Weekend Project: Overseed now for a lush lawn in spring

After dealing with insects, weeds, fungi, and the coming deluge of leaves, you're probably looking forward to a break from yard work. But there's another important project to do this fall if you haven't already. Called overseeding, this simple addition of grass seed to an established lawn will help your yard look its best next spring. Note that if you live in a northern state, hold off on overseeding until next year, but if you're in the Sun Belt, follow these steps:

Time it right. Before you overseed, remove leaves from the yard with a rake or leaf blower or mulch them with your mower or tractor.

Prepare the yard. Pros recommend a good dethatching and aeration during the fall, but if your lawn is in good shape, you can get away with a thorough raking. Give one last mow, with the blade set at a lower setting than you used in midsummer. It also helps to give bare spots individual attention with a hand rake before seeding.

Choose the right seed. Be sure to use the right type of grass for your region and the same type that's in your yard. Use plenty of seed—distributed evenly with a hand-held, drop, or other spreader—and work in some compost or topsoil, especially to bare spots. Refer to our "Guide to Common Lawn Grasses" to find the best grass for your area.

Feed for the winter months. You can add some starter fertilizer, though some experts advise waiting until the seed has sprouted to fertilize. Some fertilizers include preemergent weed killers. If you prefer to go the organic route, lay down corn gluten in the spring instead of a weed killer now. Corn gluten prevents seed from sprouting, so you can't do it while overseeding, but it can fend off crabgrass next year.

If you're using a drop spreader to lay down the seed or fertilizer, calibrate this equipment so you apply the proper amount.

Add the water. Water lightly but often, even in the middle of day if the sun isn't strong. A light spray to the overseeded areas is better than a straight stream to keep from disturbing the seed. And if leaves are falling, trying blowing gently over the grass, not toward it, to disperse them until the seed has sprouted. And try to stay off the lawn during this time.—Ed Perratore | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential information: Once you've done your last mow of the season, put your mower to bed for the season.

10 Questions for . . . Fernando Pagés Ruiz, Contractor

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . . , Senior Editor Daniel DiClerico speaks with Fernando Pagés Ruiz, contractor and author of Affordable Remodel: How to Get Custom Results on Any Budget. Here, Ruiz talks about the upside of the economic downturn, details common remodeling pitfalls, and offers tips for slashing winter heating bills.

How has the credit crunch impacted the remodeling industry?
We had been in a kind of remodeling frenzy. People could justify the expense of remodeling with the rising value of their homes and the fact that it was relatively easy to get money through a second mortgage. Now that justification is over.

Even in good times, the best returns on remodeling investments were only around 90 percent, according to Remodeling magazine's annual "Cost vs. Value" reports. How many mutual funds do you know that advertise to customers that they'll get back 90 cents on every dollar invested? So remodeling was never an investment, and it more obviously isn't now. The motivation for remodeling should simply be that you plan to live in the house and you're spending money to make it how you want it.

Should home sellers be more motivated to make improvements?
If you're selling your house, the idea of getting it into the best selling shape makes tremendous sense, given the intense competition out there. Again, you won't necessarily get the dollars back, but you'll be able to move your house, whereas the neighbor who hasn't done any updating or maintenance may not.

Can homeowners negotiate lower costs on their projects?
It's a time to find good deals because many contractors who were used to doing a job for 40 to 60 percent over cost will now do it for 20 percent over cost. But depending on the contractor, negotiating can be a good or a bad strategy. You may end up with half a project if the contractor is in distress and looking for some cash flow and agrees to do the job for half the price of what he knows it will take. Chances are he won't be able to finish that job. So it is also a time to be careful.

So how do you protect yourself against the project-half-finished outcome?
In remodeling, the advantage always goes to the one with the most information. That's usually the contractor. And contractors know more than they let on. The only way to balance that is to become educated. I tell people it should take six to nine months to develop a plan and get to know the products. By the time you talk to your contractor, you should be able to tell if he knows his stuff or not. And you should definitely know more about your project than he does. You should be a very smart consumer by that point.

What other mistakes do homeowners make?
Starting the work all over the house. This is usually a guy thing, the do-it-yourselfer who starts jumping around doing this and doing that until he finally runs out steam and the house is a mess. You need to start with an overall plan, even if you're going to complete the work in stages. With the plan in place, you can segregate the house into sections and proceed from start and finish in an organized, logical manner.

Can you offer any rules of thumb for determining when a project goes from a DIY-friendly one to pro-required job?
Anything that has to do with safety. If you need to put in new gas lines, for example, it's a good idea to call in a plumber.

Manufacturers have made some projects easier, like tiling a laminate floor or installing a ceiling fan. But leave the skilled work to the professionals, like trim carpentry. If you want your cabinets installed correctly, there are a bunch of things a trim carpenter will know that you won't.

