Five Friends. Five Trades. One Website.
Most websites about home improvement advice are written by people who have never plastered a wall, fitted a radiator or spent three hours on their knees trying to work out why a door will not hang straight. Home Improvements Info is different — and the reason it is different starts with a school reunion in Leeds eighteen years ago.
Five old friends. A table in the corner. Several drinks that probably should not have been ordered. And somewhere between catching up on the last twenty years and putting the world to rights, the conversation turned to work — and the realisation that between the five of them they had something genuinely useful to offer. Not a business. Not a service. Just knowledge. Decades of it, earned the hard way, across five completely different trades.
By the end of the evening the idea for Home Improvements Info had been scribbled on a beer mat. A few months later the website went live. Eighteen years on it is still going — still written by the same five people, still rooted in the same idea that honest, practical advice from people who actually know what they are talking about is rarer than it should be and worth more than most homeowners realise.
Meet the Team
Stuart — Joinery & Woodwork
Stuart has been working with wood since he was sixteen years old and has never once seriously considered doing anything else. Time-served and quietly proud of it, he has spent eighteen years building everything from fitted kitchens and bespoke staircases to handmade furniture that ends up being passed down through families.
He is the kind of tradesman who can look at a piece of timber and tell you exactly what it wants to be — and the kind of writer who can explain joinery to a complete beginner without making them feel like one. Stuart covers everything from fitting doors, skirting boards and architrave to building furniture from scratch, along with all the advice that saves homeowners from making expensive mistakes with cheap materials.
Amanda — Painting & Decorating
Amanda has been transforming rooms for over fifteen years and has developed the kind of eye for colour, finish and preparation that only comes from having painted several thousand walls. She is meticulous, has strong opinions about primer and takes a very dim view of people who skip the undercoat.
On the site Amanda covers painting and decorating from start to finish — surface preparation, colour selection, wallpapering, specialist finishes and all the trade tips that make the difference between a finish that looks genuinely professional and one that very much does not. If you want to know how the professionals get such clean lines, Amanda is your person.
Mike — Building & Natural Materials
Mike is a time-served builder with a particular passion for natural materials — stone, slate, lime mortar and anything else that has been pulled from the ground rather than manufactured in a factory. He has worked on everything from new builds and extensions to the careful restoration of period properties where getting the materials wrong would be a crime against the building.
Mike covers the structural and building side of home improvement — extensions, groundwork, masonry, roofing, natural stone landscaping and the kind of practical building knowledge that most homeowners never get access to unless they happen to know someone like Mike. Which, thanks to this website, they now do.
Sarah — Interior Design & Styling
Sarah is the one in the group who walks into a room and immediately sees what it could be rather than what it is. With a background in interior design she brings an eye for detail, proportion, colour and style that keeps the rest of the team honest when they are inclined to prioritise function over form — which, left to their own devices, they absolutely would.
On the site Sarah covers the interior design side of home improvement — room planning, styling, colour schemes, material choices, lighting and all the finishing touches that pull a project together into something that looks intentional rather than accidental. If your home improvement project is technically sound but somehow still does not look right, Sarah is the reason it eventually will.
Andy — Plumbing, Gas & Electrics
Andy is the most qualified person in the group and also, by some distance, the most safety conscious. Fully qualified across plumbing, gas installation and electrics, he has spent his career doing the work properly and has seen enough of what happens when it is done badly to take a rather firm view on the subject.
On the site Andy covers plumbing, heating, gas and electrical topics with a clear and consistent message running through all of it — here is what you can safely do yourself, here is what you absolutely cannot, and here is why that distinction matters. He explains it all clearly, without jargon and without talking down to people. He just draws the line firmly where the line needs to be drawn.
Why We Built This
Between the five of us we have a combined experience of well over seventy years across our respective trades. We have answered the same questions hundreds of times on jobs, at family gatherings, at neighbours’ front doors and in the pub. At some point it made more sense to write it all down in one place where anyone could find it.
There is no agenda here beyond that. No services to sell, no contractors to recommend for a fee, no affiliate deals that influence what we tell you. Just five people from Leeds who know their trades, enjoy sharing what they know and genuinely want homeowners to make better decisions about the places they live in.
We hope it helps.
Stuart, Amanda, Mike, Sarah and Andy