Jeff Somers is a freelancer who has been writing about writing, books, personal finance, and home maintenance since 2012. When not writing, Jeff spends his free time fixing up his old house. He has ...

Kelly has over 10 years of experience writing about home design and improvement for many prominent publications. She also spent several years working at a tech startup for an interior design game ...

Dear Jim: We use our wood-burning fireplace for heat. It has not been cleaned out for years and we noticed bad spots on the outdoor chimney brick. What maintenance steps can we do ourselves? -- ...