taylor helps make the show along with his sidekick Al, wife Jill and three kids Brad, Randy and Mark.
This show also provided more realism than a lot of other shows of its kind, for example the relationship between the boys and their regular fighting seems a lot more true to life than other shows that often represent people as constantly loving and everything always patched up by the end of the show. Home Improvement still has many tender moments that are always well acted.
As well as the 24 episodes on this DVD set, you also get a gag reels of jokes from the show and a commentary by the creators. It’s good to see that a lot of these sets now have extras and that the companies are going to the trouble of adding nice touches to the tv shows we know and love.
So overall, this set is one that you should definetly add to your collection, whether you want to re-discover the classic first season once again or watch this show for the first time and introduce it to your family who may not have been around then; either way you are very unlikely to be diassapointed! “I don’t think so Tim!”
Highly recommended!
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|The Beginning,
I liked this show, but the family values issues did get on my nerves a lot, and how Jill (the wife) would always jump down Tim’s back about the littlest things – it seemed.
The neighbor, Wilson, was pretty cool, always with some wise information for Tim and the others. And this first season, possibly the next one too, had Pamela Anderson in it as the Tool Time girl. Here’s a description of the episodes on this set:
“Pilot” – Tim wrecks the dishwasher, while trying to give it more power; Jill gets a job interview
“Mow Better Blues” – Mark breaks a tool of Tim’s, which Jill was told to stay away from
“Off Sides” – Tim hires a magician as a babysitter
“Satellite on a Hot Tim’s Roof” – Tim installs a satellite dish; one of Jill’s teachers visits
“Wild Kingdom” – Tim hears some weird noises in the basement
“Adventures in Fine Dining” – Tim bets Jill that he can teach their kids some table manners
“Nothing More Than Feelings” – Tim tells his Tool Time audience that his wife drove with the oil light on; the other guys say that their wives don’t respect their tools
“Flying Sauces” – The K & B Construction guys show how to make hot gourmet meals while on the job, on Tool Time; Brad and Randy tell Mark that Brad, Randy, and their parents are aliens
“Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble” – Tim puts another sink in their bathroom
“Reach Out and Teach Someone” – Tim does a Tool Time episode for women to teach plumbing; Brad worries that he’s going to do bad on a test at school
“Look Who’s Not Talking” – At a presentation for the Library Association: Jill gets stage fright
“Yule Better Watch Out” – Tim competes in a neighborhood Christmas light competition; Brad and Randy tell Mark that Santa Claus is dead
“Up Your Alley” – Tim and Jill go bowling; the kids get in trouble at a local arcade
“For Whom the Belch Tolls” – Jill doesn’t want an old college friend of Tim’s to stay with them
“Forever Jung” – Karen comes to visit; Jill teaches Brad to dance
“Jill’s Birthday” – Tim buys Jill a lifetime membership to a health club; after wasting all their money, Brad and Randy put together a scheme to get Mark’s money
“What About Bob?” – Tim competes against Bob Vila in a trivia game; Randy pulls a prank on a nerd at school
“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” – Tim’s boss has Tim and Jill go camping to promote some new camping gear. The problem is that they had a romantic weekend planned instead
“Unchained Malady” – Tim throws away a chain letter; Randy gets dared to do a trick on his bike
“Birds of a Feather Flock to Taylor” – Jill tells Tim that he’s a bad listener (happens to me all the time); Brad and Randy try to get Mark to eat a worm
“A Battle of Wheels” – Tim lets Al host Tool Time; Tim accidently breaks some of Jill’s pottery
“Luck Be a Taylor Tonight” – Jill’s sister and Al ruin Tim’s poker night
“Al’s Fair in Love and War” – Tim wants to read Jill’s old diary; Al tries to ask a girl out
“Stereo-Typical” – Tim and Jill argue over stereo volume
So buy this set, my favorite segments were always the Tool Time scenes of the episodes. There should be an option of the DVDs to view only the Tool Time scenes, oh well.
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|Klaus, some music please,
Home Improvement was on the air at a time when sitcoms were a good source of bread and butter for network television. During its prime, Home Improvement made its share of money for ABC, as the show appealed to a broad audience, from kids to adults.
The complete first season of Home Improvement takes us back to the very beginning of the show. We meet Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor, the host of a local cable home improvement show, his wife Jill and their three kids. While much of the show dealt with the television show, the prime focus was on the family aspect of Tim’s life and how it affected his work and vice versa.
Stand-up comedian Tim Allen brought the character of Tim Taylor to life. His observations about everyday life, along with his penchant for getting himself into fine messes, usually involving “more power,” made for some interesting situations. While Tim is by no means a stupid guy, he quite often misinterprets advice given to him by his neighbor Wilson, or the meaning of any number of things that his wife says. Somehow he always manages to get everything to work out the way it needs to. If only life were so easy.
Patricia Richardson stars as Tim’s wife Jill. She is the perfect co-star for Allen. While she can stay in the background as he goes off on his antics, she is also quite capable of stepping into the spotlight with some great jokes of her own. As the only woman in a house full of males, she finds herself constantly outnumbered, but usually manages to get her way.
Zachery Ty Bryan, Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Taran Noah Smith star as the Taylors’ three kids. Through the years viewers got to watch the kids grow and got to see how their parents influenced them as they grew up. Looking back, the kids look incredibly young in this very first season. It is amazing just how much older they look at the end of the show. The kids have some great moments, mainly with the older two picking on their younger brother, but the focus of the show is the family, and if the kids do something wrong, the parents are there to try to teach them right from wrong.
Richard Karn stars as Al, Tim’s assistant and Earl Hindman stars as Wilson. Both characters provide some great supporting parts and it is interesting to see all the ways that the show’s powers that be find to hide Wilson face, which is never fully visible. The show also started the career of Pamela Anderson, who was Lisa, the original Tool Time girl.
Two of the show’s producers provide commentary on a number of episodes, and the commentary is quite interesting and a good addition to the set. This set is worth the purchase for anyone who remembers the good days of television sitcoms.
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