Category: home improvement

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After Dinner Chillaxing

Last Sunday’s family dinner was so good – my mom and sisters out did themselves this year! I know that I ate too much, but I couldn’t stop. I should have skipped dessert, but evidently I have no willpower when it comes to coconut cake. Besides, everyone else stayed seated at the table and kept eating, too. It would have been rude to get up and leave the table.

After dinner the guys went into my dad’s “man cave” and watched some TV. Dad has satellite and gets so any channels he never misses anything important. For only about $40 a month, he gets just about everything out there, including 61 HD channels. Since we all pitched in and bought him a flat screen HD TV at Christmas last year, getting all those HD channels from his Satellite TV is a really sweet feature.

This gave me a great idea for his birthday present this summer. I think we should pitch in and buy him the NFL special package on Direct TV called, The Sunday Ticket. This is only available on Direct TV and it gives you ALL he NFL games, with no restrictions like blackouts, and they are all in HD. Once you watch an NFL game in HD and see how much more detail there is, you can never go back to regular TV and enjoy the game as much. Trust me on this!

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Every House

Every house that I know of has one room that is always used. That room would be the kitchen. It always seems to be one of the most central locations for people to cluster. That’s why I think it’s important to ensure that it is decorated nicely in order to make the house a home. Recently, we decided to install wine glass racks in our kitchen in order to make it look nicer.

One problem that we had in our kitchen was a lack of space. We found that we could squeeze out a little more room by taking advantage of a hanging wine glass rack. We got all the glasses off the shelf and out of the way. That gave us other opportunities to use the space we made available. Not only that, it has enhanced the look of our kitchen.

We were very happy with the results we had in the kitchen and so we thought we would try it in the basement. We have a den in the basement that has a small bar. We thought that adding bar glass racks would help our décor there as well. I am glad to say that it did and now our bar looks great. We had a small party recently and everyone liked the way it looked. I guess we will be able to throw a few more parties now, knowing that we have what it takes!

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The House, Our Home

The wife and I have been working to fix up the old homestead. We have had a wonderful time working together on various projects around the house. This year, we have concentrated a lot of our effort on the outside of the house including getting our lawn and gardens into shape. We think that the outside of the house is just as important as the inside. We have worked hard to find ways to improve the view of the house from the street.

One thing we are really happy about is the addition of an address plaque. We put the plague by the street and surrounded it with plants. We also added some rocks and figurines around it. It looks great and makes it easy to find our house. We didn’t know about home address plaques before, but now that we do, we are glad to have found one that fits our style.

One of our neighbors commented on the plaque and asked for more information about it. I told him to get on the internet and type in address plaques and he would find a place to get one for himself. I am sure that over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be seeing one in front of his house as well. While I am sure that our house will never be perfect, I am glad that we made this one fine addition.

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Improving The House

Over the last winter, we did a lot of work to the inside of our home. We painted and reworked our kitchen. We added some walls and finished our basement. We also bought many items such as furniture and rugs to improve the way our house looks inside. Since that work is mostly done, our attention has turned to the outside of the house. We were concerned about how our house looks from the street.

Of course we started with reworking the lawn. We added some garden space to the front yard and put in some bushes. The space looked good, but needed something more. We finally thought that adding a curbside mailbox would be a good idea. The only problem was deciding where to get one that would fit the style of our home. I went to the internet and found a site that had all the curbside mailboxes we could ever want.

The site was called mailboxixchange.com and they had what we were looking for. Since they had so many curbside mail boxes to choose from, it was hard to decide which one was the best for us. We finally decided on one that we all liked. Now that empty spot is filled and we are very happy with the results of our efforts.

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A House Is a Home

We are always looking for ways to improve our house. One of the main features of any home is its furniture. Anyone who walks through the door will make an instant decision about the owners. The style of the furniture in a home tells a lot about the occupants and the way they like to live. That’s why it’s important to us to have contemporary furniture in order to tell people a little about ourselves.

My wife and I were looking to improve our standard of living. One easy way of doing this was to purchase new furniture. We wanted to redo our bedroom and were deciding what to do. We looked around the market and decided we knew what we were looking for. We both agreed that having modern bedroom furniture would be the right thing for us.

