Exterior shutter staining is a means of adding color to your exterior shutter to either beautify or restore faded shutters. An exterior shutter can either be made of wood or metal. The Exterior shutter adds to the beauty of the home when the stain selected corresponds with the house painting. Different colors from which you can select from are available but might be determined by preference, availability of color and cost.    Article Sponsored By: Concrete Staining Companies

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backsplash

Spruce Up The Kitchen

Tiling a backsplash in your kitchen is one of a few easy ways of refreshing and upgrading an old, dreary kitchen on a shoestring budget. When you tile a backsplash, consider using a nice mosaic tile and give your kitchen that much-needed pizzazz. Thanks to the tiles being on 12×12-inch sheets, you can do your own installation. It becomes a one-day installation and the second day you grout it.  Professional installers will charge you as much as they can.

 

Article Sponsored by Parking Lot Striping Orlando

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power washing

Know The Type of Machine To Purchase

Knowing and understanding the types of pressure washing to purchase is always a good thing.  We would suggest that if you are not experienced in pressure washing that you consider hiring a professional like a commercial pressure washing Houston company.  If you do have experience and proceed to do your own pressure washing, here are some good tips for you.

A pressure washer with a flow rate of 4 gallons per minute(GPM) can fulfill the requirement of cleaning the dust, mud and other kinds of debris from a concrete surface.

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Old Fence

So You Want A New Fence?

I know in a recent article I showed you guys how I had bleached my fence.   I have been bleaching my fence for several years now, but have decided that now it is time to actually invest a little money and put up a new fence.  It not only will help raise the value of my home, but my neighbors will stop hating me as well.   Not that I really care what they think anyway, but it is getting to be time for a new fence.

Getting Bids

I would suggest that you shop around before you just go with a fence company that you find.  I ended up choosing Fence Builders Dallas to do the work for my fence.  They have the best prices around, and the customer service seemed to be one of the best out of the other companies that I spoke with on the phone.

When you call for a bid, be sure you ask all the questions necessary to make sure you have a great experience with your builder.   Unfortunately there are some bad apples in the group that have caused a bad name for many legitimate fence builders.  You know people that take your money and run type scenarios, so be sure you are working with a reputable company.

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Loving The HOA

Living in an HOA has both positives, and negative aspects at times.  Everyone that is part of an HOA can probably relate.  Most of the time we love the HOA as it helps to protect the values of our home, and neighborhood.  The downside to the HOA are the fees, the meetings, and when they tell you that you are in violation.

 

The Last HOA Meeting

During our last HOA meeting, it was brought up that our HOA is considering re-striping the parking lot next to our tennis court in our local neighborhood park.   They were asking if anyone in the neighborhood had connections with someone in the business.  I don’t know the first thing about this business but when we met and they presented the budget and talked about who the best company to use was immediately thought of my friend John, because in high school he worked for a company that did parking lot striping.  I have not talked to John in a while, so I looked him up on facebook real quick, and found him right away.  I sent him a quick friend request, and in a matter of minutes he was now my “new found” friend again.

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the-house

Lessons Learned Buying My First Home

the-houseLets be real, buying a new home costs a lot of money.  Parting with that large sum of money is a huge commitment, and you should protect that investment by getting your home inspected prior to making an offer on the home.  If you happen to be building your home I would suggest getting a multi-phased inspection during the building process. Most houses that are up for sale are dressed up to portray a pristine condition highlighting their best features and concealing potential flaws.  A professional home inspector can uncover problems you may have overlooked or simply not seen. I as lucky when buying my home and the inspection went great, but I had a buddy that was selling his home and found huge issues with his foundation and was kind of stuck getting that fixed before he could even sell his home.

Everything Might Not be Okay

Most people who are buying newer properties which were recently constructed might not see the point of getting it inspected (however most states require it …I think…not sure). Remember the age of the home should not be a reason to waiver prior inspection. You might uncover serious troubles which might cost you a lot in the long run trying to remedy. The problems might be

  • poor wiring
  • plumbing
  • heating and cooling systems
  • foundations
  • roof damage
  • termites or other bug/rodent issues
  • insulation issues
  • walls
  • ceilings
  • there are just so many things that could be wrong..

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fence bleaching

Fence Transformation

So I learned this trick several years by accident, but wanted to share it with you just in case you may want to give it a try.    I do have to put out a disclaimer though because I have no idea if this is good for your fence or not.   One day I noticed I had this moss looking stuff growing on my fence.  I wasn’t sure what to do about it, but I figured if I put some bleach on it, that it would kill the moss, which I figured was basically a fungus growing on the fence that would soon destroy the fence before its time.

sprayerI bought a bottle of bleach and a pump pressure sprayer (like this one here).   I then started spraying the moss looking stuff, and to my amazement, right before my eyes the moss disappeared, the fence changed color, and transformed before my eyes.  The fence started to look brand new.  I couldn’t believe it.   The thing is, I couldn’t simply start after killing off the moss, because now the fence looked brand new in that one spot.  So I went out and bought more bleach and had a great time watching the fence change from old ugly fence into old newer looking fence.

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Project: Painting The Bedroom

Painting a bedroom is a great way to transform and update the entire room.  If you have never painted a room it can seem to be somewhat complicated at first, though it is a fun thing to do. You could always hire a painter, but depending on your budget that may not be an option and let’s face it, you would not get to have any of the fun. I know that I am not experienced painting, but with a couple of google searches, I was able to find some great ideas, and figure out all the supplies I needed before making a trip to buy the supplies.

The first thing that I had to make a decision about was the color of the paint.  The previous color was pure white, so I decided to make some changes by choosing dark gray with white trim accents. I wanted the room to look classy, yet inviting and based on the searches I had done on the internet it seemed this was an “in” color scheme to go with for any room in you home.

bedroom

 

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Not Wanting A Lawn Service

Ok guys, so I am turning to the almighty power of the internet to see if anyone can help me with this weed problem that I seem be having.   I am not sure if I have a weed running rampant in my lawn, or if some other type of grass has sneaked it’s grimy little paws into my the ecosystem of my grass.   I have been fighting this patch of weed/grass for about 2 years now.   Anyone know what this is?  See the pics below.  It is the taller pieces of green sticking up past all of the other grass.

weed problem 1 Weed problem 2

 

I have tried putting multiple different weed killers on it, but so far no luck killing it.  I have tried this stuff called sedgehammer, thinking it may be a nutsedge weed.    I have also tried this stuff called Ferti-Lome that kills other weeds.  I thought this stuff had killed it, but then later in the year it was growing back again.   I have no idea how to kill this silly weed (if that is in fact what it is).

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Start With The Filters

I know when you think of home improvements you typically think of breaking out the saw, hammers, and a few screw drivers to actually build or repair something.   I wanted to have your mind think of home improvements slightly different today.   Sometimes just cleaning up your property, and doing normal proper maintenance is the best home improvement you can do.

I was looking at my air filter the other day and realize it was dirty as sin, and I wasn’t sure when I had actually last changed it.   To be honest, I was pretty embarrassed to think how dirty this filter actually was, and how bad the air quality in my home was because the filter was so jacked up.

dirty filter grate Dirty Filter

 

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