Home Repair Contractors

23 Curb Appeal Ideas for the Best Front Yard on the Block

Update your front yard, porch, and entryway to welcome visitors with a beautiful first impression. Check out these simple, low-cost curb appeal ideas for improvements you can do in a day, a week, or a month. When your home looks good at first glance, everyone (including potential homebuyers) will want to see what’s inside.

Curb Appeal in a Day: Replace Old Hardware

Jason Donnelly

House numbers, the entry door lockset, a wall-mounted mailbox, and a light fixture are all elements that can add style and interest to your home’s exterior curb appeal. However, if they’re dingy or need to be

… Read more
Home Repair Contractors

Be the Gift helps single moms, widows with home repair projects

By Shelley Widhalm
The Surveyor

Be The Gift doesn’t want single mothers and widows in northern Colorado to have a home repair go unattended when there are dozens of volunteers willing to do the work.

“They have to allocate and put more of their resources into their family. Sometimes that leaves their home needing love and care and updating,” said Katie Johnson, development and event director for Be the Gift, a faith-based nonprofit headquartered in Loveland. “We can come in and fill that gap for them.”

Be the Gift provides home repairs and handyman services to female homeowners at no

… Read more
Home Repair Contractors

Off-duty firefighters helping with home repairs

Firefighter Handyman launched in January — dispatching off-duty firefighters to handle home repairs across the Twin Cities metro area.

PLYMOUTH, Minnesota — Firefighters are used to being on-call to serve the community. Now those skills are being used while off-duty, to help in a different way. 

Curtis Smith spent 18 years as a firefighter, mostly with the city of Golden Valley. 

“About five years ago I just thought, ‘These people are so talented. They’re such wonderful people. They’re so trustworthy. This really calls for some sort of business,'” Smith recalled. 

Firefighter Handyman launched in January — dispatching off-duty firefighters to

… Read more
Home Repair Contractors

An Inspection Doesn’t Equal Home Renovation

Without a professional inspection, no seller knows the exact condition of every aspect of their home. If something troublesome (think termites) turns up, the seller gets to address it in good time.

If a seller foregoes the cost of an inspection and lets the buyer’s inspector undercover something scary, the seller loses any advantage. He or she has to make decisions about repairs and costs under threat that the buyer is about to back out.

However, inspection reports can be the size of a book by

… Read more
Home Repair Contractors

City program for home repair helps NW residents

by Pryce Jamison

Out of the 2,362 residents who received home repairs from the city’s Basic Systems Repair Program in the fiscal year 2022-23, Germantown had 100 recipients and Mt. Airy had 26, according to the Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation (PHDC). Chestnut Hill had zero.

In Philadelphia, among the 41 zip codes with residents receiving repairs, Germantown (19144) ranked 11th, with only 10 other zip codes having more than 100 recipients.

The PHDC’s main goal throughout the 40-year history of its program has been to provide a process that homeowners in low-income environments can utilize to sustain life comfortably in

… Read more