Have a great time begging for candy, candy, candy! From all of us in the Shakadoo family, we hope your Halloween is scary and fun!

Image: Failblog

I installed a kitchen faucet this weekend- I was proud of myself! Thanks, Home Depot for the instructions! Now, can installing a toilet be far behind? I’m turning into some kinda plumber, I tell you.

Now, here’s a story you’ll want to read about James Krenov, a master woodworker who got started making toys with a jackknife when he was just 6 years old. Something that strikes me time and time again is how much we are limiting our kids by being overprotective. If you give your kid a jackknife to play with nowadays, look out for CPS!

Enough of my soapbox, though, go read the inspiring article.

Photo Credit: SFgate.com

This clip from This Old House is fascinating- a converted firehouse. Very awesome.

Today’s home improvement tip comes from…The Daily Kos? No, really. If you’re having a problem with thieves stealing your yard signs, here’s an ingenious way to stop them.

Ever wonder how your septic system worked and what it looks like underneath the grass? Wonder no more:

"I had another one of those dreams," my uncle said to me last Sunday. He keeps dreaming that he and my mom and my (now deceased) grandma are rehabbing a house and none of them can make a decision about anything. All they do is fight. The worst part, my uncle says, is that HE owns the house, so he should have final say, but for some reason, he doesn’t.

Anybody that has done a major remodel or rehabbing ends up having these sorts of nightmares. Sometimes they’re useful- my mom once dreamt that a certain section of a countertop fell off in her lap. She checked it and it wasn’t properly attached. Sometimes they’re just random flotsam, like the one I sometimes have where we don’t have enough flooring to finish our floor, and no more of the flooring exists, so we either have to tear up the entire floor and put down something new, or leave it as it is.

Sometimes they reflect our fears and sometimes they reflect our wishes, like the one where my grandma comes back from the dead to give me the house of my dreams- as long as I repair it. But all the repairs are cosmetic. Score.

What kinds of construction dreams do you have?