The Complete Guide to Gazebos & Arbors shows basic techniques for building sheltering structures in the landscape, and provides complete project plans and directions for more than 12 versatile, flexible architectural projects. An overhead arbor can turn a patio or deck into a cool oasis from which to enjoy a landscape, while a gazebo can serve as a full-fledged outdoor room with protective walls, ceilings, and even electrical service. Every reader will find this book to be an indispensable source of planning, design, and practical how-to information.

New in this edition, and unique among all flooring books, Black & Decker« The Complete Guide to Floor Decor contains installation sequences for the most popular new flooring trends, including bamboo and cork. Also new is an inspirational chapter that reveals the secrets used by designers to make floors an essential element of home d¬cor.

Carpet, ceramic tile, vinyl, laminate, hardwood, and stone -- itÆs all here in one truly complete guide to floor decor.

• Covers all new laminate flooring products
• Complete instruction for radiant heating systems
• Includes comprehensive refinishing and maintenance information
• Includes decorative painting designs and concrete etching options

For today's homeowner, basic carpentry skills are an absolute must. Professional handymen are in rare supply these days, and if you can find them at all, they may command exorbitant rates for work that takes just an hour or two to do. Best of all, modern tools are inexpensive and easy to use, making most home carpentry tasks a breeze to do-it-yourself. Black & Decker The Complete Guide to Carpentry for Homeowners is a down-to-earth guide to help readers solve everyday problems using the most basic of tools—hammers, saws, sanders, clamps, and screw guns.

The book opens with the basics of setting up a rudimentary home workshop and learning tool basics, then moves into a lavish how-to section featuring more than 50 everyday home carpentry projects that cover just about every possibility.

• The perfect introductory book on carpentry skills for homeowners
• Shows ingenious solutions for creating a full-featured home workshop in limited space
• A complete reference for tools, materials and hardware

A custom wine cellar with bistro seating; an elegant den with built-in library walls; an electric steam-room in the master bath; a billiards room with a fun, retro wet bar; a custom closet as big as a bedroomàhomeowners dream of the special features that set a home apart and make it extraordinary. Much of the time, though, dreams of luxury go unfulfilled because the pocketbook is out of sync with aspirations. But in Black & Decker« The Complete Guide to DIY Projects for Luxurious Living, readers discover the bridge over the gap between dreams and reality -- their own labor.

This book is a collection of high-end home improvement projects to give homeowners the satisfaction and pride of having features normally found only in luxury, designer homes. At a fraction of the cost, any homeowner can create the kind of features that friends and neighbors will envy, along with the satisfaction of achieving this through their own skills.

• Complete directions for more than 30 ôgotta haveö projects
• More than 600 color photos showing each process step-by-step
• Features unusual, designer projects not found in other DIY books

Sheds and other landscape shelters have never been out of style, but they are now seeing a remarkable surge in popularity, and are being used in creative new ways. The common garden shed is now just as likely to serve as a workshop for an artist to pursue his or her hobby; or may be used as a writerÆs retreat; or may even be equipped with a satellite dish, high definition television, recliners, and used as a meeting spot for Sunday afternoon football parties. In many parts of the country, spacious sheds are being fully appointed with furnishings and used as detached rooms for everyday living or as backyard offices.

This book offers readers fuel for their aspirations but also provides practical information for planning and building sheds of all types. Although the basics of stick-building are covered, the book focuses more on the most common consumer option: ordering and buying a kit shed, working from blueprint plans, and customizing the shed to individual needs.

• Features a planning and design section to help readers create unique shed projects
• General technique chapter provides an in-depth overview of each step in shed construction
• Includes easy-to-follow plans and directions for 12 sheds covering all design options
• Bonus appendix includes a dozen advanced shed plans that can be special-ordered
• More than three times as many complete plans than any other sheds book

Both for practicality and curb appeal, windows and doors are the most crucial mechanical feature of any home, and this book helps homeowners preserve and improve these essential elements. A fabulous door can add thousands of dollars in "perceived value" to a plain house, just as a few new windows can shave off a decade or two in apparent age.