We also knew that we would have to upgrade our children’s room. Since the rooms were a little smaller than we would like, we wanted to save some space. We thought that by utilizing platform beds, we could do just that. We were right and now our kids have a lot more space for their toys and clothes. I am glad we made the decision to improve our home as we feel much better about the place.

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Houses and Homes

When it comes to a house, there are many important parts. Of course we think of walls and a roof and doors and windows. There are some parts to a house that are often overlooked. One thing that is really important is your mail box. Even though this item is not always technically part of your house, its one thing that makes your house a home.

We started trying to improve our home by doing some remodeling and other repairs. The one thing that we were missing was that personal touch that would make our house stand out from the rest. I began looking at mail boxes as a way to add a touch of class to our home. I thought it would be a great way to show our character.

I asked the opinion of everyone in the house. The wife and kids all chipped in and made suggestions as to the type of mailbox we should have. It was fun having everyone interested in our new little project. After much debate, we finally decided which one would fit our home the best. Now that our new box is installed, it’s nice to see it when I pull into the driveway. It’s worked out very well for us and we are all proud of the way it looks. It’s funny how a little thing can make a house a home!

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The Fridge!!

One of the major intersections around our house is the refrigerator. It seems the kids are always in front of it and looking in. I have been known to open it and stare in myself. The thing is that I know for the most part what’s inside, but still hope to find a hidden morsel that will assuage my hunger. The fridge has many other uses as well.

We have many magnets on our fridge which hold any number of papers. Some are the kid’s school papers which have good grades on them and some contain semi-important phone numbers. Of course we have the usual amount of pizza places and Chinese take-out flyers. If you want something to be noticed, I think the best place to put it is on the fridge!

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Tiles

Whenever I get the chance, I like to work around the house. I am always looking for new tasks to do so that I can keep busy while improving my home. An excellent opportunity came up recently when my wife suggested that I try to install tiles on the bathroom floor. Our old floor was that cheap laminate that was getting pretty ratty looking. I thought this would be a great job to take on.

The first thing we had to decide was what type of bathroom tiles we wanted. I was lucky to find a site on the internet that was really neat. The site is called glasstilestore.com and it has a nice selection of tiles to choose from. I never knew there were so many types of tile. I even found subway tiles on the site. I knew it would take some time to figure out what tiles we wanted.

Another thing I liked about the site was the fact that we were able to learn all about the advantages of using tile in our home. That certainly made our decision to install tile much easier. I am eager to get started on the project and hope that we will soon have a beautiful new bathroom floor. I know my wife and kids will enjoy it as well.

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Unwanted Visitor!

I was lying on the couch when I heard my son making a ruckus upstairs. It seems that he was trying to corner a mouse in his bedroom. I don’t know how the mouse got in or how long he has been there, but I agreed with my son that we needed to get him out! The mouse got away despite our efforts to catch him and we decided to set some traps for him.

One of the best ways to trap a mouse is by setting the following trap. Take a common trash can and place it in the middle of a room the mouse is known to frequent. Lean a board from the floor up to the can. Place an empty cardboard center from a paper towel roll on the edge of the can. The mice love tunnels and will enter and fall into the can. Works every time! We took the mouse for a ride and let him go in the woods. Problem solved!

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Test your smoke alarms

Before the holidays get here, I would like to remind everyone to test their smoke alarms at home and also at work if you have any responsibility for that.

I have already seen that there have been several fires in my area where people have lost their homes. There are always a lot of fires this time of year when things are dry, and many are caused from decorations people put up for the Christmas holidays. Sometimes too many lights overload the electric circuit. Another danger with outside lights is that sometimes squirrels get on your roof and chew on the wires. And really old lights can get frayed from being unwrapped, hung up, taken down and wrapped again.

Chimney fires are also very dangerous and totally preventable if you just have your chimney checked and serviced regularly by a chimney sweep. If you use the fireplace more than 3 or 4 times each winter, you should have the chimney checked annually. if you burn soft woods like pine or burn those paper logs in your fireplace, you will have more creosote build up in your chimney than if you burn just hardwoods like seasoned oak. An honest chimney sweep will tell you if it needs cleaning or can wait a season, and it does not have to be expensive.

So, be very careful and make sure everything, from the holiday lights to your chimney, is in working order. Make sure your fire extinguishers are good as well. Remember that it is better to be safe then sorry.