Anyone who has built a home or taken on a hefty home improvement project can tell you that there are lots of measurements, calculations, and costs to keep track of. Even for seasoned DIYers, it can be overwhelming.

Enter the construction calculator. This handy device -- available in handheld units, iPhone apps, and web-based apps -- makes short work of the dizzying array of computations common to the construction industry. Figuring board/feet, fractions,slopes, and converting feet to inches or metric can be challenging on common or scientific calculators, but a construction calculator handles all of this with ease. It's built for the job.

So, you want to give your Valentine a gift that's original, adorable, and straight from the heart? Well, you have less than a week to do it (yes, V-Day is this Sunday). No worries, though: I have just the project to keep you in the good graces of your spouse, kids...well, just about anyone this February 14th.

Inspired by David Stark's blog, I'm excited to present this super-easy and totally doable craft that you can personalize to your heart's content: custom clocks!

Yep, you can make a clock out of virtually anything. All you really need is a simple clock kit -- which includes the hands and the movement (the case that houses the clock's mechanism). Check out the easy (and affordable!) project after the jump, complete with a tutorial and a few ideas to get you started.

YOU'LL NEED:
(1) Clock kit (I used this model from Amazon, which came with handy instructions and a few spare parts)
(1) Power drill
(1) 9/64" drill bit
(1) Item to drill the clock onto. Feel free to get creative here! Think of an object that represents something your Valentine is particularly fond of.

It's no mystery why stainless steel is one of the most popular finishes for the kitchen: it's chic and goes with everything. But if you own stainless appliances, you know the cold, hard truth: they're a chore to keep clean. Every time you wipe off a fingerprint, a new one seems to appear.

Here are a few tried-and-true techniques for eradicating smudges on your stainless -- and preventing those smears from showing up in the first place.

Guests arriving at 6pm. Quick! Get the main course in the oven and start on dessert. Grab all your baking equipment and -- oh darn it, those glass mixing bowls are stuck together again! Always when you're in a hurry, right?

Don't fret: there's an easy way to separate nesting bowls or stacked glasses that have become wedged together: drip a few drops of vegetable oil between the items in question and wiggle very gently. If they still won't budge, add a bit of warm water to mix things up. They should pop apart without a problem.

No luck? Here are some other suggestions worth trying:

Valentine's Day is right around the corner, and I know you clever DIYers just refuse to settle for run-of-the-mill chocolates or flowers for your loved ones. So this week's Links We Love is devoted solely to DIY Valentine's Day gifts. Make your gift as unique as your love!

Check out the "DIY Sweet Love Garden," a guest post for Mint by SucculentLOVE's Kelly. This adorable and slightly retro-style Valentine's gift is refreshingly free of candy and the color pink, don't you think? You'll need to choose some pretty rope, yarn or piping. Other required items: a hot glue gun, a cute container, some baby succulents and cactus soil. – Mint

This love heart pincushion is sure to delight fellow craftsters. It's handmade. It's adorable. It's practical. Do we really need any additional reasons to love this how-to? Downloadable pattern templates are included in the tutorial. You provide sewing skills, time, and cute fabric pieces. – Happy Together [via Craftzine

Now, guys: Before you feel left out by the domestic crafts in this post, take your cue from Eric Wilhem, president of Instructables. He proudly presents (on Popular Mechanics) his site's top 10 manmade (and I do mean man-made) Valentine's gifts. Make your love swoon with a duct tape rose, or break out your woodworking tools and craft a heart-shaped block of ice with a romantic message inside (pictured). This stellar selection dates from last year, but it's so funny it totally deserves a second look. – Popular Mechanics

If you start shivering when your indoor temperature hits 65 degrees, brace yourself; this news will be a shock to your system. According to the New York Times, some Americans are living without any heat at all -- and they're doing it by choice.

One of these people, Maine resident Daniel F., lives in a house with no thermostat, no heating system, no radiator, and no furnace. The house's average indoor temperature lingers around 52 degrees.

Daniel explains, "It all started in October '08 as just a few pals goading each other to see who could wait the longest to turn on their furnace." After the friends made it past Thanksgiving without heat, Daniel grew accustomed to the colder temperatures and decided to launch Cold House Journal, a blog in which he chronicles his controversial lifestyle. He notes, "It [the blog] was a way to focus my thoughts and maybe inspire a few others. Also, as long as I was posting things, my parents knew that I wasn't in a hypothermic coma."

Of course, you're probably wondering why anyone would choose to live in such conditions. Although Daniel would like to think that conserving energy, minimizing CO2 emissions, and saving money are enough to make his heat-free life worth considering, he personally sees his lifestyle choice as an experiment in answering the more basic questions of human happiness and adaptability.

The last time my sink clogged up, I tried muscle power and the force of a plunger to unclog the drain. When that failed, I switched to liquid drain cleaner, then graduated to crystal drain cleaner and finally moved up to a thick gel. Nothing helped. At all. Finally, I called the plumber to come over and snake it.

We all know, clogged drains are the pits. Why can't they just not clog, right? Well, a company called PF WaterWorks claims to have a drain that does just that: it NEVER clogs! The see-through self-cleaning drain is called PermaFlow. It costs only about $40 (less than I spent on the drain cleaner alone), and it's apparently it's a cinch to install yourself.

Here's how it works:

Have a staircase that would make for a great horror movie? If your steps are creaking, squeaking and screeching, it may be time to silence those suckers for good. Although quieting your stairs is more than just your average quick fix, it's much easier than it sounds -- and anything sounds better than those squeaks, right?!

Creaky steps are generally a problem for older homes, but newer staircases can also suffer a squeak or two if wood has dried and shrunk over time. The problem is usually caused by a loose tread rubbing against a riser (the tread is the horizontal part of the stair where your feet land; the riser is the vertical member of the stair). Squeaky stairs aren't as problematic as they sound. For the most part, they're just a major annoyance -- especially if you love to raid the fridge at midnight!

Here's how to silence those squeaky stairs and sleep soundly: