Feel free to take a look at refurber.com and give me your first overall impressions, thanks much!

Looks really nice, easy to navigate.  I'll be back......

Did you see GoDaddy have already registered refurbr.com in order to cash in on mispelt urls? Dodgey...

Love the avatars.

The AdSense banner above the calls to action might be a bit of a distraction.

That's what Adblock is for

Shifting the banner underneath the calls to action would still allow for prominence without making the user look for the signup / login. A typical user tends to look top right and then left nav for these or vice versa before either giving up or beginning to look around.

The Vote Now button is a little confusing as well in that on the landing page it is not clear what you would be voting for. Once you are looking at a piece of advice it makes sense to vote.

I haven't dug into it yet - still first impressions - but I'm assuming you need to be logged in to vote, in which case it would be worth explaining that you need to be logged in, when someone clicks on the Vote Now button. Otherwise you're sent to a page that shows no obvious relation to voting. Don't worry I can see it, but an average user may not. I actually meant to mention this in the Minti group as well, but forgot.

No icons on the signup page. That was one of the first things as an average user that I really liked, but they went away...

Love the paper behind the tag cloud, but due to the nature of a tag cloud, the writing doesnt relate to the lines. Perhaps the paper could be used beneath the latest activity instead, and then you could take advantage of a baseline grid.

Rachel need a safety helmet

The groups look really good, and would really draw me in as a user. Maybe these could be made more visible on the fornt of the site. As a DIY guy looking for advice, the thing that would really draw my attention on a landing page would be a group of like-minded users talking about common issues.

Seed content for some of the key groups... Although I understand what a crappy job this is.

The photos drop below the fold on the photos page due to a large random photo. I didn't immediately realise they were there. When I did, I was impressed. There seems to be some good seed contant there. Perhaps the random photo could be contained in order to bring the rest of the photos up a little.

Love the tabs on the photos, and the members etc.

I have to say that I thought (at first) that the ad banner was in a odd space. The good thing is that you just ignore it then, when you scroll down.

The bad news is that I think it takes away from the 'calls to action'. (I sure hope I'm using these terms right)

And because I saw the ads, I immediately skimmed down, so missing the vital 'First visit' link as well

I also agree with Richard abt the 'Vote now' button.

What am I voting for? why should I vote?

Awesome site. I really like it. There are a few pages that are still a little plain and have no icons yet, but apart from that thumbs up. This is one I would probably even use - not because I consider myself a DIYer as such, but more because I don't and could use the advice...

I'm with the devil on this banner ad placement.  It really says "I'm in beta, but I want to earn some money NOW."  The page is lopsided this way.  The sites title is in the sidebar (top)... the banner ad is bigger than the title of the page.  This gives me the distinct feeling that there is a hidden agenda to this site. 

great guys thanks will take this all in and make sure the team see this :0)

@richard - i think we own refurbr.com and a heap of other misspelled domains... just havent redirected them yet.

well picked up though!

did you actually misspell it or were you testing?

gotta say i hate banners too... i got out voted on that issue this time round

I actually found that by accident. I'd love to say I'm that thorough, but that's why I'm a big fan of having users test a site - they make user mistakes

lol - they certainly do!

have asked the guys to check all our domains are redirecting - thanks

The red buttonson the front page aren't smooth.

Yeah, more smoothness on the red buttons!!!

I love red buttons!

I mean who doesn't?

I eat red buttons for breakfast.

No more red buttons for ya!