Category: Home Improvements

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Not getting it done

There was so much I wanted to get done today, but didn’t. I’ve decide to pack some of my collections away for awhile, since the mill is going to start running full blast soon and that means loads of chafe and dust coming into the house from cracks and crevices that are not even apparent.

With surgeries coming up soon, I know I’m not going to be able to do much if any lifting or actually much of anything for awhile. My doctor said at least three months. Great. If I do anything at all, I have to be very very careful.

So, packing things away and making storage space is exactly what I’m going to be doing after this weekend. I’ve got some great ideas and will write some of them down if they work well. Until Monday however, I’m going to take the next few days to relax and just, regroup and also search for those tiny cracks and crevices that let in unwanted dust and chafe, and fix that problem somehow.

 

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The mailbox fiasco isn’t over

Ever since I had my mailbox hit and destroyed, everyone is asking where I got a new one from. Apparently there is now a rash of destruction happening in out little village and it’s getting pretty bad. It started out with just an accident with my yard rocks and mailbox, then it escalated to unruly kids, that are actually juvenile delinquents who are now using BB guns, big M-80 “fire crackers” and even bottle bombs to do property destruction around here.

On the main highway that goes through town, there are houses that line each side of it. Behind the houses on another street is a sort of apartment complex. It has a actual row of residential mailboxes, for each household that are across the street from the complex. The kids that are causing all the destruction in the village are making a game out of seeing if they can knock off each box with ball bats. The police seem not to be able to catch who is doing this. It takes them forever to come out on a call also. I don’t really feel safe here anymore.

So far the mail boxes on my street/road (since it turns into a dirt road right before our house, are safe for now, since we have everyone aware and watching. Most of the neighbors have security lights and some even have security cameras hooked up now. I really hope the catch who is doing this. It’s scary to think even more destructive things could happen here. juvenile

 

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Home improvement and survival

Lately I’ve been coming across some really great web sites and FB pages about easy but good home improvement  projects. I’m finding a lot of great ideas, that I will be posting, with my particular twist.

It’s really interesting seeing and reading how other mom’s make their homes better, and ideas for storage, organization and also small repair projects that one can do on a budget. We all need ideas that will work, but will save money also. I’ve been running across some pretty awesome garden ideas also!

I have a feeling that I am going to be pretty busy come Spring. I’ve already started to roll some ideas around in my head that I’d like to do, both inside the house and outside the house. Especially for organization and to give us more space and storage.

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Deciding on bathroom tile

I’m thinking about going to the tile and carpet store in town, which also sells roll upon roll of wall paper and accessories, to check out bathroom tile. I really am not sure which kind I want, but my bathroom needs to be totally remodeled. I’m tired of looking at it the way it is not and there is no way the husband is going to do this project. I usually end up doing all the home improvement myself. It’s one of those true statements, “If you want something done, ya have to do it yourself, ” around here. Sometimes my daughter will try and help me, and sometimes my oldest son will, but they get into the project for awhile, then when it isn’t fun anymore, they stop. I usually end up finishing it myself. I’m glad I had family who were in the remodeling and building business and a now deceased husband who taught me a whole lot about home improvement and construction work. I even know how to build a pole barn!

So, I’m going to go check out tile, wall paper and paint tomorrow for the bathroom. I did get a new sink that is kind of classy, even though it’s white, which I didn’t want, but it was on sale. I have to remember that I need to find deals while doing home improvements, since it’s all being done with my cookie jar money.

I love the look of the wood floor, but I’m still undecided. Tile or wood look. If my daughter and I lived here alone, we’d do the wood laminate. We aren’t slobs. With the guys? Pffffttt. Ya’ll don’t want to know.

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Help with resort and hotel supplies

Living up here where there are plenty of lakes, is great place to vacation. My friend Lynn owns a Resort right on the lake and I’ve been helping her out with redecorating. She needs a Hotel Supplier & Restaurant Supply, just to name a couple services. Her place is awesome. She lives in a beautiful home right next to the resort and it is all tied together by a terrace and flower garden that I helped her plan and plant. I’m very proud of it, I must say. Since she and her husband got a divorce, I go up there when I can and help her out, especially in the summer months when she is at her peak of business.

She doesn’t have a restaurant, since her resort and the neighboring restaurants give one another business. However, the way her place is arranged, there are hotel rooms in the front of the building and in the back overlooking the lake are apartments. Everything one needs is in the apartments, from tin foil to cooking utensils, bedding to new tooth brushes. All one has to do is is bring their food and clothes. She needs to get how ever Resort Linen Supplies & Catering Supplies. At least new supplies to go with the new themes she has picked for each room and also each apartment. And a lot of the amenities that restaurants would have for the kitchens in the apartments, and also the hotel rooms.

