Like many of you, our staff at Fine Homebuilding is hunkered down in our homes, riding out this serious pandemic. But we will not just limp along over these coming weeks, we will double our efforts to provide you the design, building, and remodeling information you have come to trust and appreciate from Fine Homebuilding. Call it a distraction, a release, or just making the best of a tough situation by crossing some things off our home maintenance and improvement to-do lists, but I think it’s time to turn off the nonstop national news coverage and turn on the lights in our workshops. Now, in times of hardship, is when it’s most important to pour ourselves into passionate pursuits and encourage others to do the same.

Here’s what we’ve got in the works:

— We are curating large collections of our best and most popular member-only content and making each collection free of charge. Expect to see special focuses on maintenance, repair, and projects around the house, among others.

— We are planning to record extra episodes of the Fine Homebuilding Podcast and will release them as quickly as possible. Help us by sending your building questions to [email protected]. We are setting up a free series of live homebuilding Q&A sessions, with times to be announced, so you can discuss your current and upcoming projects and get personalized guidance from our staff and contributing authors.

— We are producing a free series of webinars on a wide variety of topics, ranging from home repair to high-performance building.

— You can help too by sharing your own inspirational stories, photos of your work, and tips for making everything we all do just a little bit better and more beautiful. You can email us your stories so we can share them, post them on your own social media accounts, or comment on this Facebook post.

— We are also asking that our audience consider donating unopened respirators and respirator cartridges to local healthcare facilities, providing much needed protection to as many nurses and doctors as possible.

Hopefully these efforts will provide some comfort, focus, and semblance of routine, and remind us all that the bonds of this craft are unbreakable.

Happy building,

Justin Fink

Editorial Director, Fine Homebuilding

Fine Homebuilding Recommended Products

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Handy Heat Gun

This heat gun is great for drying joint compound, primer and paint when patching drywall and plaster walls. Plus it can soften adhesive, get a very cold small engine to start, and shrink heat-shrink tubing.

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8067 All-Weather Flashing Tape

Available in 2- to 12-in. widths, this is a good general-purpose flashing tape that sticks well to most things. It features a two-piece release paper, water-shedding layers, and good UV resistance.

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Affordable IR Camera

This camera is super useful for tracking down air leaks in buildings. The one-hand pistol grip arrangement frees your other hand for steadying yourself while maneuvering tricky job sites.

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