Blog Posts by This Old House Magazine

It's been capping casseroles and wrapping brownies for nearly 100 years. Check out these other clever uses for foil.

1. Get rid of rust

Crumple a piece of foil, and use it to rub rust spots off car bumpers and shower-curtain rods. See TOH's other tips on keeping tools and household items rust-free.

2. Make a funnel

Curl a section of foil into a cone shape, secure it with tape, and start pouring. For more time saving kitchen tricks. Click here for more of our best kitchen products.

3. Fix a loose battery connection

Fold a 1-square-inch piece of foil several times and insert it between a battery and a loose spring to hold it in place and complete the circuit.

Place a sheet of foil over a loose self-stick vinyl tile, and press a hot iron over the foil until the adhesive backing melts and sticks to the subfloor. Visit TOH online for more tile tips, including fashionable tile decorating for your home.

5. Sharpen scissors

Fold a

See 92 more DIY upgrade ideas at This Old House.

1. Add Carved Corbels Under Your Breakfast Bar

How to do it: Check salvage yards for Victorian-era ones with patina for an extra flourish in the eating area.

Estimated cost: Two 30-inch-high-by-19-inch-deep Queen Anne-style corbels, about 95; Capitol Salvage

How to do it: Use paper and paste left over from a big job to dress up door panels, letting stiles and rails frame the decoration. For slab doors, trace a shape on the back of the paper, cut it out, and center it on the door. Before you start, see TOH's expert tips on how to hang wallpaper.

Estimated cost: Nothing

How to do it: Decorate the walls with easy stick-on decals in fun animal shapes. For more kid's room inspiration, see our best kid's room before and afters of 2010.

Estimated cost: 22-by-30-inch elephant design, about $25; Janey Mac at Etsy

How to do it:

Egg cartons ingeniously cradle fragile cargo. The standard model-known as a 2x6 in packaging parlance-is made of molded recycled paper. You can give that paper yet another life by reusing the cartons in these resourceful ways.

1. Start seedlings. Cut off the lid, fill each cup with potting soil, and plant some seeds. Once the seedlings sprout, cut each cup from the tray and plant it-cup and all. See more cold-weather gardening tips here.

2. Muffle the band. This Old House technical editor (and former rock-star wannabe) Mark Powers once nailed egg cartons to his apartment walls and ceiling to dampen sound while he was recording.

3. Feed birds. Trim off the lid, thread string through holes in each corner of the tray, fill the cups halfway with birdseed, and hang in a tree. While you're at it, check out TOH's other easy bird-feeder ideas.

4. Fire the grill. Melt candle scraps in a double boiler, then fill each cup halfway with sawdust. Carefully ladle the wax over the

We suspected as much, but now we have the proof: Single women are the fastest growing segment of the real estate market. In fact, they are buying homes at more than twice the rate of single men, snatching up one out of every five properties sold in the U.S. So we at TOH decided to conduct an informal poll of both future and current homeowners to identify their biggest concerns about going it alone.

Close proximity to the workplace and cultural activities are important, but perhaps the major issue for a single woman in the market for a new house has to do with personal safety, as well as the security of her property. Worries about keeping up with home repairs, and fear of being taken advantage of by a crooked contractor or another trade professional, also rank high on her list.

The following advice should help alleviate the stress of setting up house on your own.

Tip 1: Assemble a tool kit. A basic set should include: finish hammer, set of screwdrivers (or single

If you're like many magazine readers, you save every issue of your favorites. And when the pile of glossies on your nightstand gets too tall, This Old House has creative uses for them elsewhere.

1. Store extension cords
Secure a rolled-up magazine with tape, then wrap an extension cord around it to keep it from tangling. And, check out another creative way to keep cords safe and tangle-free here.

2. Line a pond
Before adding a liner, place a thick layer of magazine pages over the surface of the excavated area to keep rocks and roots from puncturing the liner. (Newspaper works, too.)

3. Keep glass paint-free
Who needs tape? Before painting window muntins, wet the edges of magazine pages and press them onto the panes, edges against the muntins. After painting, the paper peels off easily. Before you start painting, be sure to consult This Old House's pro painting tips.

4. Protect work surfaces
Line your worktable and the floor beneath it with magazine pages for easy cleanup after a

Got 60 minutes? Then you have time for This Old House's quick one hour fixes to spruce up your home.

Quick Fix 1: Paint Your Front Door

I always like to see a front door with a fresh coat of paint. It makes a home really welcoming. Just sand down any old lumps or peeling paint patches, then brush on some exterior paint (semigloss) in a color that stands out.

Time: 50 minutes

Tom Silva, TOH General Contractor

Before you start painting, see our painting tips from the pros.

You can't see this, but you'll feel it: If you have forced-air heating, change the furnace filter-before you start the heating season. You'll notice a difference in the air quality, and your furnace will run more efficiently. For more fall furnance maintenance tips, go here.

Time: 10 minutes

Richard Trethewey, Plumbing and Heating Expert

Quick Fix 3: Power-Wash Your Walkway

Power-wash a brick walkway. Layers of dirt and moss built up on a path

Skill 1: Fixing Loose Hinge Holes

The small screws used to secure kitchen cabinet door hinges to the face frames of cabinets often work their way loose over time. Unless they're tightened immediately, the screws will enlarge and strip the holes until it's impossible to tighten them. A quick, convenient cure can be found just inside one of the cabinets: toothpicks.

Remove one loose hinge screw. Dip four or five wooden toothpicks into woodworking glue and then stuff them into the hole. Break the toothpicks off at the surface and replace the screw. If the holes are larger than about ¼ inch, pack them with wooden matchsticks dipped in glue.

When nailing up moldings and other thin workpieces, boring a pilot hole first helps prevent the nails from splitting the wood, especially when nailing near the board's end. What if you don't have the right size drill bit? Simply chuck a finishing nail in the drill to bore perfect-size pilot holes. Apply light

Lightweight and rot-resistant, corks can do a lot more than just plug up your favorite bottle of vino. Start saving them for a few handy projects. See the remaining tips here, and for more great home improvement tips, go to thisoldhouse.com.

Tip 1: Create Baseboard: Glue corks side by side onto a base of 1/4-inch MDF and cut along the long ends with a saw to an even height. Attach strips of 3/4-inch molding to the top and bottom, and nail the strip of corks to the base of your walls.

Tip 2: Scrub a knife: To avoid scratching high-carbon kitchen knives, use a dab of cleanser and scrub the knife with a cork instead of an abrasive cleaning pad.

Tip 3: Fluff up your soil: Chop or grind corks into granules and add them to soil as moisture-retaining mulch.

See the rest of This Old House's creative uses for old wine corks at ThisOldHouse.com.