Dr. Steve’s Tips

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Just another one of those humbling weeks when your humble correspondent was reminded of his limitations in life. This week I had to finally accept that this old handyman will likely never be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. In her confirmation hearings, Supreme Court nominee and Harvard Law School graduate Ketanji Brown Jackson was … Read more

Imagine it’s your moment. Ready? Go! “Ladies and gentlemen. Your humble correspondent has the high privilege and distinct honor of introducing the homeowner at 24 WestEast SunnyShady PineMapleOak TreeRockLeaf LaneCourt!” You walk up to the podium. Then you realize there’s no teleprompter. You freeze. That’s strange, because you KNOW there are several things not quite … Read more

If your kid’s room got too messy, you wouldn’t make him sleep out on the street that night, would you? For sure, that might be a tempting threat for an exasperated parent, but can we all agree that would be terrible parenting? So now consider this equally terrible analogy. Why are you throwing your innocent … Read more

If your booth for accepting confessions is now open, I’ve got one to make. I am a super-spreader, and I pass things on by human contact and word of mouth in my every day travels from subdivision-to-subdivision. In fact, your humble correspondent has probably been patient ZERO for a number of home ideas that are … Read more

Well, in 2021 you made a lot of sacrifices, put in the effort, and now just LOOK at you! After months of spending more time in your home than you ever wanted to, you now know SO MUCH MORE about what can go wrong with your house and what to do about it. Just one … Read more

What says “Christmas” more than a gift of home repairs and improvements? Yeah, other than that. Or that. Or…OK, OK I get your point. And, yeah, you can’t wrap it up and put it under a tree, either. Wow, tough crowd. But think about it, limiting ourselves to the material world, what gives more year-round, … Read more

No, I’m not trying to fool myself. Your humble correspondent knows he’s just an aging handyman who’s reached the pinnacle of his career on the world stage. Yet even from my lowly perch, I feel a need to do SOMETHING to unite everybody in these troubling times when we can’t seem to agree on ANYTHING. It’s … Read more

There’s a good reason your humble correspondent has never spotted “Live, Love, Laugh” stenciled on the walls of a garage. If homes were a family, garages would be Cinderella, the poor neglected stepchild. Like Cinderella, garages do a lot of dirty, essential work. But, they rarely get cleaned. The dents and holes in their unfinished … Read more

When you spend as much time as I do working hard and poking my head into things like toilets, crawl spaces, and other dark places, it’s good to look up every once in a while to notice the cultural trends I’ve been missing. For instance, one evening a few weeks ago I put my tools … Read more