Give new life to your old carpet

Is your white carpet gray? Plain carpeting looks like it's patterned? Well, all is not lost and you may not have to replace it just yet.

Try some of these fixes for common spots and stains and see if you can't get another year out of your old carpet.

I know it might seem like nothing could be worse than your current stains, but a bleached-out spot will look just as bad as a dark stain. Test all cleaners on a part of the carpet that is hidden, like in a closet or behind your sofa, before working on a stain in the middle of your floor.

There are some rules that work with most stains, too. Remove every bit of liquid and solids that you can as soon as possible. Blot, don't scrub the stain. Work from the outside of the stain toward the middle. Use the milder cleaners first.

Mild dishwashing liquid and warm water works well on lots of stains and is a good first choice.

Add a little household vinegar to this mixture to see if this doesn't help remove the stain.

Or try adding a little hydrogen peroxide from the drugstore to the soapy water for some extra cleaning power.

Club soda is another good choice for cleaning, and it's very inexpensive. It works well on organic stains like blood or many foods.

Grease can be partially contained by covering it with an absorbent like baking soda, salt or cornmeal. Let it sit on top of the stain overnight or longer. Then vacuum it up. Once the bulk of the grease is removed, you can try other cleaners.

Pet stains are particularly hard to get rid of. Even if you get the stain out, the pet smell left behind can cause pets to return to the same area and repeat their boo-boo. Enzymatic cleaners, available at your pet stores, are the best way to remedy this.

Carpet-cleaning machines are a pretty handy tool to use too, if you have one, or you can borrow or rent one.

Good luck, and buy a throw rug if all else fails!

It's a wrap

When you are painting, you want to get at least one full coat of paint on one wall before starting another one. This eliminates visible brush or roller marks. This also is the best time to take a break, for a snack or for the day. The easiest way to get things put away for the day is to place your brushes into the paint tray and cover the whole thing with a sealable plastic wrap all the way around the edges. If you have an extra-large baggie, you even can use that. If sealed properly, then it will be easy and quick to get started again after your break.

'Pack rats'

I've been labeled a “pack rat” for a long time. I take it as a compliment because you never know when you are going to need something you've saved, right? Well, saving building materials can be a little challenging because they're mostly in your garage and you still need to have room for your cars. Storage on the walls and off the floor is the best idea. For example, you can store long, thin materials like trim and pipe horizontally on a couple of hooks and some chains. Place two hooks, a few feet apart horizontally, to hold lengths of chains. The ends of the chains are placed on the hooks and then the other ends are looped around the pipe or trim and placed on the hooks to hold it in place. It's easy to take out what you need or add more when you have it.

Super hints

• If an appliance is making a strange noise, record it with your smartphone and play it back for the repairman. This is a great way to help him get a jump-start on your repairs.

• I live in an area that has hard water (water that has a lot of minerals in it). These minerals probably have some advantages, but they also can build up in appliances and cause problems. Vinegar is the easiest-to-find and least-expensive thing you can use to dissolve these minerals, so I keep a gallon on hand almost all the time. I can pour a gallon into my washing machine or dishwasher when it's empty, and run it through a short cycle to clean the inside of deposits. I also pour a half gallon into my toilet tank and let it work for a while to clean up the tank. Try it yourself and see what I'm talking about.

• You know how dishwashing soap can lubricate your ring off your finger. Well, it also can help reduce the friction of a toilet-bowl clog. Squeeze some soap into the clogged toilet and see if this loosens things up.

Q. I have a few nail heads that show on my standard drywall walls in my office. I was told that the builder used nails and that I should replace these with screws. Do I remove the nails first and replace them with screws, or do I need to do something else?

A. The best way to do this is to install screws on either side of the “popped” nail, about an inch away, and into the wall studs. These new screws need to be set in just a tiny bit lower than the surface of the wall. Then you can pull out the nail. Cover the whole area with a smooth, flat layer of drywall compound. Let it dry, sand it smooth and paint it to match the rest of the wall.

Q. I have a question about my front hallway flooring. It's vinyl flooring, and it is starting to peel up in the corners. How can I glue it back down into place?

A. Sometimes you can reactivate the adhesive by heating up the flooring with something like a hair dryer and then putting some weight on top of the floor so it sits flat until the glue has set up. If you need to put on new adhesive, just check your hardware store or home center for vinyl floor adhesive and spread it evenly on the back of the flooring, then press the floor back down and apply weight to it. Leave the weight in place overnight.

Q. I need to know how to get the dog-urine smell out of my garage floor. We let our dog out there to go through the doggy door and into the yard, but he was going in the garage on the concrete floor for a while before we figured this out. Now it smells really bad. How can we get this smell out of the concrete?

A. Saturate the stain with vinegar and then cover it completely with clay cat litter, and let it sit like that for a couple of days until it has all been absorbed. Sweep it away. Hopefully that will take care of it. If not, spray some enzymatic cleaner, available at your pet store, on the surface, wetting it completely.

Reader tips

• There's a neat trick I learned not too long ago. If you have a roll of tape that seems stiff and old, and just won't work anymore, try sticking it into the microwave for about 30 seconds to see if this doesn't soften it back up. It works on most tapes about half the time, and is a heck of a lot easier than driving to the hardware store when you don't have a trip planned.

• I use the cardboard cores from toilet tissue to keep my iron cords all in one place. To make it look better and last longer, I just covered the tube with a small piece of decorative duct tape. These also are great for doing the same thing with other appliance cords that you have to store.

• When I am doing some minor repair work around my house, I don't usually drag out the full tool belt. I usually just stuff hardware in my pockets. I have discovered a little trick, though. I have a plastic liner that I stick in my pocket before putting the nails or screws in. It's just a plastic hand soap container with the top half cut off. It's about the same size as my pocket, but it makes it easier to grab the hardware when I stick my hand down into it.

• I never knew how easy it was to magnetize something until my brother showed me a neat trick. We were working on a project at my house, and I complained about not having a magnetized screwdriver, so he fixed that for me. He just moved a magnet in one direction several times along the screwdriver shaft. Then it was magnetized! It was so easy. I've done this to several of my bits now and can't wait to use them on my next project.

• I always try to seal up air leaks around my house as soon as I find them. The hardest part can be figuring out exactly where the drafts are coming from. I usually grab a stick of incense, light it and hold it in the area where I feel a slight draft. The smoke will show me exactly where I need to caulk or add weatherstripping. Plus, it makes the house smell nice.

Shoptalk

• FatMax Snips are great for the DIY'er. A good set of snips can cut through wire, leather, metal, plastic and lots of other shop materials and FatMax has 19 to choose from in their line. Blade etchings make cutting more precise and a spring-loaded latch helps with one-handed operation. The specially designed blades are made to last a long time and keep their edge. Check them out at your hardware store or home center and for more information you can go to www.stanleytools.com.

• We found a paint brush that is both a great brush to use and a great brush to clean. The Chinex Brush has specially designed bristles that rinse clean very quickly and almost completely. It works as well with oil-based paints as it does with water-based paints. To find out more, go to www.purdy.com or your paint dealer. It's definitely worth trying!

• Write to Kelly Carrell in care of the Daily Herald, P.O. Box 280, Arlington Heights, IL 60006 or visit online at thesuperhandyman.com.

© 2015, Cowles Syndicate Inc.