She showed me the items online at PeachSuite Hotel Supply & Restaurant Equipment Company and we decided they have everything she needs to outfit her place in the style she couldn’t do before. I’m really happy for her and the up side of this, is because I love to help her with these kind of things, she always gives me the greatest and biggest apartment for a week in the summer so the family and I can have a nice little vacation and visit with her.

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Fresh walls and floors

In preparation for Spring cleaning, I’ve decided to get new flooring for the kitchen and also paint for the walls. I’m actually kicking around the idea of painting though. I just painted two years ago, and also put up the boarder it took me months to find. It all matches…except the floor.

My son has volunteered to help with all the cleaning, since I am due for surgery next month and I’m not allowed to do a lot of things, which of course I’m still doing, but am careful about it. My husband has forbidden me to get up on a ladder though. I can see his point, since my doctor told me (in front of my husband) that I am to be very careful not to fall. My husband knows me. Pure and simple I am a klutz. I can trip and fall, just walking across the floor. My son is a godsend as far as I am concerned. He loves to clean and do home improvement things.

We are going shopping for either tile for the kitchen floor tonight. I’ve got to admit, I’m pretty excited about it. I hate what is down now. Even just with new tile it will make it look like a new kitchen.

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Using lockers for the home

My boys have decided to turn one of the bigger rooms in the basement into a partial gym and have asked for lockers. I thought it would be a great idea to have them down there, as I already have went to sales and have gotten some in the past at a sale when they wanted them in their bedrooms. I figure it would make great storage for their gym outfits, and other things that they would want to store in them.

The school had some lockers for sale, but I know from experience that they are way too small to store much in at all. My kids don’t even wear heavy coats to school because there is no room in the lockers for them. They can’t even fit all of the books they have into them, which is kind of upsetting since what are we tax payers paying for exactly? And who has to pay the doctor bills if the kids get sick from not wearing coats? But, that is another story. I have however, while browsing found school lockers that were much bigger, unfortunately the school the kids go to, didn’t use these.

Employee lockers that I found are great for what my boys wanted to use them for. They also were not as expensive as what I thought they would be. This is a great help with money matters, since I’m on a budget with home improvement. Maybe these will keep the basement a bit neat and even nearly non, “guy cluttered!”

 

 

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Spring cleaning in February

Getting a jump on doing my spring cleaning the last few days. I can’t believe how dusty this house can get. It seems that I dust in the morning and by night time, there is dust again. I’ve changed the furnace filters, so it can’t be that. However we do live on the same road that the grain mill is, and they are always running, even in the winter. That fine dust can get into every crack or opening in the house. Not that we have anything major. Just going in and out of the front door if the wind is blowing, is enough to bring in the dust.
Last year a lot of the farmers took in what we call around here, “Blood Corn”. When it is taken to the mill and ground up, the red dust get over everything, including me when I’m in my garden. The first year we lived here, I sort of freaked out, since I actually had never heard of blood corn, even though I grew up on a farm. I couldn’t figure out where tall the red dust was coming from, and why by arms and face were red.

Now, it’s just something one has to deal with. I give farmers every credit in the world. There are so many responsibilities. I just have to use more Swiffers.

 

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Mom and Me

Guest post of the week by Brittany Booker

Mom and I haven’t always had the easiest relationship but things are getting better. After dad died I think we both realized we didn’t want things to end that way between us and I think we were both just pretty tired of butting heads. Now that she finally moved into a new house I’m trying to become a bigger part of her life and be the supported daughter if she wants me to be. I helped her find a good moving company in town and I went to www.satellitestarinternet.com/ before she even moved in to make sure she would have Internet access at the new house. She even called me last week to go furniture shopping with her which I thought was a huge improvement for us! I’m really excited about how things are going with mom and I hope in just a couple more months we will have the kind of relationship that a lot of my friends have their mothers. I’ve always been jealous of that and now I can have it myself.

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Ordering my seeds

I’ve been pouring over the seed catalogs that are now coming in the mail, trying to find exactly the seeds I want to plant in the front herb and flower gardens. Such a hard decision for me. I want the all, it seems. I found though, if I buy bulk from a few of the catalogs, I’ll save a lot of money.

In the back yard is where my son and I have decided to get serious about bale gardening and also a plot for veggies that I can take to farmers market and sell, plus have enough for the family to eat.

I’m a vegetable freak. I love just about any kind. I do plan on having some different kinds of squash that a lot of people haven’t even heard of. My mom is making me a list of the ones she has tried and loved. Right now, I just can’t remember the names of them. I’m really looking forward to spring. Plus, I didn’t know it, but my gardens are considered home improvement projects. (The insurance guy told us this). Guess you learn something new every day!