Wake The Lakes Life Hack for the Week:  “Home Improvement Hacks You’ll Wish You Knew Sooner”

–Don’t throw out your old work gloves. Cut the fingers off and you’ll find lots of uses for them. Use them to protect the tips of chisels when you need to carry them. They’re also good for softening the grip of pliers and many other applications.

–Make a Squeegee From a Rake.  Need a squeegee in a hurry? Take a piece of pipe insulation and use a couple cable ties to fasten it to the back of a garden rake. Works like a charm, and you don’t even have to take it off to use the rake.

–Old Sneakers as Ladder Bumpers.  You could buy special rubber bumpers for the tops of your ladders to protect your siding or walls, but why? A pair of old sneakers and a little duct tape will do the job just fine.

–Double Up on Stubborn Nails.  Nails can be a pain to remove, especially trim nails with small heads and any nail when the head breaks off. The trick is to use two tools together: locking pliers to grab the nail shank, and a pry bar to do the pulling.

– Garage Floor Dam. Garage floors are puddle prone: springtime floods, melting ice from tires, you name it. You can keep that water away from your tools and toys with a dam made of expanding foam. It sticks, it’s waterproof, and you can walk or drive over it without damaging it. And come summer, it’ll scrape right off.

–Gentle-Grip Pliers.  Here’s an oldie with a twist. Use pieces of garden hose or other tubing to soften the jaws of slip-joint or other pliers so you can grip plated surfaces without damage. The twist? Size them so you can slide them up the handles to keep them handy.

–Oil Change Trough.  Make changing the oil in your lawnmower, snow blower and outdoor machines less messy with this handy hint: Cut off a piece of an empty cereal box and fold it into a trough. Then tip the machine and use the cereal box trough to guide the oil into the waste pan. The glossy coating on the cereal box keeps the oil from soaking through.