Video Report: DirectBuy

Are buying clubs like DirectBuy a good deal? Our new video (right) details the experiences one of our reporters had at sales presentations for the nationwide buying club.

Although some readers commenting on our earlier story on DirectBuy have noted that the club’s prices are competitive, the video includes an interview with one DirectBuy member who found consistently lower prices elsewhere.

If you’d like to share your own experiences at buying clubs with other readers or discuss the pros and cons of these clubs, visit our forum for home shopping.—Gian Trotta

Essential Information: You can save money on cabinets, appliances, and other big-ticket items without committing to a buying club. And, remember, another way to save on appliances is to take advantage of the rebates and tax credits and tax holidays from local utilities and state governments.

Inside Consumer Reports Test Labs: Kitchen-cabinet organizers

“Top drawer” took on a new meaning when Bob Karpel (in the video right), a Tech/Appliance Program Leader for Consumer Reports, and his team put a wide array of pullout drawers, refuse/recycling containers, and rotating lazy Susans through a series of grueling tests as part of our August 2008 report on kitchen-cabinet organizers. At prices ranging from $20 to $220, these add-ons can be a cost-effective upgrade to kitchen cabinets.

Here’s how we tested the gear:

Ease of Installation
One of the heavily weighted factors in our Ratings is ease of installation. Each of the 28 organizers we tested was installed in a typical kitchen cabinet. Those models with clear instructions and modest tool requirements (typically a screwdriver, ruler, and cordless drill) earned higher marks.

In general, bottom-mounting slide-out drawers and refuse/recycling containers were easy to install, but those with side-mounting rails proved difficult as a one-person job. Three of the refuse/recycling containers mounted directly to a cabinet door, which entailed the extra step of shimming out the side-mounted rails with wood blocks.

With the lazy Susans, centering and leveling the center posts and fitting all the needed large parts into a restricted cabinet also proved difficult. Note that if you have stone or composite counters, you’ll need to add a spacing block inside the cabinet to attach the lazy Susan’s top spindle mount.

Pulling-Force and Spinning Usability Testing
Bob added weight to each drawer component, then measured the force needed to pull it open. An alarming surprise: After durability testing, the stop mechanism on one low-priced unit worked only when its front section was heavily weighted; otherwise it just slid free of the rails.

Bob loaded each lazy Susan with some common kitchen items and turned each unit a set number of times to test for smoothness, stability, and sagging. Considering the installation also, the least-expensive model was best overall. And one model had a nice feature: an internal spindle with special grooved threads to allow quick shelf-height adjustments.

Durability Testing
Bob’s “pièce de résistance” for this project was a “durability rig” (right) that used a pair of electric motors and a couple of crank arms to pull the drawer components in and out thousands of times; it also rotated the lazy Susans back and forth. Bob felt this setup would simulate five to 10 years of use, depending on a family’s size and lifestyle. The testing machine was set to push each drawer unit against its stop.

Bamboo is growing in the home

Consumer Reports has tested bamboo towels, bamboo flooring, and even bamboo plates, many touting the claimed green aspects of these products. And last week we saw all kinds of bamboo offerings at the 2008 Kitchen/Bath Industry Show, including Rio Grande Imports' Zoom bamboo bath sink, Totally Bamboo's bamboo countertop panels for kitchens and baths, and Teragren's Studio bamboo flooring.

Learn about the latest green-themed bamboo products in the video (right) featuring Bob Markovich, Home editor of Consumer Reports.

A Porsche design speeds into the kitchen

It used to be that a man would buy a sports car to help him deal with his midlife crisis. But today’s man can bypass the Vette, Jag, or BMW for his garage and instead buy Porsche-designed cabinets for his kitchen when there is no substitute for coping with the tough times.

German kitchen-design company Poggenpohl has paired with Porsche Design Group on the P’7340 kitchen (shown). This line of custom cabinets, available in the U.S. next summer, features sleek, high-style components made of aluminum, glass, and wood and features a state-of-the-art audio-video system. Miele is to be the supplier of all fitted electric appliances in this modular kitchen.

The Poggenpohl-Porsche pairing is not the only competitor in the auto-inspired kitchen-style race. Italian company Snaidero offers two custom cabinet styles, Ola and Venus, which are designed by Pininfarina, the firm behind many famous Ferraris, including the F40 and the Testarossa.

(Consumer Reports has not tested any of the abovementioned cabinet lines.)

Whether or not these Euro options rev your engine, remember that no matter the style you choose, high-quality construction features are what keep cabinets looking good and working smoothly year after year.—Celia Kuperszmid Lehrman

Essential information: Watch this video to see how we test cabinets in our labs. If you’re considering a kitchen remodel, use our planning guide to help you make wise decisions throughout the project. And get an estimate of the cost of your new space with the RSMeans QuickCost Kitchen Remodeling Estimator. If you subscribe to ConsumerReports.org, you have access a custom version of the calculator.