Lawn & Garden Archives | House and Hammer

Finders, fixers.

how to make a tire swing - genny tries out the tire swing and approves

How to make a tire swing: Stay-at-home summer, part 3

Playgrounds officially re-opened this week, but ours was a little crowded and crazy for our liking, so we’re still spending a lot more time in our yard. After installing monkey bars and a DIY rock climbing wall in the backyard, we turned our attention to the Norway maple tree out front — and thought about…

DIY rock climbing wall: Stay-at-home summer, part 2

Our daughter’s always been a climber. She scales fences, trees, door frames —anything— and she loves going to the climbing gym. Since that probably won’t be happening during the stay-at-home summer of 2020, I decided it was finally time to build a DIY rock climbing wall for her in the backyard. As with our backyard…

backyard monkey bars installed under deck

Backyard monkey bars: Stay-at-home summer, part 1

Greetings from quarantine! Hoo boy. Crazy times, eh? I hope you and yours are keeping safe and keeping your distance (although it’s still nice to holler hellos at your neighbors from the porch). When the weather turns nice like this after being cooped up all winter, we’re usually at the playground every day after school,…

The simplest, cheapest, and prettiest way to save on home energy bills

From huge tax credits on solar panels to big rebates on efficient heating equipment and other appliances, there are a lot of financial incentives out there to encourage home improvements that save you both energy and money. This is especially true in Massachusetts, where Mass Save programs sweeten the deal even further; I recently wrote a guide for…

Electric lawn mower vs. gas mower: Don’t fear the cord

When we first bought our house, we had no idea what we were doing. We were overwhelmed — not just by the house, but by the yard as well. While I’d grown up mowing the lawn every weekend at my parents’ house, it had been decades since I’d had a yard to deal with. And this one…

3 house projects for a dry spring weekend

Happy Memorial Day weekend! It sure is a gorgeous start to summer in Boston: warm, sunny — and really, really dry. The National Weather Service warned of an “elevated fire weather risk” extending through Sunday because of the extremely dry conditions we’ve been having. Here are three spring projects you could tackle around the house…