Harry Helmet Home Improvement & DIY Blog

When and how should you prune your garden?  Is your garden looking wilder than you would like? If your trees and shrubs are growing out of control, some pruning could be in order. What are the benefits of pruning? What are the best pruning to …

Getting a gutter guard can remove this chore from your regular to-do list. Is your home landscaping easy to manage, or do you find that maintenance takes up a lot of your time? If it’s the latter, then your tools could need an upgrade. By using the rig …

Mulch is a key tool to help prevent water loss from your garden. What tools do you need to manage water in your garden? While you might imagine a toolshed full of useful implements to assist you in your quest to save water, many of these water-saving t …

Maintain your home with low-maintenance plants that withstand all kinds of weather. How can you maintain your house so that it looks its best and feels like a home, not a chore? Strategies vary from season to season. You know that you don’t want to fee …

If your garden is a little too hot and sunny, what can you do?  It’s a hot day, followed by another hot day. You get the idea: it’s summer in your garden, and the heat just doesn’t let up. If you love plants but your plants don’t love the heat, wh …

Forget about your garden woes: you can turn your dry garden into a pleasant and bountiful space. It’s the dry time of the year. It’s the time when no matter how much you water, your plants always look parched. Your rain barrel is running low, and you’r …

How can you enjoy your home and garden as you age?  We’re all aging, and that means that eventually, the question will come up: do you want to be able to stay in your home? For some, the answer is simple and so is the solution. They might own a ra …

Think about the color and washability of your furniture when you have children in the home.  Having children live in your home or having grandchildren visit can be a delight, but it is also something to plan for and consider in your home and garde …

Water is important to your garden, but you can have too much of a good thing.  If you feel like you’re swimming through your garden or that you’re actually living in a swamp, you could have problems with water in your garden. The squish, squash of …

Having some shade in your garden can help you diversify what you plant.  While having a little bit of shade in your garden can be a boon on hot summer days, what can you do if your garden is all shade all of the time? This frustrating situation ha …

Farmers and gardeners have long used terraces to manage steep slopes. You have the perfect home in the perfect location: the only problem is that your yard is too steep. When you purchased the home, you might have thought the slope wouldn’t be a proble …

Plan your flower beds carefully. Ensure shade-loving plants are not in direct sunlight.  It’s so hot. What can you do on the days when your garden seems like the last place that you want to be? You can make outdoor living more pleasant in the summ …

Do you believe these common gutter myths?  What do you really think about gutters? If you’re like many people, your gutters only cross your mind when you hear dripping – or the torrential downpour of water flooding your balcony or patio due to gut …

Would you like a glorious garden? Use annuals to add seasonal interest. Do you want the best garden on the block? Perhaps you’re not that ambitious, but you would like to have a garden that you love through all the seasons of the year. How can you have …

Create an outdoor room with your awning.  It’s hot outside, and you roll out your awning to provide some shade as the day turns into evening and your friends come over to visit. You draw out your patio chairs and enjoy dinner on your deck. Later i …

You have fall leaves. What are you going to do with them? When the leaves are falling in abundance, what can do with all of them? In addition to getting the leaf blower and rake involved and packing them away, you can actually use a lot of these fall l …

How can you manage your yard maintenance this year?  Do you know your yard maintenance ABCs? This is something that you didn’t learn in kindergarten. Yet many of us are faced with a big yard and a big problem: how do you maintain your yard in a wa …

Overshooting your budget is a common experience on a DIY project. Uh oh: you’re working on a home project, and you’re doing it yourself. What have you missed? If you’re not as experienced with the DIY world, you could forget some key details that could …

What do you know about your roof? What do you know about roofing? Your knowledge could have holes in it. There are a lot of myths about roofing, and it can be dangerous to assume that you know everything about the roof over your head.  1. Covering …

How can you keep your home looking lovely as you age?  Scrub, repair, repeat: exterior home maintenance can be a chore for anyone, let alone seniors who might struggle with some of the more physical aspects of maintenance. How can you make home ma …

If you love gardening but can’t manage the work, how can you make gardening easier?  Flowers and vegetables delight you, but as you age, it can be more and more difficult to manage your garden. However, being outdoors is also excellent for your he …

Home maintenance: how can you make it simpler as you age? You might relish the look of a clean home, but do you enjoy cleaning it? As you get older, the burden of cleaning your home can feel larger. You don’t want home care to feel like an insurmountab …

How can you make your home and garden simpler to care for as you age?  Taking care of your home isn’t always easy. It can involve a lot of organizing and a lot of physical work. If you’re planning to stay in your home as you get older, how can you …

You could choose to add a new retractable awning to make your awnings lower-maintenance. Dear awnings: is it time for us to break up?  Those awnings have been your friend through many a hot summer day. If you’re not sure if your awnings need to be …

Add seating areas for celebrations and dinners with family and friends. It’s party time! Specifically, it’s backyard party time. If you’re new to backyard entertaining, you may have some questions, like, how can you move people from inside to out? How …

Create a gorgeous, weatherproof outdoor space with an awning.  The eyes might be the window to the soul, but your windows are the soul of your home. They draw your home together, and they’re a key design element that people notice when they look a …

Consider how all members of the family would like to use the garden. If you want to fall in love with your garden all over again, turn it into something more than a yard: create your own backyard paradise. What does this mean to you? A backyard paradis …

Plan your garden for all members of your family.  You want to have the kind of backyard that your guests ooh and aah about. More importantly, you want to feel that way when you walk into your garden as well. If you’re less-than-impressed by the ex …

Whether it involves entertaining or family time, create your vision of a backyard paradise. Everyone’s vision of a backyard paradise is different. For some, it’s a space that’s lively and full of people enjoying themselves in the garden. For others, it …

What’s your idea of a backyard paradise? Oh, bliss: you get home and sink into a chair in your backyard, where you can read a book, listen to the birds, and relax. Or perhaps your idea of bliss is the opposite: a party that involves dozens of your clos …