Emily Jack

You finally waterproofed the basement, sealed the cracks, and stopped the seasonal flooding that used to ruin everything down there. Then you install a beautiful new floor, and within a year it is bubbling, warping, or smells faintly musty every time it rains. If that sounds painfully familiar, the problem usually is not the waterproofing … Read more

You walk into the living room and there it is again, another scratch mark cutting across the floor near the door where your dog waits every afternoon. Or maybe it is the faint ring of a stain that never quite came out after last month’s accident. If you share your home with a dog or … Read more

You stand in the flooring aisle. Three sample boards sit next to each other. They all look like wood. One is labeled laminate. One is labeled vinyl. One is labeled LVP. The store worker uses all three terms like they mean the same thing, but the price tags tell a different story. You are not … Read more

Your kid is bored. Screens are off. You want a weekend activity that does not end in five minutes. You remember carving a bar of soap in scout camp years ago, and you wonder if wood carving could work for your own kids today. It can. Wood carving is one of the few hobbies that … Read more

You have a design in your head and a piece of wood on the bench. Now comes the difficult question: should you shape it by hand with chisels and gouges, or let a machine cut the design for you? The debate around cnc wood carving vs hand carving often becomes unnecessarily extreme. Some woodworkers treat … Read more