A rustic deck can be charming and quaint, but it’s an entirely different thing to have a deck that has simple gotten old. On older homes, decks can often go ignored for too long and what once would have been simple repairs to fix it up become laborious and expensive.

So if your deck needs to be restored, here are some things to keep in mind when trying to keep it looking good on a modest budget.

If the wood is starting to crack and splinter, just about any wood restoration product should do the trick. But before applying such a solution you’ll want to clean the deck with wood or deck cleaner. Be sure to pay attention to the directions all all cleaners; if they are not properly diluted, they can do much more harm than good. Once this step is done, you should be able to wash down your deck (using a power washer if you have one available, although a nice hit with a strong hose also works).

Let the deck sit for 4-7 days to dry properly, based on your current weather conditions. When you are confident the deck is dry, you can use your restore solution (Restore 10X, for example). Depending on the size of your deck, you can use wither a standard paint brush or a roller. Regardless of what you use, be sure to always spread the restore solution in one direction. Try to focus on one or two boards at a time rather than spreading it all around in order to ensure an even coating.

If the deck has seen a lot of wear and tear, chances are good that a second or even a third coat will be needed.  In most cases, the second coat should be enough but it all depends on the condition of the wood. Make sure the first coat is dry before applying the second coat for maximum results.

If you have children or pets, make sure they don’t step foot onto the deck until the second coat is dry.

There’s just no getting around it—your hardwood floors are going to get dings, scratches, gouges, and scrapes. This is especially true if you have children or pets. The good news is that certain scratches you get in your hardwood floor can be covered up and cleaned to the point where they basically disappear.

For lighter scratches

Always clean and scrub the floor before starting the process. Once the area in question has dried, you can use an acrylic or wax floor polish to cover the scratches. Be generous is the application, though; too much of this sort of remedy can eventually make your floors darker and acrylic is not easy to get off of your floor.

A simpler solution would be to coat your floor with one of the many products on the market that will renew the look of the wood. You can find several of these at any home repair store. If you make a point to use these solutions every few months, you will also find that it helps to prevent future scratches. Lastly, make sure your floor is not a wood laminate, as these solutions can damage it.

For deeper scratches

While deeper scratches are certainly more unsightly than a lighter scratch, these can easily be maintained, too. By filling your deep scratches in with stain, you don’t really remove the stain but it is next to impossible to see. The trick, of course, is finding a stain that is the exact color of your floor. When applying the stain, use a Q-tip or a very small brush.

You can also find special stain markers or pencils that can make this job a bit easier.

For gouges

These are those gouges that simply hurt to look at. While these can be a bit more difficult to repair, it can usually be knocked out by a precolored latex wood filler. Just like the stains mentioned above, be sure that the filler you select matches the shade of your floor. Spread the filler into the gouge with a putty knife and then make sure you give it enough time to dry. Next, use sandpaper (of the fine grit variety) to smooth it out. You may need to finish this job off by placing  abit of thinned varnish over the repaired gouge.

The garage can sometimes be the most neglected part of the house. But that doesn’t mean that it needs to go unnoticed when the garage floor starts to collect stains. Most people assume that cleaning stains from a garage floor is difficult and that’s why many of them go untended to.

But cleaning the garage floor is easier than you might think, no matter what type of stain you’re dealing with.

For oil and grease stains all it takes is mixing a cup of water with one ounce of trisodium phosphate and a cup of absorbent material. This creates a paste that you can then lather on the stain and leave until it dries. The paste draws the stain away from the concrete. Once the paste has dried completely, you can scrape it up. The stain will be gone and your floor will look as good as new. If the stain has been there for a while and has really set in, it could take three of four solid applications to fully remove it.

To remove paint stains you will also be using a paste that you can create with paont stripper and the absorbent material of your choice. Layer this paste over the paint stain and let it sit for half an hour or so. When removing paint this way, make sure the garage door is open and the area is ventilated, as the chemical in the stripper can often be harmful.

Not that if you use a low-impact, safer paint stripper, you may need to let the paste sit on the stain for two or three hours to get the full effect.

You can remove rust stains with a ¼ cup of muriatic acid mixed with two cups of water. The solution will dissolve the primary layer of stain. Just be sure to apply a thin layer, as too much acid can easily blemish your concrete.

No matter what sort of stain you’re cleaning, be sure to use the proper safety precautions.