Home Improvement Tips

Adding square footage to a Portsmouth home is the kind of project where the price varies more than almost anything else in residential remodeling. The same 400-square-foot addition can cost $80,000 or $180,000 depending on whether it’s a sunroom or a conditioned bedroom suite, single-story or second-story, on a slab or a full basement. This […]

Mulching is one of those landscaping tasks that looks simple from the outside and gets complicated quickly. The wrong type of mulch in southern Ohio’s clay soil and humid summers actually causes more problems than it solves — root rot, fungus, fiber-board crusts that shed water instead of holding it. This guide covers the practical

Hiring a general contractor in Portsmouth is one of those decisions where the cost of getting it wrong is enormous. A bad pick on a $40,000 kitchen turns into a $60,000 fix-the-fix two years later. A good pick gets the job done on schedule, on budget, and with no callbacks. This guide walks through what

Picking the right deck material in Ohio is a different problem than picking one in Arizona or Florida. Our climate has all four seasons, freeze-thaw cycles, summer humidity in the 70s, and storms that drop branches. The deck that holds up best in Phoenix is not the deck that holds up best in Portsmouth. This

Pressure washing in Portsmouth gets asked about every spring, and most homeowners are surprised by how the price actually breaks down. The biggest variable isn’t square footage — it’s the surface and how dirty it is. This guide covers what pressure washing costs in Portsmouth, OH in 2026 by surface type, what drives the price

Siding is one of those parts of a house most homeowners ignore until they cannot. The question we hear most on inspections in Scioto County is the same: do I need to replace, or can I get a few more years out of this? The honest answer depends on the material and what’s behind it.

The family had been in the house for 14 years. Two parents, three kids — two in high school, one in middle school — a dog, and a tight floor plan that had stopped working about four years in. They’d been browsing real estate listings for a year. Every time they got close to making

The yard was 1.2 acres on a corner lot in Wheelersburg, just off Galena Pike. The house was a clean 1990s ranch — well-kept, well-loved — but the yard had been on autopilot for almost a decade. Patchy lawn under the maples, leggy boxwoods that had outgrown their bed, a concrete walkway with chipped edges,

The kitchen was the original 1962 build. Pine cabinets the previous owner had painted white in the early 2000s. A 30-inch electric range, sealed-burner stovetop, no hood. Vinyl flooring that had been laid over the original sheet linoleum, which had been laid over the original tongue-and-groove pine subfloor. The homeowners — a family in their

Siding does not wear out gradually. It looks fine for years, then a single bad winter — or one undetected leak behind a piece of trim — pushes it over the edge. By the time the homeowner calls us, the rot behind the siding usually predates the visible damage by several seasons. This guide covers