You are here: Home >Archive for May, 2010

Make Gardening a Family Event

Show them how much you enjoy gardening. Spend time in your garden. It is especially easy to stimulate a child’s interests when they see you having fun.

Make gardening easy. Don’t expect a perfect garden. Allow your family to work at their own pace and within their attention spans and age range, especially children.

Dig it! Kids love to dig. This is a great way to teach the basics while letting them play and just have fun.

Let them play an active role in planning. Take your children to the local nursery and let them pick seeds or transplants to start their garden. Take your time and let them browse and enjoy all of the beautiful plants.

Grow a theme garden. This is a great way to let your children use their imagination and express their creativity. The sky is the limit. Some great ideas are gardens that coincide with the holidays, alphabet gardens, a garden themed in their favorite colors, a sensory garden where you can experience different smells, tastes, textures and sights, or a “Freedom Garden”.

Give children their own “kid sized” tools. They don’t have to be expensive. You can go with an old spoon and a bucket that you have around the house or you can venture down to the garden center and purchase garden tools made for children’s hands.

Give them a space to call their own. It doesn’t have to be big. This will teach them ownership and responsibility, and your children will be able to take credit for their own little space.

Get crafty! Press or dry flowers to make a beautiful arrangement, make potpourri, or make a pomander ball. Children love making things and will be amazed at the crafts and gifts that they can make from the garden.

Tags: , ,

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • RSS

Deed Restriction Might Clean your Roof

Its only 5 Days into March and Home Owner Associations (HOA) are already busy at enforcing Deed Restrictions and/or covenant rules. Which rules? Rules most people don’t even know about. Restrictions governing the appearance of your ROOF SHINGLES. No I am not kidding!

Most people think about deed restrictions governing barking dogs and where the garbage cans are stored, but in Florida and other states, the “Home Appearance” clause now insists that your roof be ‘free of stains, algae or other unsightly distortions’.

Over the last several days I have spoken to a number of homeowners in a St Petersburg Florida development who have received letters telling them to Clean their roofs, or the neighborhood association would have them cleaned and send them the bill!

Why you ask? Its pretty simple actually, think about crab grass.

When your lawn is covered in crab grass, it looks bad, and property values may reflect the unattractive appearance. When you remove the crab grass from your lawn, and your neighbor doesn’t, well the crab grass ends back up in your lawn too! The whole neighborhood suffers.

Roof Stains are pretty much like crab grass, but much worse!

* Roof Stains are caused by an airborne algae that will spread from roof to roof (if everyone does not keep a clean roof, then no one will have a clean roof).

* Black streaks on your roof (which is the most visible part of the house) will make the house look bad, and everyone’s home then suffers a decrease in value.

* Roof Algae will lead to premature shingle failure.

* Worst of all, roof algae, can allow mold to get into a home creating ‘sick home’ syndrome.

The solution, 2 parts. First Clean your Roof. Second Block Stains from returning.

Tags: , , , ,

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • RSS

Installation and Refinishing Concrete Floor Project: Tips and Tricks That Save Time and Money

Here are useful tips learned during more than 40 years of installing epoxy urethane floor seals and coatings on Fortune 500 company concrete floors, as well as in basements, garages, and decks. These tips can help you avoid mistakes that can limit the life of your floor.

There are three broad steps to doing your floor project: planning and preparation, repairing, and applying the coating. This article is the third in a three part series, and deals with applying the epoxy paint to the floor.

General guidelines for applying an epoxy coating to your floor:

Do no harm.
Investing in preparation produces the most years of service.
Let the chemicals and equipment do the work.
What can go wrong, will go wrong, unless you think ahead.
Technique is what separates mortals from Rembrandts.
An once of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Now let’s get started with tips on how to coat your floor with an epoxy or urethane floor paint.

Plan the job.

Good floor prep is key to a long lasting floor.

Take a break.

Mix 200 strokes.

Easy work makes for a better job

No one is perfect

Don’t worry about tricks of gravity

A rag may not save you

Technique, technique, technique.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • RSS

Benefits of Kitchen Design

Kitchen has been one of the most important areas of a house and a good design is always the best way to offer it a great feel and look. The layout kitchen design will actually enable you to optimize your space and transform your space surprisingly comfortable.

Different kitchen space and requirements needs different kitchen designs and layouts. Most of the time specific plans take specific factors into consideration and the kitchen design reflects this. The following are some of the major factors that you should know about kitchen designs.

Any kitchen design services should be taken into consideration based on the kind of uses that is expected of the finished room. With kitchens, the uses can be rather diverse depending on the number of people using the kitchen. Like if the kitchen is going to be used solely for functional purpose i.e. cooking and storage, than the design will be based on that fact. In this case the layout, refrigerator, stove and cabinet spaces will be more vital than small shelving and it will reflect a bigger kitchen. However if the kitchen is about to be used for just basic preparation in a bachelor apartment, the design will speak of the general use.

The kitchen renovation should also take into account the space of the kitchen area and accordingly the purchasing of furnishings and appliances should be done. Because kitchen furnishings and appliances are available in different sizes and as designs can be quite versatile, even a small kitchen can be suitable for a large family. And in the same way a very big kitchen can be made to look and feel suitable by arranging modest appliances and furnishings if the design part is well planned.

Tags: , ,

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • RSS

Let Your Computer Be Repaired Online!

How often you found problems in your computer? Off course it is a lot and it is very frustrated to get an immediate help while you have tons of work to be finished. You can call a computer technician but you don’t know how fast they can make it to your home and fix the problems.

Rather than waiting with no guarantee, it is better to find online computer repair service. It is a computer technician service that will fix your computer problem though their online service. Through the internet network, you can connect your computer to their server and let them diagnose as well as fixing all problems. Online computer repair service will be a great choice for personal users as well as small business. Without technician visit, they could offer much affordable service fee. Moreover, online computer repair service could offer immediate service 24/7 with the reliable quality.

You can find many different online computer repair services available on the Net. You will need to subscribe in their service plan to get the online tech support. Make sure that your preferred service has 24/7 support with guaranteed work. You will also need to make sure that they have reasonable price for all support you need.

Tags: , , , , ,

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • RSS