Whatever you need. Done.

Your mom works hard all year long, mostly so you don’t have to. In preparation for Mother’s Day, here are some projects that you can take over… so that she doesn’t have to.

Your mom doesn’t want to hang her own pictures. She’s had the frames for years, and they’ve been sitting up against a shelf in her closet. Maybe it’s because she’s not tall enough; maybe because she’s never been handy with a level. So get mom’s pictures affixed to the wall, even if it means you’ll have to see your embarrassing high school class picture more often.

Your mom doesn’t feel like touching up those hedges. After all, you treated her to a Mother’s Day manicure already, and the last thing Mom wants to do is wreck them gardening. She’s always loved how her perfectly uniform Japanese yew makes her yard look like a secret garden, so get that errant growth trimmed.

Your mom doesn’t want to clean her fully stained area rug. She’s long cursed her preference for unreasonably white floor covering. Every dirty shoe that’s ever crossed this carpet has left its mark. Save Mom the time on her hands and knees by having a professional take care of the job.

Your mom doesn’t really want to clean her own toilet. To be honest, she doesn’t really want to clean anything. Be kind and make that a reality for her. And put the toilet seat down while you’re at it.

Tax season usually falls somewhere between hurricane season and leaf-raking season in terms of pleasant times of the calendar year. But it’s not all bad news: According to the IRS, the average American family receives a tax refund for a little more than $3,000.

So what’s the thing that needs the money more than you do? Your home. Here are a few ways to make your $3,000 refund work to your — and your home’s — benefit:

Replace your windows. The cold air you felt in your living room this winter wasn’t a fluke — you’ve got drafty windows, and it’s time to get them replaced. Your average standard-size window replacement runs about $300 per installed window. Depending on the number of windows you replace, this project will take up most, if not all, of your tax return. However, you’ll see the return on investment not only in the saleability of your home, but also in monthly energy savings.

Paint. For both your interior and exterior, paint can make a big difference for a modest price tag. Spring’s mild temperatures are great for exterior paint projects, and the newly warmed weather make indoor painting easier to ventilate through open windows. The size of your home will dictate how expensive this project is, but budget between $1,500 and $3,000 for full painting and priming. A fresh coat on the inside and outside of your home not only boosts your curb appeal exponentially, but the return on investment for painting closes in on 75% to 100% of what you paid for it.

Landscape. If you’re looking to sell your house, think curb appeal. Judgments are made with the first and the last look at the house, so your lawn had better be in top shape. The projects can vary (a decorative retaining wall, for example, will likely cost you more than $1,000) but expect to spend all of your refund on materials and labor — maybe more if you want to hire a landscape designer. Bonus: When this project is finished, you’ll want to spend more time in the great outdoors.

Get a new water heater. Treat yourself to a hot shower every morning. A tankless water heater can cut your water-heating energy by nearly half — something that could ensure that it pays for itself in a matter of just a few tax seasons. Tankless heaters come at a much higher price than standard water heaters — frequently more than $1,000 — and their installations will take an even bigger chunk out of your refund. Think of this one as a long-term investment in the efficiency of your home.

No one likes sticker shock, even if it pertains to essential home services. If you’ve never hired a plumber, you don’t know if your job rightfully commands $100 or $1000.

What you want: price transparency. What we want: for you to be as informed as possible. And the answer to these wants and needs? The new Redbeacon Price Estimator.

Here’s how it works: Say you need a cleaning service. In the Price Estimator, you can select a common type of household job for your metro area, and from there, you can specify the size and type of job you’ll request. This way, you’ll know exactly what the high, low, and median prices are for a cleaning service for the square footage of your space.

After you know a bit more about the price range, it’s easy to request a service from a Redbeacon. The information you learn from the Price Estimator will give you the power to judge the fairness of price quotes you’ll get from our pros.

We’re happy to extract the shock from sticker shock.

At the risk of sounding trite, it was our first rodeo.

Every so often, we’re given an opportunity that’s too good to pass up. For us, that opportunity was in the form of sponsorship at the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) Iron Cowboy event in Cowboys Stadium in Dallas. We got starry-eyed over the opportunity to have the Redbeacon logo on one of the largest TV screens in the world.

And it did not disappoint. On a 160-foot screen, we’re guessing it neared 100 feet in length. Everything really IS bigger in Texas!

We even had the special privilege of having pro bull rider Justin Koon sign autographs at the Redbeacon booth. He gamely signed some Redbeacon swag for us to tote back to the office.

Overall, we left Texas thrilled by the fine people we met and with a profound appreciation for the art of the 8-second bull ride. In return, we gave the Dallas area an in-person introduction to Redbeacon under the bright lights of Cowboys Stadium.

So keep your cowboy boots polished, Texas. We’ll be back again.

What’s good for the small-business owner is good for the consumer
By Aaron Lee, cofounder, Redbeacon

Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about the problems of promotion on user-review sites. These sites have come under heavy fire, so I’ve been reassessing what sets Redbeacon’s review process apart — in a beneficial way — from other sites in the local space. There are two parts to the criticism of user-review sites: first, that these sites are increasingly difficult for small businesses to support, and second, that the reviews can be manipulated.

Let’s start with the small businesses. Sure, the cost of advertising on a review site is prohibitive, but that’s not really the problem. Particularly for the small-business owner, paying hard-earned dollars for advertising on a site where they don’t get to control any of the messaging is alienating to say the least. A completed Redbeacon profile is free SEO for that pro, but unlike other local review sites, our pros build the messaging for their profiles. At Redbeacon, we want to support the small business owners who are our lifeblood — without the independent handyman or the plumber, there would be no Redbeacon.

