Bob and Kevin take a brief tour of the project before Bob goes off to meet Kent Forsland of Designer Doors Inc. to look at the new garage doors.

Here's another great tip from BobVila.com. Staging your home or creating a clean, well-presented space that draws positive attention can add 15 to 20 percent to the selling price. You can hire a professional stylist or do it yourself. Here are the basics. First, clear the junk. Ruthlessly trash clutter and pack away personal items like family photos and knickknacks. Rent a self-storage space for half your furniture. Empty closets and most of the kitchen cabinets and rearrange rooms to show more floor space. Re-paint areas that show wear and tear or where expressions of personal taste might be distracting, and make the obvious repairs like leaky faucets and cracked window panes. Extra storage space in sheds, attics, basements and garages is a very good selling point, so clear them out as well. Junk removal services can save a lot of backache and disposal hassles. Scrub everything, including the windows, and let in light and fresh air. open the drapes. If they re worn or outdated, take them down. Imagine you re taking photos for a magazine: Fluff the pillows, set the dining room table and never underestimate the power of fresh flowers. Don t forget the yard. Get rid of any piles of debris, re-seed the lawn, weed the garden and lose that old patio furniture. Who knows after all that, you might not want to move! Find out more at BobVila.com: The ultimate home improvement web site! BobVila.com 2008

Bob visits with John Druley of Quaker Homes in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Druley is developing a parcel of land in Falmouth that will have eight homes, two of them affordable for families earing a modest income. Bob and Druley discuss the reality of housing in Falmouth, where one-acre building lots are required for new housing. A lot, Druley explains, will sell for around $300,000 with no construction. For this development, Druley has invoked Massachusetts' Act 40B to gain relief from zoning restrictions such as the one-acre minimum lot size. In return, Druley must make 20 percent of the homes available as affordable homes, for those earning up to 80 percent of the area's median income. The lots are 10,000 sqaure feet with a 40-foot setback from the road, 10-foot sidelines, and a 45 to 50-foot backyard. The homes are 1,800-square-foot Capes with attached garages, clad in white cedar shingles, with skylights, architectural-style roof shingles, and no-maintenance, energy-efficient vinyl windows. Druley explains that the affordable and market-priced homes must be indistinguisable in design, materials, and layout. The state assigns a 40B auditor to monitor the project and assure that no corners are cut on the affordable homes, and that the developer earns no more than 20 percent profit from the development. Druley explains that the market-priced homes in the neighborhood will sell for between $375,000 and $400,000, which will help offset the $119,900 selling price for the affordable homes.

Back in the new basement family room, almost all of the new storage units have been installed. The units feature drawers, work surface, and space for a small refrigerator. The last touches are being put on as the shelves are put into place. These Slide-Lok units were originally designed for garages, but are perfectly suited for use in the basement family room. These cabinets are plywood-based and contain no particle board. Because this is an old house, the dip in the basement floor is visible. The storage units can accommodate uneven floors by using adjustable plastic legs.

Here's another great tip from BobVila.com. Commonly used as the family dumping ground, the garage is undergoing a revival as a functional workspace. Installing a garage storage system that frees up some of this space can have the same effect as adding a room and it s a good way to increase your home s value. First, group the bins and bulky items you need to store by their use and measure them so you know how much space you need for each group. Tall cabinets with double doors are great, but be sure they come with enough adjustable shelves to optimize the space inside. Include at least one lockable cabinet to keep dangerous chemicals out of reach of children and pets. Add some low cabinets on casters, creating a work surface on top. With some pegboard or a vinyl slat wall system for tools, you ve got the beginning of a home workshop. For easier cleaning and less clutter, keep things off the floor: store sports gear and yard tools on heavy-duty, wall-mounted hooks and racks. If you ve got a lot of ceiling height in your garage, use it. Try an overhead storage rack for seasonal items or as a bike lift. There are lots of garage storage options, but organization hinges on consistency: choose cabinets and racks of the same color and type. Look for systems made of metal, plastic or wood specifically treated for garage use. And remember that bigger is not always better. You need a system that will allow you to find your stuff and still leave room for the car. Find out more at BobVila.com: The ultimate home improvement web site! BobVila.com 2008

