Is your winter skirt bunching up around your knees? Are your pants sticking to your tights? If so, it’s not unusual this time of year. When the air is dry, static cling is everywhere. We found a few ideas that may help relieve the cling.
• Try lotion on your legs. After a shower or bath, apply lotion to your legs, front and back. Or apply lotion directly to your pantyhose and tights.
• Secure a small safety pin to your slip or to the lining of your skirt.
• Try vinegar as a fabric softener in the rinse cycle.
• Consider an aerosol hair spray. Spray directly on your pantyhose, tights or socks.
• A dryer sheet may help. Rub directly on your clothing.
• Static Guard. It’s easy to use. Spray directly on your skirts, pants or dress. It usually lasts all day.

Moisture levels cause sticky doors

Q: During much of last winter, my front door stuck badly after being fine for four years. And other doors in the house stick at different times throughout the year. What would be the cause?

A: Your doors are expanding and contracting. This condition is typical, and is a result of the level of moisture in the air. When the air is damp, the doors tend to expand and may rub in several locations. When the weather is hot and dry, the doors shrink. Another cause for this condition is house shifting caused by changes in the level of moisture in the soil.
There are two major precautions you can take to prevent this problem from occurring. First, paint or seal the door on all six sides. That is, when painting the front and backside of a door, don’t forget to hit the top, bottom, hinge side and latch side. This will protect all exposed surfaces of the door. Second, the crawl space below the house should be ventilated to keep the soil dry. You should also make sure the soil surrounding the foundation is sloped so water runs away from the house. And don’t over-water your lawn or landscaping. All of these precautions will help minimize the house from shifting and, in turn, help prevent your doors from sticking.

Do-it-yourself wall repair

Patchwork quilts might be nice, but patched-up holes or dents on walls aren’t quite as visually appealing.
To make the repaired areas match the rest of the surface, you have a couple of options at your fingertips.
The two most common wall textures are orange peel and knockdown. Orange-peel walls look like what their name implies — the bumpy surface of an orange peel. Knockdown walls look like a sea of flat-topped mountain plateaus.
If you have either of these two textures, there are aerosol sprays you can use for spot touch-ups, says Mike Yasukochi, the district manager for Sherwin-Williams in Fresno, Calif. They’re ideal for repair work, he says, “if there’s a hole in the wall or water damage and you have to cut out the drywall” to fix it.
“It’s a very quick process,” he says. Just hold the can a distance from the wall and spray over the area you want to texture. The can should say how many inches away you should be spraying. Let it dry before painting over the area.
There’s an extra step to creating the knockdown texture. After the spray dries for about 20 minutes, go back over the area with a trowel or drywall knife to give it the flat finish, says Cathy Hudson, manager of paints, windows and walls at Lowe’s in Fresno.
The texture sprays, which come in fine, medium or heavy patterns, cost about $9-$10 for 10-ounce cans.
Before you apply the texture spray, test your texturing skills first, Yasukochi says. “Take an extra piece of drywall or cardboard and practice on it before you do the final area,” he says.
If the area you want to texture is large, you’ll have to buy or rent a drywall texture gun and hopper. Many units also require an air compressor to run. Texture solutions are available in premixed containers or powder forms that need to be mixed with water. “But those are for big jobs,” Hudson says.