Marly

There's a thick, black electrical cable ground from underground into my garage / workshop. It was surrounded by weeds when I moved in, and I accidentally pulled it and gave myself a jolt.

We have a doghouse installed nearby that would be difficult to move. How can I make this area safer so that a dog won't make the same mistake I did? And so that the electrical wiring won't catch anything on fire?

I bought an ordinary metal filing cabinet at an estate sale. I cleaned it up and painted it and bought some hanging and manila folders... and then I realized they had no rails to suspend the folders from.

The drawers are deep enough to hang file folders, but the sides don't come up high enough. I need to add rails to hang the folders from, but the drawers don't appear to be designed to hold these rails. There is one rail on each side of the drawer, but it is nowhere near high enough to hang hanging folders from. These rails are 5.25" tall; the entire drawer is 11" tall.

Each of the two drawers has a sturdy metal divider, or perhaps it is the back of the drawer. However, each divider is still significantly shorter than the front of its drawer. If I tried to install a front-to-back rail, it would be very slanted down from the front of the cabinet.

Is there a missing piece that I could buy or make a replacement for? Thanks for the advice!

I have a clunky old water tank (gas water heater) from 1983. How can I recycle / upcycle it?

Could I turn it into a rain barrel or compost bin? If so, how?

I'm a married woman who works full-time and pays the mortgage and the bills. My husband has been underemployed for at least a year. I'd love to let him be a homemaker / househusband.

My husband is in his mid-30s, and I'm a few years younger. He could focus on art and his touring as a musician and also sell things on Etsy, eBay, etc. He could also work on things like helping us to get healthier (e.g. more healthy cooking with fresh produce rather than overprocessed "minute" foods).

Here's the problem: I don't want my family calling him a loser or a moocher. I feel like if the shoe were on the other foot, people wouldn't mind as much; they would say, "Oh, it's OK that she doesn't work outside the house because she saves them money by gardening, making homemade foods, etc." But for a man, there is a double-standard, at least in whispers -- and in stressful moments when my mother is angry. I worry that she'll say he is less of a man if he is not working outside the home. Every month or two my parents ask me if he is still looking for work and how the job search is going.

We want to adopt a child someday, but not for a few years. (We're still newlyweds.) How can we make this work without people's losing respect for my husband?

My backyard gets full sun, and it gets so hot here in Memphis. I'd like to shade my back patio by installing 2' x 2' tin ceiling tiles to make a lean-to porch roof that attaches to my house. I've got some strong beams that I can use to hold up this makeshift roof, but I have some questions about the logistics of this as a roof.

1) Will these tin tiles work for an outdoor roof? Love the sound of rain on tin, but do I need to prime / paint the back (top) of the tiles?

2) How should I connect the tiles to each other? To the beams?

3) Most importantly, how do I connect the roof tiles to my house? My house is a one-story brick house, and I'm wondering if the gutters are in the way. Should I just connect the roof to another set of beams, or can I connect this roof to the house?

The lights by my front door were poorly installed (before I moved in). The blue plastic rim is showing around the edges of my metal sconces. Any ideas for something to put over the plastic? I think that the person who installed these cut too big of a hole in the siding, so I can't remove the plastic covers. Thanks for your help!

I have an open floor plan with little storage. Past the kitchen is a laundry nook, with a washer, dryer and small cabinet along the right wall. The left wall of the nook has a window, and the back "wall" is a door to the back patio.

We don't use this door at all. Even when it's locked, we have to keep an anti-theft pole jammed under the doorknob to keep it from blowing open. We have a set of double doors a few steps to the right of my laundry nook, so getting rid of the laundry door shouldn't cause a problem with either convenience or safety.

We don't really want to replace it with a true wall...

The outside of the house (brick and siding) was painted two years ago by a previous owner, and I don't know what shade was used. It would be pretty obvious if we tried to blend it with our ranch home's single color. Keeping the door on the outside would look good; it really is a nice-looking door / window / blinds / molding, and we could cover the window with exterior shutters if needed.

...but we're ready to get rid of it as a door!

We want to seal / block the door *from the inside* and use the back wall for pantry storage. We'll use a standalone cabinet, not shelves, so we don't need a true wall to anchor the storage to.

Here's what we're looking for:

- Safe / up-to-code / not a fire hazard

- Something energy efficient that will prevent ants from coming in (I've tried to weatherstrip the door, but the job isn't perfect). Do we need insulation, or is there a simpler option? We want it as close to the energy-efficiency level of a wall as we can get without actually replacing the door with a wall.

- Preferably attractive. (We're flexible. This will be partly covered by storage, after all.)

Thanks for reading! Looking forward to your home repair and decorating ideas! :)

I'm installing a new doorbell (mechanical, not electric or wireless), and I installed it where the old electric doorbell had been. I'm placing it through the thick wall instead of through the thinner door, and the metal rod that connects the twist mechanism / button with the big bell chime is too short.

