If you’ve ever shown any remote interest in gardening, you’re probably familiar with the springtime glut of mail-order gardening catalogs and email ads. I did the mail-order thing a decade ago when we put in a totally new yard (at a new house) and I found myself this year doing the same thing once more, since we moved into this house about 18 months ago and didn’t even have grass . . . but over the years,...

When we were bulding our house, one of the favorite topics of conversation was who was going to build our cabinets. These discussions turned into a who’s who session where people complained about or complimented the guy(s) who built their kitchen cabinets. They threw around phrases like crown molding, custom height, european hinges, plate rack, and work surface, all followed by another word - expensive. Some...

According to some research I’ve been doing, the housing market in North America is plugging right along - in fact, In the US and Canada, housing sales just turned in a third straight winning month. There hasn’t been a three-consecutive-month increase in the overall houseing market, so I’m told by one bank, since 1984. Wow. We don’t often think about how volatile the housing market can...

Just to be totally self-serving and useless, (and to see if I can track some Google adwords - heh) I’m going to fill everyone in on the lastest goings on with the vehicles in the Fix Chicks’ driveways. Boring? Probably. But for the sake of some metrics, bear with me for a sec… For years, my trademark was “the filthy red Jeep.” Yes, a perpetually dirty Jeep Cherokee with cloth seats,...

If you’ve ever assembled a computer desk, you can assemble pre-fab cabinets. The most common tools you need are a screwdriver, a hammer, a level, a drill, some wood screws that are long enough to attach a cabinet to a wall (2 1/4″), and some screws that are long enough to attach cabinets to one another without going through on the other side (1 1/4″), some shims (our cabinets came with plastic...

Basic Auto 101 Recent events concerning a certain automobile, known as the filthy red jeep, have prompted me to jot this article, even though I haven’t really fooled much with car repairs since I was a teenage tomboy (now I’m an adult tomboy, so why not, eh?) What does it take to be a mechanic? I’m not trying to tick off anyone - honestly, but seriously, when was the last time you had a competent mechanic...