Category: home improvement

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New spice rack

I am so happy. I bought a lovely new spice rack for the kitchen. My old one was just not enough anymore to handle what I needed and wanted to store spices in. I needed a larger one to accommodate all of my spices. When you first start out, you don’t really know what you will need, but as time goes along your needs grow. I have out grown a great many things in my kitchen. The wall spice rack was just one of them.

I am slowly upgrading my kitchen, little by little. Its a good thing that kitchen spice racks are not very expensive with all of the remodeling I have been doing this year. I seem to be constantly shopping for the house lately. I don’t mind though because my house looks amazing now. I am so very proud of what I have done here and so are the kids. We are much happier now that we have started making this house a home that we can be proud of.

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So much to do

I really have so much to get done this week. I have to go to frugaldad.com home depot specials for coupons so I can go to home depot and pick up materials for the bathroom we are redoing downstairs. Plus my regular work, which I have gotten behind on. I have been keeping the kids entertained since school let out and a few things have fallen to the side because of it. I don’t remember my parents keeping us entertained during summer. We were never home. As soon as we opened our eyes in the morning we would hop out of bed, eat some breakfast and take off out the door. Today’s kids just aren’t like that.

Anyway, my first thing on the agenda is to go to use frugaldad.com home depot specials. The errands are going to take up half the day, but I want to get them out of the way this morning so I do not have to go back out later. Grocery shopping is the next thing on the agenda and that takes a good two hours, especially when I have to take the kids with me. It is hard to concentrate on what I need to buy with kids constantly asking for stuff while we are there. Never fear though, I will get through it.

I think I want a new faucet for that bathroom. frugaldad.com home depot specials has the coupons I need to buy the bathroom stuff. There is a little leak in the other one, so I am going to replace it and the basin as well. I am getting a pedestal basin with a water fall type faucet. It is the guest bathroom and I want it to look really nice for people when they visit my home. I have already replaced the toilet and painted the bathroom. I also put up a border in there that looks amazing.

Anyway, it is time to get the kids ready to go. They seem to be dragging this morning and not very awake. I think they stayed up too late watching TV in their rooms last night, but they wanted to finish watching the movie and I didn’t have the heart to turn it off on them. Oh well I am off.

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New decorations

I just bought some decorations for the outside of the house. They are these really neat things called rain chains. I can’t wait to see them in action. You attach them to the soffet of the house and when it rains the water runs down them either off the drain catch or into a bowl or bucket. It depends on the look you want for your house. The chains rain at my house in the back, runs down into a series of bowls like a water fall. It is going to be so pretty.

The rain chain in the front will run off down where the gutter drain used to be on both sides. It looks really neat just the way it is right now and I can imagine how it will look when it rains. I may have to sit on my front porch and just watch the rain for a while. Well, I know I will do that anyway. I love to watch the rain so long as it is not a bad storm or anything like that.

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Home energy auditors

The home energy audit I had done went very well. Apparently I have kept my house up good and keep on it well enough that not much is needed. Residential energy auditors help to keep your energy bills down by telling you where you are losing AC/Heat and things of that nature. They can really save you a ton of money.

I am seriously considering having a solar thermal system installation done on the house to try and save even more money. It really makes sense when you think about it. We use so much energy and pay out so much money to run a house with a normal to large size family. The electric bills are astronomical during the winter time as we try to heat this place. I think the expenditure will be worth it in the end. It will have paid for itself within the first two years and after that I will have saved some serious money.

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Beds

Well I am buying new bunk beds for the kids. The old ones were second hand and have passed beyond their ability to withstand the children’s roughness. Ergo, new bunk beds are in order. I have known for some time that they would need to be replaced and have put aside the money for it. I have allowed the kids to have some say in what we buy, since it will be theirs. I gave them three choices to choose from and they finally picked one.

I will order the new bunk bed today. It shouldn’t take very long to come in after that. I think I will put it up while they are at school, so they come home to the surprise of a new room. I will make sure delivery is first thing in the morning so that it will be possible to do that. My dad has already agreed to come over with his truck to take down the old ones, and cart them off. I think I am just as excited as the children are.

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Searching for used equipment

Well, I have to search for used construction equipment for sale. We have a some down at work and don’t have time to wait for them to be fixed. We could rent some, but to be honest we have been in need of back ups for a while. I found a backhoe for sale already and I am looking for used trucks for sale as well. I have so much work that needs to get done and no equipment to get it done with.

I think I am going to look for a used skid steer as well while I am at it. We have been needing one of those for a while now and the time has come to purchase one. We can’t afford to have our employees out because of equipment failure. No matter though, as I will have that taken care of by the end of the day.

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Energy audit

It’s time for another energy audit. I try to do this once a year or every two years. It helps to locate problematic areas that could potentially raise the cost of my energy bill. I believe that all houses settle and shift each year and there are cracks around doors and window frames that form. You never know if your home insulation contractors need to come back and upgrade your insulation for better cooling.

I already have energy efficient windows, but I would rather be safe than sorry when it comes to my money. Saving money is important when you are raising children. The more you save the better life you can give your kids, so I try to save as much as possible where ever I can. After all, my kids are worth it. Saving money on energy in my house also makes it better for our environment as well as the cost of energy.

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A gift

My cousin came to visit this weekend and hadn’t seen the house since I have done so much work to it. She was amazed. She totally fell in love with the address plaque that I have next to the front door. She didn’t realize that address signs like that were so inexpensive and easy to get. I told her that I had ordered one for my parents house as well as mine. She really wants one badly.

I have decided to order one for her birthday. She will be so happy to have one on her house. If I had known that my family would like them so much, I would have bought them all one for Christmas.As it is the house address plaques will probably be birthday and Christmas presents this year as every one really likes them a lot. Who knew that the address plaques would make people so happy.

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It’s so beautiful

Gosh I found the most beautiful little sea side community down in the Florida pan handle. It’s called NatureWalk at Seagrove. It is right on the Gulf of Mexico and the beaches are like pure white snow. I know I will probably not move that far away from my family, but when I went down there to pick up some supplies I needed, I just had to look. My kids would love Nature Walk. It’s one of those gated communities that has it’s own recreation center with two pools.

My parents keep talking about retiring to Florida one day. I brought back some pamphlets of Nature Walk at Seagrove for them to look at. Mom fell in love with it just from reading about it and what I told her. She grilled me on everything. Dad was a little more reserved, but he did like it as well. I think we might go back down together to have another look.

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A few new things

I bought a few new things to decorate my house with, decorative accessories for the living room that make it pop. I really like it when I am able to buy stuff for my house that make it more than just a place to live. It is rapidly turning into a show place that I can be proud of. I have worked really hard on this house. I want my children to be proud of their home and not embarrassed by it. I know how that feels because when we were kids, we were very poor for a while. I never invited anyone to that house.

I have found some very affordable home decor to make this place look good, and I am lucky in that my kids don’t destroy everything they touch either. That is a definite plus. My friend Sally has boys who seem to be very destructive. Every time she gets her house nice, they break half of what she has just bought, even the chic furniture she had just purchased.