Expert Advice for your Lawn & Garden TV Host of Today's Homeowner^® and home expert for The Weather Channel

For a quick and easy way to paint clay pots give them a spin! Before you begin, you’ll need to cut a wooden disk with a hole saw. Place a carriage bolt in a drill (one with a speed adjustment knob works best) and attach the wooden disk on top of the bolt.

If you have a sizable paint job around your home you may consider buying your paint in a 5-gallon bucket. There are definitely advantages of doing this: you won’t have so many individual cans to carry around and it’s more economical. The problem is that it is harder to mix the paint when it’s in a large container. Many homeowners will attempt to use a mechanical mixer but end up with more paint on their clothes and on the floor than anywhere else.

Disposing of unwanted paint can be difficult because paint is considered a hazardous waste in its liquid form (it can leech into ground water if dumped in a landfill in this form.) Here’s a tip for drying out paint to simplify disposal.

If you just finished your caulking job and there’s product still left in the tube, there’s a quick way to cap off the cartridge. A long nail or screw makes a nifty stopper for the open tube.

Here are two ways to put that scrap window screen or hardware cloth to work for you the next time you get ready to paint. Bend a piece of hardware cloth (1/4″ or 1/2″ will work) into a “U” shape that fits into the bottom of a coffee can.

Refinishing old furniture can be very rewarding, but it can also be quite a mess. Here are a few tips to simplify the task. To remove chemical stripper and finish without gouging the wood use a plastic putty knife with rounded edges or an old plastic kitchen spatula.

Cleaning brushes is one of the most dreaded aspects of painting, but you can simplify the process. Here are a couple of ideas. Drill holes through the handles of the brushes and support them over the cleaning container with a straight piece of coat hanger wire.

Applying stain to woodworking projects can be a messy job but this solution should help. Pour the stain into a plant spray bottle (about a dollar at most home centers) after it has been thoroughly stirred. Now you can apply the stain with a squeeze of the spray bottle trigger and simply rub it in with a rag.

Painting around windows has to be one of the most frustrating chores known to man. How do you paint the wood without painting the glass? The answer is, you don’t. You simply find an efficient way to clean the glass off afterward.

Very often painting or refinishing furniture takes huge amounts of time because you have to wait for one side of a piece to dry before you can turn it to work on another.