The garage doors are being replaced on the Norwell house. Although the project primarily involves adding an in-law suite to the home, homeowner Howard Brickman is replacing the original garage doors and installing two doors on the new garage. Bob talks with Brickman, who built this home 25 years ago on a fairly tight budget. Brickman estimated that construction costs probably ran about $50 per square foot, a figure that would not be possible today. The existing garage doors are fiberboard in a wood frame, with no insulating value. Bob talks with Robert Rainey of PJ Overhead Door about the installation of the new doors. All the hardware has been removed from old door so the sections can be taken out. The hardware is worn and the track is outdated so it will all be replaced with new hardware and operating mechanisms. The new door is a two-sided steel door with a 24-gauge exterior and a 27-gauge interior. The door features two inches of polyurethane insulation, which gives it an R-value of 13 �a vast improvement over the existing doors. The interior side of the door has an embossed wood-grain finish while the exterior has an embossed panel with a carriage-door design. This Amarr Classica 3000 door has the appearance of a wood door and the performance of factory-finished metal. A rubber gasket on the door will act as a seal to prevent air and water from entering the garage. The first panel is put in place and then the track is assembled.

Here s another great tip from BobVila.com. U.S. Gypsum developed a way to sandwich plaster between two paper faces and make wallboard as early as World War I, but the manpower shortage of World War II is what really made it catch on. Before drywall, builders nailed lengths of wood, called lath, to the studs and then applied several coats of plaster to that for a smooth finish. As many of us with old houses can attest, lath and plaster walls can last a long time but they re hard to deal with if you re having rewiring, insulation and plumbing needs. Drywall comes in various thicknesses. For interior walls, one-half-inch works fine but won t stand up to heavy abuse. Five-eighth-inch is required for fire hazard walls like garages and basement entries. Standard paper-faced drywall is grey and comes in 4x8 or 4x12 sheets, designed to make it easy to cover from stud to stud with minimal cutting. But even cutting is made easy. Most drywall scores and snaps with a simple utility knife. Holes can be cut by hand with a short keyhole saw or a small rotary tool. Special fiberglass-faced drywall was recently introduced to help prevent mold problems that can develop when traditional paper-faced drywall gets wet. This new product finishes just like paper-faced drywall with tape and joint compound. Behind tile, in bathrooms and in other wet areas, it s important to use cement board. This denser product is waterproof and faced with fiberglass mesh that won t degrade or mold when it gets wet. In the past, some builders used a product called green board in bathrooms, but time has shown that this product is not a good substitute for cement board. Find out more at BobVila.com: the ultimate home improvement web site! 2008 BobVila.com

Ernie Hutto from DAB Garage Doors explains that the garage door is the largest opening into any home. Hurricane winds can twist and shred a door, bringing wind force and pressure vacuums into the home and causing building failure. Hurricane Master doors are made of 24-gauge steel to make them more resistant to failure. DAB Hurricane Master doors are strengthened with their patented Interforce system that reinforces the top and bottom panels to prevent door twisting and blow-in. Denver Miller and his crew install the panels starting at the bottom. Reinforcing bars are integral to the design of these hurricane-resistant doors. The Interforce bars are added to the top and bottom panels to give more strength during high winds. The garage-door tracks are also reinforced with seven brackets, a flag bracket, and a 14-gauge steel track. This prevents the tracks from pulling, twisting, and blowing in during a hurricane. The garage door opener is also installed but, as Miller points out, it need not be heavy duty because the strength of the system relies on the torsion springs not the opener. An opener's job is simply to guide the door, not pull it.

Bob takes a look at a new Sears garage door opener — a 3/4 horsepower unit that's among the strongest on the market. The unit features a keypad that allows access if you need to get in the garage from the home's exterior without the remote control. To meet safety requirements, the opener has an electric eye that reverses the door's downward motion if it senses an object (or small child!) in the way.

New Wayne-Dalton Carriage Doors are installed in the garage. These Equestrian style doors are made of medium density fiberboard, with a Cedar overlay. Dave Colette from Doorworks talks Bob through the installation, which includes attaching the hardware, putting up the tracks, and securing the door panels.