The rod is all the way inside my wall now but didn't pop out the other side, which is necessary to hit the bell on the interior of my house. Any suggestions for something I can attach to my rod to make it long enough to strike the bell?

PS - Here's a pic of the bell in question: http://www.houseofantiquehardware.com/mechanical-t...

I have an electrical doorbell that has never worked while I've lived here (over a year). At first, the button stayed lit and hot to touch, but it didn't ring. Now it doesn't do any of these things.

I've tried replacing the button as well as reattaching the old wire to the connectors on both the button and the chime (to make sure all wires were attached securely and that the connection was closed).

Nothing worked, and the button has stopped lighting up and being hot. (I think that was around the time I tried to replace the button, so perhaps I shorted something out.)

I've bought a mechanical doorbell / twist doorbell to replace the electrical one, and I intend to install it in the same hole next to my door frame. Here's the plan:

1) Loosen the wire connectors on the chime box and disconnect the two wires.

2) Use a wire nut (or electrical tape?) to cap each of the two wires separately.

3) Disconnect the wires from the button and cap them individually in the same way.

4) Remove the button.

5) Install my old-fashioned doorbell button (a twist knob). Installation would involve sticking a metal rod through the hole where my button wires are. If the wires are capped with wire nuts, is this safe?

I got a new credit card, and the one my gym had on file was cancelled. I owe about $30 (2 months' dues) to my gym because my payments were late. I actually owe about $30 + late fees, but they say I owe over $270. I have tried to settle this over the phone or online, but you have to go in person to cancel, and I just got back from my honeymoon.

How can I negotiate to a reasonable fee? I would be fine with paying $5-10 extra per month even though that would equal 1/3 to 2/3 of the monthly fee. But an extra $100 per month? That is exorbitant and unreasonable.

North, south, east or west side of the yard? Do birds care? Do some types of birds prefer more sunlight than others?

I'd like to hang a group of birdhouses together (giving them at least a foot or two of space in between) on my fence or the side of my shed. I live in a temperate area (southern United States -- Memphis, TN), but both sun and rain are sometimes brutal.

Here is what I have so far:

* 1 sturdy wooden house for mourning doves

* 1 small painted house with a perch (maybe chickadees or other small yardbirds)

* 1 hummingbird feeder (not a house)

* 1 raised bird seed dish

* 1 raised bird bath

I'd like to add more in the future, but before I permanently anchor them, I want to make sure that these are in a location where the birds will be happy. Thank you!

My new LED light bulbs are way smaller than the CFL versions were. I love the look of the light that the LED bulbs give, but these small bulbs look out of scale in my recessed lighting.

I spent a long time online researching these bulbs (lumens, watts, prices), so I'm not looking to replace them or to rewire my lighting.

Is there such a thing as a decorative cover for my can lights, or an *easy* DIY way to make them look less tiny?

DirecTV drilled a hole through the front wall of my house and ran a long cable around the front, wrapped around the brick about two feet off the ground. It's really noticeable and probably leaking heat and A/C from my house (as well as other problems due to lack of insulation).

My contract is over, and I want to cancel DirecTV. Do I still need this cord? (I'm replacing my service with Netflix with possibly basic cable or public channels too.)

If I don't need the cord, how should I remove it and patch the wall?

I'm a vegetarian and getting married in June. I had gotten down to 132-135 (from 190, over a 2-year period) but now weigh around 142-145. I'm 5'5", so I'm not overweight, but I'm uncomfortably close (150 is overweight for my height). I'd like to weigh around 125 by my wedding day.

I eat pretty healthily most of the time, but I am a vegetarian, so I don't plan to follow to the P90X diet. Has anyone in a similar situation used P90X? What were your results like? I used P90 for about a month... but I got so BORED with only 2 workouts!

PS - I hear that P90X comes with 12 DVDs... is that one workout per DVD? Just curious. Thanks!

I have a sneaking suspicion that the grout in my bathrooms and kitchen was never sealed. (Is there any way to tell?) Can I clean and seal old grout? The grout is around natural stone tiles and large pebbles.

Additionally, the shower wall has large cracks in the grout and doesn't quite meet the ceiling. Do I need to remove the shower grout and regrout this area? I moved in a year ago, and the bathroom was new.

My fiance and I recently moved into our first home, and it lacks storage. I'm finding the same 2 or 3 hanging cabinet designs over and over from shopping aggregators. Surely there are others, maybe from smaller vendors that don't place as high in the search results.

Here's what I'm looking for:

- A medicine cabinet for my bathroom. This should be either recessed in the wall or sticking out a few inches. Possibly one in a different style for the guest bedroom too.

- A small pantry for the kitchen area. This also needs to be a hanging cabinet (wall / recessed / modular style).

We're looking for something made of bamboo or teak or is otherwise eco-friendly (e.g. made using recycled / reclaimed materials, such as wooden pallets).

We don't have a huge budget, so we're not looking to spend thousands here. This is our first home. But, we are looking for quality, and we're willing to assemble an RTA cabinet if necessary. Thanks for the advice!