1. On the Air - Great Prize Giveaway
2. Ask Tom & Leslie - Repairing a Damaged Wall
3. Short Cuts - Tool-less Tricks
4. Fun Fact - Top Tools for Every Homeowner
5. Dot Common Sense - This "New" House
6. On the Wire - Screening Room

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ASK TOM & LESLIE

This week's question comes to us from Rick in Wilmington, Delaware. Rick says, "After steaming and scraping off three layers of wallpaper on one of my walls, I found plaster unevenly meeting the wallboard where the previous owners apparently covered a doorway. Ack! What to do? Venetian plaster? Sand the taped edges down about 1/8 - 1/4 of an inch and then prime and paint? The patch on the middle of the plastered doorway is where I found it nearly impossible to remove the paper without ruining the plaster. Please help!"

What a mess, Rick! The bad patch job by the previous owner has left you with a real predicament. You have two options:

• Spackle - Build-up the difference between thicknesses using several layers of spackle. I would start with a 4 inch spackle knife, then switch to a 6 or 8 inch blade, and then a 12 inch. Each layer should be put on as thin as possible. Sand between coats. The idea is that you need to taper out the spackle from the botched patch to the finished wall.
• Rebuild the wall - For this you will need to remove the trim on the doorway, remove the bad patch, frame out the wall (or trim it) so that the new patch will be flush with the old wall. Consider using 3/8" sheetrock if 1/2" is too thick. I'd probably take some of the old wall with you when you cut out the bad section. You will need to decide whether you want a horizontal seam or a vertical one, and then cut accordingly.

In either case, the wall isn't going to be as smooth as you'd like it to be so I'd opt for a textured paint finish. There are some beautiful plaster finishes available at The Home Depot and any kind of textured paint hides many sins - including those of the former repair person! Good luck and thanks for listening.

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GOT A QUESTION ABOUT YOUR MONEY PIT?

1. The toll-free studio hot line is 1-888-MONEY PIT. Find out when we broadcast in your area by checking out our website at www.MoneyPit.com. Each week we take dozens of calls, give great advice and offer callers a chance to win a terrific prize awarded to one random caller to every show.
2. Call when it's convenient for you, 24 hours a day, same number: 1-888-MONEY PIT. A live person takes your call 24/7! So -- WHENEVER you have a home improvement question -- phone it in. Simply tell our phone screener your first name, and where you're calling from...and ask your question. We’ll get back to you with the answer – or even call you back during the show!
3. Click here to email your question to us. We may read your email on the air and we also respond personally to many of the email questions we get.

Here are some quick tricks if you're in a home improvement hard-place:

• A dollar bill is 6 inches long, you can use it in a pinch to measure.
• Use a rubber pencil eraser if you lose a glue cap.
• Toothpaste can be used to spackle in a pinch.
• Put masking tape on the side of measuring tape for an easy, portable place to record measurements as you go.

For more great tips and tricks, check out the Reader's Digest Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual with the editors of the Family Handyman magazine, available at bookstores now.

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FUN FACT

Every toolbox needs what we like to call the dirty dozen - twelve must have tools, according to the folks at The Family Handyman magazine. Here's the rundown: A cordless drill, a hammer, an angle square for marking or checking corners, a multi-head screwdriver, a pry bar, a utility knife, a 25-foot tape measure, an adjustable wrench, a chalk line, a circular saw and a level. Have them handy in your toolbox and you'll be good to go with just about any project you have on tap.

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DOT COMMON SENSE

The folks with This Old House are taking on a challenge - a newer home with contemporary architecture. The house was built in 1950 during a time of architectural experimentation that yielded styles with names such as Bauhaus and International. Some of these angular, unornamented buildings have become icons of modern design. This Old House's project is no such monument; it's tired, it's leaking, and it's the dog on its street compared to the immaculate kept houses around it in historic Cambridge, Massachusetts. Homeowner George Mabry has done extensive research, working with several architects in hopes of finding the appropriate redesign. After 13 years of living in it and with it, he's enlisted This Old House to reconstruct his home in a contemporary style, but with amenities, flow, and surfaces that might be called "warm modern". The This Old House Cambridge project will premiere in October on PBS in the first half of The New This Old House Hour. For more information and airtimes, visit www.wgbh.org.

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ON THE WIRE

With increased exposure to the weather, larger-than-average wall openings, and less structural bracing than other rooms in the house, screened porches pose special construction and detailing challenges. In return for all of that effort, homeowners get an amazing outdoor space with one huge benefit: no bugs. Fine Homebuilding walks through the dos and don'ts of great screened porch construction, covering everything from proper framing technique to the best screen material choices.

• Frame the floor for maintenance: Screened porches built over wood framing raise at least one prickly maintenance problem. If porch walls are built on top of the flooring or the decking, it is difficult to replace flooring down the road when the weather takes its toll. The trick is to isolate the wall framing from the flooring material. Some common methods are adding an extra joist a few inches from the wall's bottom plate to support the ends of the flooring, connecting the posts directly to the floor framing and fitting the floor pieces around the posts, or using a 2x8 coping to support the wall.
• Keep floors level: The roof will generally protect floors from the harshest weather. Any way you slice it, though, some water build-up is going to occur on the flooring unless you're going to build a serious pitch into your floor, which is hardly practical.
• To screen the floor or not? With open decking on the floor, should you staple insect screen to the bottom of the floorboards? While many builders say, yes, a more important consideration may be dirt and dog-hair build-up in the screened crevices. Typically, it's an unnecessary step; the bugs won't find their way through the floorboards.
• How to frame big openings: Studs on 16 inch centers wouldn't exactly provide the breathtaking vistas that most folks want in a screened porch. The trick is to use heavier materials in the top plate (double 2x6 for openings 4 ft. wide and double 2x8 for openings 5 ft. wide). Aesthetics are also important because the framing is on display. 3x6 lumber is the stock material of choice because it's proportions are much more pleasing to the eye.
• Reinforcement -- intermediate rails or kneewalls: While there are aesthetics involved, some big structural and design advantages to intermediate rails and kneewalls are the additional bracing they provide as well as the insurance policy against kids and dogs pushing through screened openings.

For more information on this and other great projects, check out the current issue of Fine Homebuilding on newsstands now or on the web at www.finehomebuilding.com.

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