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Our lounge / dining room floorboards have the "usual" 3-4mm expansion / shrinkage gaps between them - but nothing drastic. Should I put down hardboard before getting a new carpet fitted - how do you decide whether to bother or not?

I want to construct a new custom shaped work surface from a large piece of MDF. What kind of primer / paint should I use for a smooth matt finish with less likelihood of scratching, peeling and wearing? The surface will act as a PC desk and so must withstand the mouse and such!

I keep hearing that you should nail or glue solid wood floor solid wood flooring to the subfloor, but if so, then how can it expand and contract based upon temperature / moisure changes in the room?

We have started to consider fitting solid oak flooring in our lounge / dining room. I have successfully fitted laminate before and feel capable of doing this. But how do I fit the flooring around our limestone fireplace? No problem cutting at the necessary angles, but if I leave an...

We have an existing conservatory with a (white) tiled floor. We liked the look of one we saw in a picture with a slate floor. However, will this get too hot to tread on - will the slate even tolerate temperatures of up to 60 degrees C?

Our lounge and dining room join via a large opening which gives the impression of havung one large room. Therefore we want a continuous floor surface to emphasise this. The floorboards run lengthways from the lounge through into the dining room. We have considered running real wood...

Does a truly flexible ceiling paint really exist? Some of the ceilings in our house look horrendous due to hairline cracks appearing at the joins between plasterboards. I recently spent a whole day sanding and filling the lounge ceiling along with several coats of paint applied over a week...

Until about 1 month ago we had very high mains water pressure - this also gave us a powerful shower (fed from our Baxi combi) and strong cold-tap water flow in our sinks and baths I would estimate that the pressure has almost halved over Christmas. I have checked our main stop tap and it...

We live in a fairly typical semi-detached property and will soon turn our attention to decorating the landing and stairs. Going up from behind the front door, we have 10 steps in a straight line and then a 90 degree turn and two more to get to the landing. The small bedroom (directly about the...

We have good (original) pine floorboards in our lounge and dining room and have decided to go for the sand and varnish approach. We cannot use oil-based varnish because of our many fish tanks and so have considered low-odour water-based varnish. Does anyone have any experiences of this...

Whilst stripping the wallpaper from my lounge, I came across a particular section where the plaster dropped off in large pieces as a result of the steamer loosening it - the whole "sheet" of plaster came away from the wall and ended up in pieces on the floor. This leaves me with a 1 metre...

We will soon turn our attention to the lounge/dining room floor. It currently has a carpet, but underneath we have perfect 1960's pine floorboards and have the temptation to sand and wax/stain/varnish them. However, we really like the look of real-wood oak flooring and because I have fitted...

I have put new pine architraves and skirtings on all of the upstairs rooms. I have stained these using Ronseal brushing wax to give a medium oak appearance - they look very nice. I now want to have six-panel pine doors fitted to all rooms, with the intention of using the same wax on them...

Having hardboarded the bedroom floors before carpetting, I now want to hardboard the bathroom floor before laying lino. I can seal the lino around the edges but know that water will still find a way in. Will this rot the hardboard? Should I perhaps varnish it?

I have this large grey plastic pipe in my loft. It originates from (presumably) the cavity between the semi-detached houses and then goes up through the roof near the chimneys. Can I remove it? We do have a separate chimney breast further down the loft wall. The woman next door had a...

I soon plan to lay foil insulation in my loft and then floorboard over it. I already have (some) old insulation in there (fibre glass wool stuff and loose foam chippings) and I will lay the foil blanket over the top, tacking to the joists as I go. We get high winds in my area and I worry...

The trapdoor to our loft exists in the doorway to one of the bedrooms. Due to redecoration of those rooms, we don't have an option to move it. I want to install a pulldown ladder, but because of the door position, I have calculated that we cannot have one much wider than about 30cm wide and...

Before I floor board the loft in my 1960's semi, I need to insulate it. It currently has a mix of old yellow wool (the nasty type that pricks your fingers and itches for days) and loose foam chippings that my electrician referred to as a "fire hazard", (and as a result he put the new cables...

I have 3x2 celing joists and plan to board the loft for light storage. Because I have numerous ceiling hangers (vertical pieces of wood hanging from roof to joists to stop celings sagging), I decided not to use chipboard panels, but rather normal floorboards which would prove easier to cut and...

After the rewire, I noticed that the new lightswitch in bedroom 3 tilts slightly. This looks bad as it sits only 4 inches from the vertical door arcitrave. Any tricks for ficing this?