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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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494 guides
- Guide
Exterior Painting guide
Exterior decorating in Britain is mostly about two things the brochure photographs never show: access and moisture.
11 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Commercial Painting guide
Commercial decorating is the same trade as domestic decorating carried out under a completely different set of constraints.
13 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Cabinet Painting guide
Cabinet painting is the cheapest honest way to change a British kitchen. The carcases, the worktop, the appliances and the plumbing all stay exactly where they are, and only what you see and touch is refinished: doors,…
11 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Spray Painting guide
Spray painting covers a wide span of British jobs: kitchen doors and fitted furniture, uPVC and aluminium windows, garage and front doors, radiators, railings and balustrades, shopfronts, industrial steelwork, and…
11 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Staining guide
Staining is what you buy when you want the timber to still look like timber. Instead of an opaque film sitting on top of the wood, a stain colours it and, in most cases, leaves the grain visible.
11 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Wallpaper Installation guide
Paperhanging is the older British name for wallpaper installation, and it is still what the trade calls itself. A domestic job might be a single chimney breast, a feature wall behind a bed, a hallway and stairwell hung…
13 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Wallpaper Removal guide
Stripping wallpaper is the job people most often start themselves and most often stop halfway through. The reason is that it is not really a wallpaper job at all: it is a survey of everything the previous owners did to…
12 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Drywall Installation guide
Drywall is the American word for what Britain calls plasterboard, and the trades here are plastering and dry lining rather than drywalling.
14 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Drywall Repair guide
If you searched for drywall repair in Britain, the trade you want is a plasterer. Drywall is the American name for plasterboard, and repairs here cover both the board and the plaster over it: cracked and blown plaster,…
13 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Plaster Repair guide
Plaster repair in Britain usually means work on a solid or traditionally built wall rather than on modern board.
14 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Popcorn Ceiling Removal guide
Popcorn ceiling is the American name for this. In Britain the material is a textured decorative coating, and almost everyone calls it Artex regardless of who actually made it, after the brand that dominated the market.
15 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Ceiling Repair guide
A ceiling is the one surface in a British house that is held up purely by its fixings, and it is the one nobody inspects until something shows.
14 min read14 September 2026
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