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Home improvement guides
Practical, reviewed advice for planning repairs and projects, choosing the right pro and knowing what to ask before you hire.
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491 guides
- Guide
TV Mounting guide
Television mounting looks like one job and is really two, and the join between them is the wall. Getting the bracket onto structure, at the right height, dead level, is carpentry.
8 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Picture & Art Hanging guide
Picture hanging is a small job with an unusually clear legal status in Australia, and that is the reason it is worth writing about.
8 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Shelving guide
A shelf is a load path. Everything that goes on it ends up in a fixing, and every fixing has to find something that was built to carry weight.
8 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Minor Drywall Repair guide
Minor plasterboard repair is the small end of a large trade: a door handle through a hallway wall, a cracked cornice join, a patch where a fixture came off, a sheet that has swollen at the skirting after a leak.
8 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Minor Painting guide
Minor painting is the half-day version of the trade: one wall after a repair, a front door, a laundry, the architraves in a hallway, the touch-ups before an inspection or a sale.
8 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Caulking guide
Caulking is the trade name for the flexible sealant joints that run around a bath, along a shower base, behind a kitchen splashback, around window and door frames and down the internal corners of tiled walls.
8 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Weatherstripping guide
Weatherstripping is known here as draught sealing or weather seals, and it is the cheapest comfort work you can have done to an Australian house.
8 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Fixture Replacement guide
Fixture replacement is the job of swapping something that is already there: a towel rail, a blind, a door handle, a shower screen seal, a letterbox, a curtain track, a bathroom cabinet, a set of robe doors.
8 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Small Carpentry guide
Small carpentry is the repair end of the timber trades: refixing skirtings and architraves, easing a door that has dropped, replacing a rotten weatherboard or a deck board, repairing a gate that no longer latches,…
8 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Small Electrical Jobs guide
There is no such thing as a small electrical job in Australia, in the only sense that matters: the licensing rule does not scale with the size of the work.
7 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Small Plumbing Jobs guide
Small plumbing jobs are the ones that never feel big enough to call anyone about: a running cistern, a slow basin, a tap that drips, a washing machine that needs connecting, an outdoor tap that weeps, a shower head to…
8 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Home Maintenance guide
Home maintenance is the standing list rather than a project: the things that need doing before they become repairs, booked as a regular visit or as a seasonal catch-up.
9 min read22 September 2026
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