Guides
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
Staircases guide
A staircase is the most heavily regulated piece of joinery in a house, and for good reason: it is the thing people fall down.
12 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Railings guide
Railings and balustrades are the parts of a house whose job is to stop somebody falling, and that gives them a different character from most joinery.
10 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Decking guide
Decking is one of the few garden projects where the rules decide the design rather than the other way round. In England, decking is permitted development only within limits, and the first of those limits is height: the…
10 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Deck Repair guide
Decking rarely fails all at once in this climate. It goes soft at the board ends where water sits, green over in the shaded corner, works loose at the fixings, and then one post moves when someone leans on the…
9 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Pergolas guide
A pergola is an open structure of posts and beams, with rafters or a louvred roof overhead and nothing at the sides.
10 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Gazebos guide
A gazebo is a roofed garden building, usually open or partly open at the sides, built as somewhere to sit rather than somewhere to store things.
10 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Sheds guide
The garden shed is the most common building project in the United Kingdom and the one most often got slightly wrong.
11 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Landscapers guide
Landscapers in Britain cover everything from a new lawn and planting scheme to patios, block paving, tarmac drives, fencing, decking, drainage and the levels work that decides where rainwater ends up.
11 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Landscape Design guide
Landscape design is a drawing service rather than a building service. What you buy is a survey of what is there, a set of proposals for levels, structures, surfaces and planting, and a specification detailed enough that…
10 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Lawn Care guide
Lawn care in Britain is closer to a year-round job than a seasonal one. Grass here rarely stops growing altogether, so mowing runs from early spring into late autumn and a mild winter keeps it ticking over.
11 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Lawn Maintenance guide
Lawn maintenance is the treatment programme rather than the cutting round: feeding, weed and moss control, scarifying out the thatch that builds up under the surface, aerating compacted ground, over-seeding thin areas…
8 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Grass Cutting guide
Grass cutting is the narrowest of the garden services and the one most people buy first: someone comes round, cuts the grass, tidies the edges and leaves.
7 min read21 September 2026
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