What's on your to-do list these days?  Does it include one or more projects around the house that you might be able to hire a professional to do for you instead?

I've already told you about my recent carpet cleaning experience (...where I wish we would have called a professional to clean the carpets for us instead of spending 2 days doing it ourselves!).

We learned a valuable lesson there.  In addition to paying to rent the carpet cleaner machine (and the carpet cleaning solution), three of us ended up spending 2 days moving furniture, setting up fans, and maneuvering the bulky carpet cleaner throughout the rooms of our house in order to get our carpets clean. In the end, we lost a lot of valuable time.  And we were all very sore!

Now, here are some other do-it-yourself projects that are usually best when left to the professionals.  Plus, great tips for deciding whether you should pay a professional or do the job yourself.

So here it is 2 years later from the first time our dishwasher backed up and I was forced to do a major de-gunking in order to get it running back up to speed.

That was then, this is now...

Today, when I glanced at that basket in the back of our dishwasher, I noticed lots of "black gunk" had built up underneath the basket itself.

There was so much blackness in there, that you could actually tell from a distance that there was some serious build-up going on in there. No water backing up this time, just lots of slimey black gunk.

Here's what I did. (Much the same as last time, with 2 new steps...)

This is all you need to repair a leaking toilet... if the leak is due to a bad seal on the flapper.

Ours was.

You'll recall that we had 2 toilets that were leaking profusely, even though we thought they were only small leaks at first. To give you some idea... our monthly water bill nearly quadrupled during this time!

Here's how we fixed our leaky toilets...

Looks like we're having minor toilet troubles... again!

Our house (and everything in it) is only 5 years old. We have 3 toilets, and I've already been through the "changing of the toilet seat" routine with them all.

Now, 2 of them have been constantly dripping water in the toilet tank.

Here's what I've learned...

Try these...

• Users Manual Guide -- Odds are, you can find virtually any user manual here.
• User Manual Search -- Here you can download manuals and find old, out-of-print assembly guides.
• Repair Manual Catalog Online -- Repair manuals for outdoor equipment (like lawn & garden), cars, boats, motorcycles, etc.

Ever wonder what those black lines are along the edges of your carpet -- at the baseboards and under doorways?

Jim and I are definitely do-it-yourselfers. In our six (plus 1) years of marriage, we have never once called a repairman to our home whenever something broke or stopped working.

Around the house, if something goes wrong, Jim usually has enough handyman skills in him to get us out of practically any jam.

And with my research skills, I'm usually able to point him in the right direction anytime he's unsure about something. I guess we're a pretty good team.

But last week, Jim was out of town -- for a total of 10 days.

Just my luck... on Day 1 the dishwasher decided to quit working!

The water would not drain from the bottom of the dishwasher. The entire tub was FILLED with water... all the way up to the point where the door opens. Ugh!

Believe it or not I managed to fix it myself.

Here's what I did...