Complete Photo Guide to Home Improvement: With 300 Projects - Hardcover

Best book I've found for home improvement as opposed to home repair. Covers all the important projects with detailed, simple to understand explanations and photos or drawings to make sure you understand how to do it! Highly recommended --Home Improvment A to Z

I bought this book just before purchasing my first home. It provided me with the information I needed to make successful improvements to my home. Within a week after purchasing my house, I was installing new flooring, toilets, sinks, faucets, electrical outlets and switches, and light fixtures. These are things that I had NEVER done, but was able to do successfully with the help of this book. If you do get this book, I also strongly recommend the Black & Decker Complete Guide to Home Repair as a companion. There is some overlap between the two books, but there are important pieces that are exclusive to each. Best wishes with your project! --An Engineer

The B&D Home Improvement book is the core of my home improvement library. I reviewed other home improvement books at Home Depot, but liked B&D's books. I also own the B&D Home Repair and B&D Bathrooms books. The three books use many of the same pictures, but I do not regret buying any of them. I prefer this book over the others because the projects it covers are things I would like to do, like remodeling a bathroom, etc. In addition, the book covers making things from "scratch" which is how many projects are once you finish the demolition phase. In comparison, the home repair book focuses on repairs rather than new projects. As an engineer, I consider myself "above average" in home repair. However, this book has saved me a few times, when I got lost, such as helping me to understand a three way electric switch circuit for my kitchen light. The cut away diagrams are very useful; especially for the plumbing sections. They literally cut things in half, to show you the inside view, whether it be a garbage disposal or a shower stall. Black & Decker used significant resources in making this book because in a way it is an advertisement for B&D tools. The book conveniently displays and uses Black & Decker tools in the pictures. Bear in mind that Black & Decker is in the business of selling tools, not books. However, that being said the book is still a great reference. --M Young

This is the best home improvement manual I've been able to find. I recently embarked on a journey to convert a kitchen pantry into a half bath. Although I'm fairly handy with tools, I've never done a significant house project before. After starting in on the destruction of the pantry (ripping down plaster) my neighbor loaned me this book to poke through. Eventually I picked it up and the more I read, the more I found relevant to my project. Eventually I found myself hovered over this book prior to doing just about anything short of driving a nail (I may have even looked that up!) Let me say that everything involved in installing a bathroom is in this book - framing for the new walls, installing drywall, taping and finishing drywall, installing DWV pipes, installing plumbing supply lines, installing the electricity, installing ceramic tile floor, installing the sink, everything, and more. The first 100 pages or so are dedicated to the high-level subjects (carpentry, plumbing, wiring, etc) and even include some general building code information. Unfortunately, my neighbor came to reclaim the book, and after looking for a book of similar substance, I have circled back to this one. Today I'm buying this book with the Complete Photo Guide to Outdoor Home Improvement (I've been asked to build a brick patio next.) As a former Army helicopter mechanic, I used to feel as though with a chopper manual and the right tools I could fix anything. Seriously, this book makes me feel the same way about home improvement projects. I can't think of anything you could do to the interior of a home that's not in this book. Want to rip down an interior wall to open up living space? In here. How about a glass block partition around your shower stall? Yep. Skylights? A bay window --A customer

I bought this book just before purchasing my first home. It provided me with the information I needed to make successful improvements to my home. Within a week after purchasing my house, I was installing new flooring, toilets, sinks, faucets, electrical outlets and switches, and light fixtures. These are things that I had NEVER done, but was able to do successfully with the help of this book. If you do get this book, I also strongly recommend the Black & Decker Complete Guide to Home Repair as a companion. There is some overlap between the two books, but there are important pieces that are exclusive to each. Best wishes with your project! --An Engineer

The latest edition of this home improvement reference provides all-new chapters on kitchen and bathroom planning, as well as a focus on new building materials.