Archive for Home Improvement

Making the Mailbox Permanent

I’ve been working on fixing and upgrading my kitchen and hubby is more interested in doing things outside. He handles all the yard work and keeps the driveway cleared of snow and ice over the winter months.

Right now he is interested in a project at the end of our driveway. He wants to build  a brick enclosure for a new locking mailbox. We’ve had to replace our standard metal mailbox on a wood post twice since we moved here. It seems that every once in a while some juvenile delinquents drive down the road late at night and bash in all the mailboxes, supposedly “for fun.”

At first, we just replaced the mailbox with another one just like it. We did that again, reluctantly, the second time. But this time, hubby is looking at locking mailboxes and encasing the box with bricks to foil those destructive kids. This is getting to be more than just a nuisance.

Although we’ve not had any trouble with people opening our mailbox and taking our mail, it occurred to us that the kids could easily do that while we are away at work or running errands. The only thing we can do to prevent that is to get lockable mailboxes and head them off before they can steal our mail, especially since the holidays are fast approaching and a lot of people are known to send gift cards, checks and money to friends and family at Christmas.

A New Kitchen

My tiny kitchen needed a facelift and I’ve been chipping away at fixing, replacing and upgrading all the different parts. When it is finished I will have to shop for new kitchen counter top appliances, such as a new toaster, new coffee maker, etc.

I’m not going to throw out everything that I have just for the sake of wanting something new. I plan on rounding up all the older machines and cleaning them up, then putting them in a box to give to my youngest son as soon as he gets his own place. If they aren’t what he wants, then he will at least have the use of mine until he can afford to buy his own.

The only thing that I don’t plan on passing down in my redecorating project would be the pans. These pots and pans are my biggest treasure in the kitchen. I have the entire set of Calphalon pans and I love them. They are very expensive but if you take good care of them they will last over 10 years – maybe even 20 years.

New Counter Tops

The next big project for my kitchen will be replacing the counter tops. The most popular material in the 1960′s for countertops was a plastic product called, “Formica.” This material was hardy, easy to custom fit and install, and it came in a variety of colors and patterns.

Now there are many different types of products and finishes. I think the most popular here is granite. Solid granite is heavy and fragile until installed properly. But it is beautiful and needs very little care to keep it clean and maintained.

I have not decided on getting granite. There are other products that are less expensive and look good. I’ll be looking and touching the floor samples at Home Depot tomorrow while I consider what I want to get.

Local Search Engines

Life with access to the Internet is always making every day things so much easier and faster. I don’t know the last time that I dug out my paper version of our local yellowpages to find any information. I just jump on my laptop which is always accessible, not tucked away in a drawer some where, and usually within minutes I can find what I need online.

Whether it’s a local search for one of the many various local restaurants or service repair shops, or looking for a plumber or even say like a moon bounce to rent for a kid’s birthday party, you can get what you need right at your finger tips. Local.com is a good search engine for finding a lot of information.

Another thing that I love being able to do is to log on and quickly find out what the weather has in mind for us instead of having to wait through a lengthy news program, which is always filled with such dreadful and depressing stories, in order to catch the weather forecast. I can’t wait for the day that they get they forecast right!

Real Estate

One of my closest friends has been in Real Estate for  going on 20 years now. It is something that she always wanted to be into and she has enjoyed it, for the most part. This economic crisis has placed a huge burden on people just like her that depend on a commission, not a salary, to pay their mortgages and monthly bills with. I’ve learned so much from her about Real Estate and she always has funny and entertaining stories to tell about many of her clients and their homes and properties that she has had dealings with through out the years.

She has seen some breath taking homes and I’ve gotten to tag along with her on more than one occasion and have seen some pretty gorgeous ones myself. It’s always exciting to see not only the outside up and close by the inside of these houses as well. Their great looking huge kitchens, along with the most exquisite tiles used in many of them. Even bathroom tiles are really becoming a huge trend that I’ve fallen in love with recently and would like to incorporate in my bathroom. So I’ve been doing a bit of subway tiles research online and found that the glasstilestore.com site has a tremendous variety of tiles and even offers free shipping, which is a huge savings considering how much shipping tiles must cost these days.