You know it’s there, but you rarely give it a thought-unless the temperature inside your house won’t stay at a comfortable level. We’re talking about the insulation in your home’s walls, attic, and beneath its floors. If there’s not enough insulation, it can be added to an existing home. However, the best time to make [...]

View The Garlinghouse DIY Deck Plans collection. This two-tiered, ground-level deck is made entirely out of ChoiceDek, a composite material created by mixing wood fibers (red cedar or some other type of softwood) with polyethylene, which comes from recycled consumer waste. Photo courtesy of ChoiceDek. Backyard decks are great because they offer level and stable platforms for [...]

by Bruce Arant, Editorial Director for The Garlinghouse Company I’ve lived in “Tornado Alley” all of my life. That being the case, wailing tornado sirens, along with the chirping of birds and the buzzing of bees, have become just another familiar sound of springtime (although, not quite as calming). At 2:30 am, on the night [...]

If you think your living room furniture takes a beating, imagine what your outdoor furniture goes through. The “elements,” as we call them, will really do a number on any unprepared thing left to their mercy. Outdoor furniture has to take this beating, remain useful, and still look good.   Creating Backyard Comfort As we [...]

Today we cook outside for fun more than ever. It is estimated that Americans will cook and consume three billion-that’s 3,000,000,000- meals outside this year on 80 million grills, at about 37.5 meals per grill each year. But like nearly everything else we do today, we tend to “supersize” things. So it won’t surprise you [...]