When sealing your deck, you have 3 choices and one of them should never be used. You can use a clear sealer, a stain that adds color to your deck wood or paint. The last choice, painting a deck, is never a good idea because paint adheres to the surface of the wood and it will peel and chip, and trying to get rid of all the loose paint is an impossible task, i.e. how do you get into the cracks between the deck boards?
If you’re stuck with a painted deck, you can either replace it or … you can...
We all want a beautiful deck but that requires a little elbow grease, as they get dirty and need to be cleaned each year … just like you need to wash your car once in a while. If you’ve got a wood deck, after you’ve cleaned it you also need to seal it to protect it from the elements … as that’s how you’re able to extend it’s useful life. If you take care of your wood deck, it can last 20 to 25 years and if you don’t, you might have to replace it after 15 years.
How the Elements...
If you’ve looked at new homes in the last few years, maybe you’ve noticed that they all include not one, but several ceiling fans. This is quite different from homes built in the ’80s which often didn’t have ceiling lights in the bedrooms.
One of the key reasons for making ceiling fans a standard feature of new homes, is to help homeowners make smart energy usage decisions — depending on temperature and humidity, it’s much cheaper to run a ceiling fan than your whole house air conditioning!
Ceiling fans also dress up a room, sometimes in subtle ways and other times, you...
We love all our technology gadgets but how many can we use at a time? We’re now spending more money on technology than our traditional utilities, it’s getting scary. Do we really need a tablet as much as we need lights and hot water? Maybe we can justify today’s devices (average couple has 7, a family of 4 has 11 pieces of technology) but does it make sense to keep adding more?
In our consumer driven world, manufacturers spend billions of dollars to drive us to buy more, more and more....
For several years there has been lots of focus on upgrading your home with new windows for energy efficiency, with double or triple pane windows. If you’ve already updated all your windows, congratulations and save these tips for a future home. The federal tax credits helped fuel this trend to motivate construction spending during a sluggish economy, and to prepare for rising energy costs.
Another reason for upgrading one or more windows is to bring more natural sunlight into your home. While it might not be as simple as taking out an old appliance and sliding the new one in, you...
Our planet earth is pretty special, yet we take it for granted 365 days each year. Earth Day is meant to remind us how our planet takes care of us each and every day, and how we can do a better job of protecting the earth’s resources. There are so many creative activities happening to celebrate Earth Day that we just wanted to share a few with you.
The earth is a huge place which people understand better today, with air travel commonplace and our ability to learn about people around the world from television and the Internet. The world we...
Decks, patios and other outdoor living spaces are an important feature for any home and for good reason. When the weather is nice, you can move lots of activities outdoors from grilling hamburgers or steaks to relaxing family dinners, neighborhood parties and more. When you spend lots of time outdoors using your deck or patio, it’s common to expand and enhance this outdoor space.
In fact you have many choices in how you update your backyard. It depends on what’s most important so we’ll explore your options, as homeowners are getting real creative as they transform old fashion decks...
Summer is getting closer and it’s time to start thinking about how you’ll enjoy the great outdoors this year. Camping, barbecues, family outings and more are at your doorstep or soon to arrive.
For many of us, all those spring and summertime activities remind us of childhood. As adults, it can be difficult to find the time to enjoy the nice weather by taking a vacation or making the extra effort to spend time with relatives and friends. Many people choose to bring the campsite home by building or buying a firepit in their yard.
Each spring we think about getting out in the garden, weeding and pruning what’s there. We re-evaluate our landscape design and wonder what types of shrubs we should add, or maybe new flowers for more color. This is more important when we find older plants that didn’t survive the winter, and there’s always the question of which plants to buy?
Ideally, we want plants that look great in our overall landscape design. Even better is when we find shrubs that require little or no maintenance but finding them can be a challenge. For those who aren’t dedicated gardeners, you may find...
Swing sets and spring seem to go together. The box stores assemble and display a swing set near the front of the store and parents buy them. What you might not recognize is just like the candy on display at the grocery store check-out line, these swing sets are often an impulse purchase that maybe needs a little more research before you buy?
When you’re at the store, you only see the physical swing set so it’s hard to imagine exactly where it will go in your yard, and very few yards have a perfectly level space without trees. Instead you...
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