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Here s another great tip from BobVila.com. While it s a job many of us would love to ignore, gutter cleaning is an important twice-a-year ritual all homeowners need to adopt. When clogged gutters overflow, they can cause ice dams on the roof that force water inside your house. They can also get so heavy that they ll pull the gutters loose and rot the trim and siding. Even if your gutter doesn t fill to overflowing each season, leaving any decaying debris in there is an invitation to carpenter ants and mosquitoes. If you have a lot of trees around your house, you might want to clean your gutters even more frequently. There are lots of ways to do the cleaning. You can find inventions like tongs on an extension pole, shop vacuums with gutter nozzles or even a remote-controlled gutter-running robot. But most methods eventually involve getting on a ladder. If you have gutters above the first story or aren t comfortable on a ladder, you re better off hiring a pro. To clean your gutters yourself, wear gloves, a dust mask and safety goggles. Make sure your ladder is well-footed at all times and use a ladder stabilizer, or stand-off, to keep from denting and damaging your gutters. Scoop the debris into a garbage bag with a garden trowel, then rinse toward the downspout with a high-pressure nozzle on your hose and scrub it clean. Try to avoid spattering the siding in the process. Next, clear the downspouts with a hose or auger. Installing leaf strainers at the drain tops will cut down on the large clogs. When it rains, check for leaks and mark them with a china marker so you can patch holes or correct pitch problems when it s dry. There s debate about whether gutter caps or screens are worth the investment of up to $7 a running foot. Because nothing keeps all debris out, you still have to have your gutter cleaned every couple of years at least, and screens and caps make it much more difficult and expensive to do it. Find out more at BobVila.com: the ultimate home improvement web site! 2008 BobVila.com

It's time for the finish coat on the new plaster walls. Gary Annino explains how the plasterer creates a gauge of slaked lime and water. The gauge acts like a swimming pool into which water is poured and plaster is sprinkled and left to sit. After about ten minutes, the reaction is complete and the gauge is ready to be mixed into a lime plaster. This lime-plaster finish coat will be applied in a thin coat then polished up with a final application until it shines like marble. During this last pass and polish with a trowel, the plasterer keeps a spray bottle handy, constantly spraying the plaster so the trowel will glide over the surface and polish it smooth. Overall, the finish coat is about 1/8 inch thick. Bob then looks at the ceiling where wire lath is used to repair the holes and allow them to rebuild the plaster. The entire ceiling will receive a skim coat of lime plaster when the rough coats are done.

Doug Frueh of West Coast Drywall is in the bedroom applying a textured finish to the fiberglass-faced walls. He is using Magnum, a dry mix that is blended with water to the desired consistency then sprayed on the wall with an airless sprayer. The effect is a splattered, built-up texture that is allowed to sit for a couple of minutes before being knocked down with a plastic wedge trowel that evens out the surface but maintains the texture. This technique is fast and low moisture, making it a perfect finish for Florida construction. Frueh says he can complete a house in just a couple of hours.

Don Humphrey is spraying a cement and polymer mix from Innovative Concrete Technology called Texture-Krete 2000 onto the pool edge and deck in Punta Gorda, Florida. He moves in a circular motion to splat the cement mix onto the deck. As the gloss begins to leave the spots, a crewmember follows behind to knock it down with a trowel. This removes the pointy tops but leaves a 1/16-inch stucco pattern to the pool deck to make it easy to walk on. The deck is cleaned and scratched to remove any rough points before Humphrey and his crew apply an acrylic paint to the textured deck surface. The key to a well-sealed surface is to roll the paint firmly into all the nooks and dips in the surface. Bob talks about the embedded deck drain set in the concrete that is pitched slightly away from the pool. Excess water and dirty deck water drains away from the pool and is carried off to the sides of the pool deck by the deck drain. Humphrey applies two coats of paint and a topcoat for protection. The deck can be maintained with gentle soap-and-water washing to prevent any white spots from drying chlorine on the painted surface. Humphrey says the paint should last three to five years before it is redone. One key to maintaining the surface is to avoid abrasive cleaners or power washing. Should any mold or mildew attack the surface, Humphrey suggests using a mild bleach-and-water solution to kill the mold. The oyster color the homeowners have selected should wear well and stay cool in the hot Florida sun. Editor�s Note: The deck surface product with cooling properties used in this application was not Kool Deck from Mortex.

Rob Shedrofsky from Davinci Stone explains the tiling process to Bob as the Porcelanosa wall tile is installed in the bathroom. A glazed clay tile is being used on the wall, while the floor will be done in a porcelain tile that is super strong and only �� inch thick. The wall tile is a Subway design, replicating the look of the New York Subway on a larger format. Shedrofsky explains how the datum line is used to create a tile layout that is centered from top to bottom and side to side for a pleasing look. The tiles are applied to the wall with an petroleum-based mastic and a ��-inch notch trowel. The mastic is less expensive than thinset, sets up quicky, and prevents sagging or dipping tiles. The tiles have an ��-inch joint that is held by spacers for 24 hours while the job cures. After 24 hours, the spacers are removed and an unsanded white grout is applied to blend the seams into the tile and give a sleek, urban appearance.

Birger Juell visits the home to supervise instalation of this unique floor. Use 3/8 or 1/2 inch thickness of wood. Type of wood is user preference but it should be as dry as possible. The wood tiles can be just about any size or shape as long as they are not too large or warping will occur. The grout for the cobblewood flooring is composed of sawdust from the wood mixed with a fast-drying oil-based sealer in a ratio of 2 parts sawdust to 1 part sealer add any stain to grout to your liking.Insure you have a standard sub-floor. First glue floor down, use regular tile mastic as an adhesive. rubber based instead of Water based is best. Let set for two days... Then grout, Pour the grout on the floor push it into the cracks using a rubber trowel or your hands. Trowel in the grout. Squeegee off the excess. Steel wool the face of the wood tiles to remove any remaining excess grout that could dry to the top of the bricks. Let it sit over night and then apply another coat of oil-based sealer the next day. Let set for one day. Then do final coat of varnish, stain etc. Maintain like any wood floor. Oil it every 2 years using wood floor oil. Varnish once a year. Buff once a month.

Chris Borovka from US Gypsum joins Bob explain about patching with plaster. The first job entails patching over an existing door opening. They've put some Imperial Gypsum base up to the existing door frame and patched the existing hole with diamond veneer base coat. Next they put pressure sensitive fiber tape, P-Tape, over it and bonded the entire existing surface. The use USG Plaster Bonder Pink as a bonding agent - it rewettens and re-emulsifies - and put the base coat of plaster over that. Where the wall meets the ceiling, they apply pressure-sensitive tape to the existing surface and butt it in while applying the first coat of base coat. The first coat provides a nice even scratch coat. The second coat should be applied while the first coat is still fully wet and serves to take out some the bad dips and dives and the trowel marks from the first coat leaving a nice smooth finish. The next day you they'll put the finish coat over it. Where the insulators drilled holes into the original walls, the plasters put the Plaster Bonder Pink around the inside of the hole and fill it in with the base coat. They've meshed over the top of that for extra security and then bonded over the whole surface. On the blue board, it's a different type of installation. Shreve applies one-coat over the joints to reinforce them and fill in the undulation that's left from the two end tapes from the butt joints. That sets up for about an hour and then it's ready for finish coat.