Adding This Much Extra Square Footage Returns More Money at Resale Than Any Other Single Home Upgrade Available Right Now, Appraiser Data Shows

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an empty room with a desk, computer, and stairs

Finishing roughly 1,000 square feet of basement space recoups about 71 cents on every dollar spent, the best resale return of any project that actually adds livable square footage to a house, according to the National Association of Realtors’ 2025 Remodeling Impact Report, produced jointly with the National Association of the Remodeling Industry. Compare that … Read more

One Specific Extension Cord Mistake Is Behind Thousands of House Fires Every Single Fall, Fire Officials Say, and It’s Probably Sitting in Your Garage Right Now

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a white and red electronic device

  Roughly 3,300 home fires start in extension cords every year, killing about 50 people and injuring another 270, according to data from the Electrical Safety Foundation International (ESFI). Fire officials say the season is starting right now, as cooler weather sends space heaters, string lights, and inflatable decorations out of the garage and into … Read more

Carbon Monoxide Detectors Quietly Expire After Just Five to Seven Years of Use, and Most Homeowners Have Absolutely No Idea That Theirs Already Has

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Home smoke and fire alarm detector man installing, maintenance, checking, testing or replacing battery

  More than half of all carbon monoxide deaths in the United States happen in just four months, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which found that November, December, January, and February account for the majority of the roughly 250 CO fatalities recorded in 2019, the most recent peak year in its data. That’s … Read more

The Vaccination Rate Among Kindergarteners Nationwide Has Dropped for the Fifth Straight Year in a Row, CDC Data Shows, and the Gap Is Widening Fastest in These States

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girl getting vaccine

National kindergarten vaccination coverage has now fallen for five school years in a row, according to the CDC’s own SchoolVaxView surveillance data, dropping from a pre-pandemic peak of 95% in the 2019-2020 school year to roughly 92% for core childhood vaccines in the most recent reporting period. At the same time, the share of kindergartners … Read more

A Refrigerator Only Has About This Many Good Years Left in It Before Repair Costs Start Outpacing a Full Replacement, Appliance Industry Data Shows

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A kitchen with white cabinets and stainless steel appliances

Ten years. That’s the age most appliance-industry guidance points to as the line where fixing your refrigerator stops being the obvious choice and replacing it starts making more financial sense. The benchmark shows up across the industry as what’s often called the 50/10 rule: replace once a repair quote runs past 50% of a comparable … Read more

One Single Category of Nursery Product Sends More Babies to the Emergency Room Than Any Other, CPSC’s Own Injury Data Shows Pretty Clearly

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Adorable child sitting in an armchair, playing with a doll and toys in a warmly lit room.

An estimated 14,200 children under age 5 were treated in U.S. emergency departments in a single year for injuries linked to high chairs, more than any other category of nursery product tracked by the federal government. That’s according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s own Nursery Products Annual Report, which pulls its numbers from the … Read more

Removing a Popcorn Ceiling Without Testing for Asbestos First Could Turn Into an Illegal $10,000 Mistake, and Most Weekend DIYers Skip That Step Entirely

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Roughly 12 million homes across the U.S. still have some version of the textured “popcorn” ceiling that was standard in new construction from the 1950s through the late 1970s, and a meaningful share of those ceilings were sprayed or patched with a material that, until federal regulators stepped in, routinely contained asbestos. Scraping one off … Read more

There’s a Narrow Window Left on the Calendar to Plant Fall Spinach and Lettuce, USDA Zone Charts Show, and Waiting Even One More Week Can Cost You the Whole Harvest

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green plant on brown soil

Forty-five days. That’s the low end of how long spinach needs to go from seed to a harvestable leaf, and once you add in the slower growth and shorter daylight of autumn, you’re closer to two full months before a fall crop is ready to cut. If you haven’t gotten seed in the ground yet, … Read more

The ‘Quiet Luxury’ Home Look Is Already Fading Out of Style, Designers Say, and Here’s the Very Different Aesthetic That’s Taking Its Place in 2026

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a living room filled with furniture and a fire place

Thirty-nine percent of interior designers now name maximalism as the style their clients request most, up from 34% just two years ago, according to 1stDibs’ 2026 Interior Design Trend survey of 468 design professionals. Eclecticism isn’t far behind at 38%. For years, quiet luxury dominated home design the same way it dominated closets: neutral palettes, … Read more

Most Toddlers Who Are Technically Still Small Enough to Ride Rear-Facing Get Flipped Forward Anyway, NHTSA’s Own Data Shows, and It’s a Real Safety Gap

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Interior of a car featuring a child safety seat and illuminated dashboard, captured at night.

NHTSA’s own guidance is unambiguous: keep a child rear-facing “as long as possible,” until they hit the top height or weight limit stamped on the car seat itself, not a birthday. Most convertible seats now allow rear-facing well past a child’s second birthday, some up to 40 or 50 pounds. Yet government field data and … Read more