The Redbeacon business model is this: You can’t buy CPM or CPC advertising to promote your business on Redbeacon. The payments that we take from our pros are entirely pay-for-performance; they only pay us if they win and complete a job or visit onsite when they have to give an estimate. In this way, everything we do is to make our service wholly pro-friendly, and no amount of advertising dollars can artificially boost one pro over another in our system. We don’t sell advertising, and we don’t promote individual pros based on any amount of money they pay for their Redbeacon commissions.

The reviews on our site, however, are as honest and as transparent as they come — we want our consumers to be as educated as possible to the strengths and experiences of each pro who works with us. Redbeacon reviews are never bought, and they can only be submitted by consumers who have used that particular pro’s service for a job. The reviews are the one thing a pro cannot control in his or her Redbeacon profile, which not only encourages each pro to finish a job that earns a good review, but it also ensures to our customer that no five-star Redbeacon review has been purchased.

You can’t hide from a bad review on Redbeacon, nor should you be able to. The Redbeacon model takes the best of review sites and the functionality of a small-business owner’s own personal website — all to give our consumers the best possible experience. And I think we accomplish this better than our comrades in the local space.

Redbeacon’s got a new Valentine this year — in fact, we’ve got two! Their names? Dallas and Austin. Starting today, we’re launching Redbeacon’s services in these fine Texas towns, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to be reintroducing the Lone Star state to our passion for bringing home-services professionals and consumers together, as our friends in Houston can already tell you.

And what perfect timing! Now we’re just in the nick of time for you to get your home cleaned for your sweetheart. (Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a clean house!) You’ll seem so thoughtful if, after weeks of neglect, you’ve gotten the lawn cleaned up and the pesky to-do list for your home projects finished.

So, Dallas and Austin: Be ours? XOXO, Redbeacon

2011 was an amazing year at Redbeacon. We expanded into 9 new markets including: New York, Los Angeles and Chicago and experienced huge growth. We also expanded our team significantly and brought on our CEO Anthony Rodio.

As we continue to make strides towards our vision of changing the way consumers find and book home services, we are happy to announce that today Redbeacon has been acquired by The Home Depot. In our opinion, The Home Depot is the perfect place for Redbeacon to achieve our vision even faster. Redbeacon and The Home Depot share many of the same core values around forward thinking, entrepreneurial spirit, excellent customer service, commitment to quality, and empowering pros and homeowners. We could not be happier to become part of The Home Depot family and to grow our team together. We want to assure all of our current users and service providers that our service will continue and will only get better!

We could not be where we are today without our amazing service providers and users, their trust in our service, and constant feedback, so thank you! Also, none of this would have been possible without Yaron, Aaron and Anthony, our stellar board Raj, Brian, Ben, Rajeev & Dev, our lawyer Ted, and most of all, our amazing, hard working and talented team.

We are excited about working with The Home Depot and continuing to improve the way consumers find and book home services together.

How does your house stack up to your neighbors’? Most of us spend our time keeping up with the Joneses, but maybe it’s time to one-up the Joneses once and for all.

Here at Redbeacon, we got to thinking about how to make your home more efficient, more attractive, more up-to-date. With this in mind, we created an infographic that illustrates some ways that you can improve your home and some statistics on what your neighbors might be doing to enhance their homes as well. (You can also check out a portion of our research on Apartment Therapy.)

This year, the Joneses will be keeping up with you.

It’s not the same as pledging to lose weight or to stop chewing your fingernails, but your home has resolutions, too! Here are a few ways to get 2012 off to a productive start:

1) Stay inside. You shouldn’t have to stop improving your home just because it’s cold outside. Because inclement weather can make external improvements difficult, focus your efforts internally. Good projects for the wintertime include electrical work, tiling projects, or appliance replacement. Limit projects that require painting — those frigid temps outside will make it hard to open windows to ventilate fumes.

2) Plan ahead. Major renovations in the favorable-weather months can be plotted and supplies can be purchased off-season when they might be less expensive. Taking your kitchen or bathroom out of commission can be a major disruption to your family’s daily routine, so the more you can get ahead of the inconvenience, the more prepared your household will be.

3) Consider the investment. With the housing market (hopefully) on the upswing, each project you complete on your home can increase its value on the market. An overhaul of your landscaping has the ability to have a 100% return on investment, as it boosts your curb appeal if your house is on the market. If you’re planning on staying in your home, a new roof can be a 25-plus-year commitment to your home’s health.

The holiday season sneaks up on all of us. We feel it, too: One minute you’re enjoying the crunch of fall leaves under your feet, and in the blink of an eye, you’re spraying de-icer on your windshield and fighting the crowds at your local mall.

We all ask ourselves how we’ll find the time to get it all finished. But hasty fixes around the house — particularly at the holidays — can mean unnecessary household injury. The right professionals can help you stay safe in your home.

Nearly half of all injuries during the holiday season are as a result of falling while putting up those colorful bulbs. Keep that in mind when you trundle up the ladder to take them down as well — a fall from one of your eaves is certain to send you to the ER.

There’s nothing like the fresh-pine smell of a real Christmas tree, but be warned: That Douglas fir will get very dry and will be susceptible to catching fire, if there are any candles, radiators, or long-illuminated lights nearby.

The only way you’re going to enjoy chestnuts roasting on an open fire is if you keep your hearth and chimney in good working order. In order to make sure you won’t end up with smoke in your home or structural chimney damage, you should plan to have your chimney inspected and cleaned annually. And as tempting as it is to toss wrapping paper into the hearth, resist the urge: The decorative elements in the paper cause it to burn quickly and could spark a flash fire.

We can help you make sure that your holiday memories include more smiles and fewer lingering home projects: the broken banister, the leaking rain gutter, the mud-colored walking path on your carpet.

Because spending time with your family is what the holidays are really for.