Lou Manfredini's House Smarts

Rating:
Summary: Great overview
Review: After we bought our first home, I bought a whole bunch of books so I could tackle various projects. There are books from Readers Digest, Home Depot and Black&Decker and others on my shelf now. They are all wonderful, but I wish I had bought this book first. You'll find a great introduction of the various parts and workings of your home, and how to best use and maintain them. This book helps you decide which project makes sense and which one to do first. Then when it comes to do the work, you may need a more detailed book specific to your project, or perhaps you decide to hire a contractor. Either way, this is a great book to start, and each time I am thinking about a project I turn to this book first.

One word of caution: There is another book available from the same author ("Mr. Fixit introduces you to your home") that appears to be identical to this one, at least judging from the table of contents. So if you already own one, you may not need the other. I bought this one, since it was published more recently.