Creative Homeowner

In my yard, I have the perfect area for a waterfall feature. It's on a 5-foot downhill slope in a sunny area. It's hard to get anything but weeds to grow there instead of fescue grass because of perpetual, late-summer sun. We have many gardens, but I'm concerned that the heat would do many plants in. So I want to install a waterfall feature to bring sounds alongside flair, but I'm unsure how to do so. I work as a data guy, not a landscaper or a builder, so I needed a guide to show me what to show more do. This book fit that bill.

It focuses mainly on ponds with waterfall features as an addendum. Nevertheless, some degree of ponding water is necessary for waterfalls, so enough overlap existed for my needs. It also discusses wildlife, like fish, at length. I wasn't interested in that feature to my waterfall, but some - even most - might share that interest. Extensive discussion about plants fill certain sections, but my wife, possessing a deeper passion for gardening, will likely consult those sections after I install the waterfall.

My favorite feature of this book is the beautiful pictures from a variety of installations. Besides being a how-to manual filled with technical and scientific knowledge, it excites the imagination with raw elegance from a variety of cultures. It demonstrates final products of beauty and then dissects how to engineer a project to get to that endpoint. Pulling off a good water feature in a yard requires meticulous preparation, and I'm glad I consulted this book to think through my plans ahead of time. show less

The Ultimate Guide to Wiring 8th edition does what it says. It provides sage advice to attempting wiring projects and the use of basic to advanced wiring techniques. When dealing with something like electricity, safety is paramount. Thus, if you don’t know what you are doing, you really should call a licensed electrician. The book makes a lot of this very plain. Saving money is nice, but you could lose either your property or your life. Please keep that in mind.

With that said, the book show more goes on to discuss methods and techniques used in wiring houses. From assessing damage and crafting a plan to the main idea of staying within local wiring code, all of the basics are in this book. If you are hoping to become handy, or are just trying to wire an electrical socket, this book has plenty of sage advice in all of that. In that it follows standards for wiring code, that standard is the National Electric Code or NEC. I believe it is native to the United States, but I don’t feel like doing any more research into that.

Replete with images and step-by-step instructions, this book is quite useful. So if you ever wanted to run some wire through a wall, this book can tell you how to do that. If you want to move an electrical outlet to a new location, this book has got you covered. Need to run a wire around a door frame? It’s possible with the information in this book. Don’t know what a “hot” wire is? Well, hopefully, you looked at this book before trying to find out first hand.

Alongside all of this advice is a number of helpful tips. If you are wiring an electrical receptacle, don’t use a Push-In terminal since the connections can be problematic. It even talks about some of the unusual receptacles that you might have seen in various locations. The National Electrical Manufacturer’s Association or NEMA assigns each one a number so you can see what it is.

The real majority of the book is made up of projects that one can do in the home. It ranges from testing a lamp cord for a broken wire to installing a lightning protection system. Each project is rated in difficulty from one to three hammers, with one being simple and three being advanced. The project listing also contains the tools and equipment necessary and then tells you the steps to take.

So if you need to do some wiring or are just curious like I am, this book is really good. show less

Excellent pictures and explanations of anything a homeowner might want to do.

Home decorating with templates of indoor and out items to test ideas