Black & Decker The Complete Guide to Windows & Entryways is a fully-updated revision of Black & Decker The Complete Guide to Windows & Doors. At 288 pages, it features more than 600 beautiful color photographs that are rich with current information. It contains virtually everything readers need to plan and complete any kind of window and door installation. The new version also features an expanded section on door and window hardware, as the types, styles and finishes change frequently. Also new in this edition: an expanded the section on installing and maintaining garage doors; a complete start-to-finish project for enlarging a basement window opening and installing an egress window; a quick and easy technique for giving your fiberglass door the appearance of woodgrain; and much, much more. You'll find no better single book that better covers the ever-changing topic of choosing, installing and maintaining doors and windows.

A modern twist on a nostalgic favorite

Nothing says elegant, genteel living like a well built, well appointed porch or sunroom. The Complete Guide to Porches & Patio Rooms offers design advice and easy-to-follow, concise instructions for adding living spaces that bring the indoors and outdoors together in delightful ways.  In addition to offering hundreds of inspirational ideas, the book provides thorough plans and photo directions for six versatile, flexible architectural projects.

For the 500,000 homeowners now building sunrooms each year, this book explores the most popular functions and then offers step-by-step instructions to design and build those specific spaces. For example, an open porch can be used for social gatherings, as a sheltered outdoor cooking space, or simply be added simply to improve a home’s curb appeal. A sunroom can serve as a full room addition to a home, complete with protective walls, ceilings, and electrical service; can serve as an indoor garden space for green living plants; or could be put into service as a music conservatory for an elegant grand piano.

This book is an indispensable source of information on planning, designing, and building the addition of your dreams, from digging foundations to final decorating.

Whether it is for aesthetics, security, or simple privacy, no project is more important to a landscape than its vertical boundary structures—the fences, walls, screens, and retaining wall terraces. This book includes classic favorites, like picket fences and panel fences, but also includes interesting regional variations, like Virginia split rail fences and dry-fit stone garden walls. Also included here are the latest materials, such as new variations on PVC vinyl and polymer-coated, wrought-iron look-alikes. And special attention is given to decorative boundary walls for patios—the latest trend in today’s cutting-edge landscape architecture. Add in major hardscape retaining wall terraces, and even an invisible electronic dog-fence project, and you have the most complete and modern book on fences and garden walls available.

No projects offer more aesthetic or financial satisfaction than DIY masonry and stonework projects. Homeowners can routinely save thousands of dollars in labor costs by buying and installing materials that are now readily available for routine purchase. This book includes traditional techniques for laying concrete adapted to the special needs of ordinary homeowners, but also features cutting edge materials and techniques, such as tumbled concrete pavers, acid-etching for colored concrete slabs, and important green paving options, such as rain-garden arroyos and permeable pavers. Several cutting edge projects are included, such as polished concrete countertops and stamped concrete walkways. A complete outdoor kitchen project, ideal for a patio, is also included.

Nothing says quality and luxury like a custom built-in storage unit, and no project offers greater satisfaction and cost savings than a DIY built-in project. This detailed DIY book gives complete illustrated instructions for dozens of must-have built-in projects, including window seats, home theater units, buffed cabinets, and bathroom storage units.
 

• Platforms designed for various tree configurations
• Framing and finishing walls and railings
• Finishing interiors with paneling, shelves, and flip-down tables and bunks
• Doors, both classic and in fun shapes
• Windows, including shutters and pop-ups
• Building and framing roofs
• Modes of access, including ladders, stairs, trap doors, and a fireman’s pole
• Playthings, including swings, a zip line, a rock climbing wall, slides, and more

You can get started right away by following the complete plans and step-by-step photos for making your choice of two popular treehouse designs: an open-air treehouse and a gable house with entry deck. To give you even more to choose from, you will find fully developed plans for six additional treehouse types that you can adapt to your particular trees and wishes.

Build the treehouse you and your kids have always dreamed of with BLACK+DECKER The Complete Guide to Treehouses, 2nd edition.