Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ category

Carpet Cleaning With the Hoover F7452-900

December 22nd, 2011

Home improvement projects are all around your house and aren’t limited to new floors or fresh paint. If you really want your home to look like you are envisioning, you will have to take some time to plan it out and research what needs to be done. The tips below can help you to improve your home improvement skills. You should save money and create the home you have always dreamed of.

Get your contractor’s attention and make your needs clear. It is much easier to voice your concerns or see your vision put into play when you have a contractor whom you consider trustworthy. If there aren’t clear lines of communication between you and your contractor, it’s likely that there will be issues with the project. Make sure your contractor listens to you and your needs.

An air conditioning system is not very attractive on its own, but there are various ways to lessen its unsightly appearance. It can easily be disguised with latticework or a trellis. One other option is to use large, ornamental grass. Remember to leave space for the roots to grow.

Lampshades with simple designs give no life to the room. Use some basic stencils and paint to give your boring lamp shade something extra. This will add a personal touch, making the room reflect your personality. This can take a boring room and make it more exciting.

Are you tired of waking up to the same old dresser every morning? A great way to reinvigorate worn furniture is to sand down and re-varnish them. You can save a lot of money by refinishing the furniture you already have. There are an abundance of stains you can color your furniture with.

Locate your gas shutoff valve before beginning a project that involves your fireplace, kitchen appliances or anything else related to your gas line. You should also be extremely vigilant when working near the gas supply. You don’t want to spark a gas explosion.

When you hire a contractor to do a home improvement project, his or her reputation is more important than the price he or she quotes. Someone who is not well-respected, but is inexpensive, will typically do sub par work with cheap materials. The substandard work will just mean costly repairs later. Not only does shoddy work have to be done twice, it can even put you at risk by making your home unsafe. Choose the right contractor the first time around.

Cleaning your carpets on a regular basis helps your house feel cleaner and cuts down on dust and dirt in the air. Renting a steam cleaner can be expensive, so the purchase of your carpet shampooing machine can pay off in the long run, especially if you own if you have a large house and shampoo regularly. Your house will both look and feel much cleaner. One excellent home carpet cleaning product is the Hoover F7452-900 MaxExtract All-Terrain Carpet Cleaner. In checking the Amazon website, I’ve found that this carpet cleaner has excellent reviews.

Home improvement is not a skill reserved for experts only. If you are just a novice, it will take an investment of your time, but your skills will improve. You will be able to show off your accomplished projects with pride once you put some time into it and a bit of attention to detail.

For more information on how you can improve the look of your carpets on your next home improvement project, check out the Hoover F7452-900 MaxExtract All-Terrain Carpet Cleaner.

More advice – the worst kind of vice…

August 24th, 2011

So it has been a very long time since there was an update regarding the house, its progress and any new information.

That is partly due to the fact that after discovering the ‘hack-job’ that was completed on the underside of the house we came to the conclusion that we couldn’t finish this project on our own. It simply got too big, and too complex. What started out as moderately complex, now became unrealistic for two DIY-ers to do on evenings and weekends.

We bit the bullet, hired an architect, and began researching the permit background on the house. In the time that we’ve done that I’ve learned several things:

1. DO YOUR RESEARCH before starting any job. OMG, why don’t I follow my own damn advice I’ll never know.

If we’d done this first, (which BTW is really quick and easy to do in Oakland) we would have found out that the ‘addition’ wasn’t legal in any sense of the word. It was originally a porch that was enclosed, poorly at that, and even the porch wasn’t in the original plans for the house.

2. If you hire a 3rd party, DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!

Again, I am stupid for not following my own advice. The first architect that we went with… well he was a complete and total flake. To just avoid further pain we paid him off for 4 months of not calling, producing substandard drawings and leaving us in the lurch with permits. (e.g. he’d never filed for permits, and provided only external elevation drawings – no structural drawings of any kind)

3. Be patient, but consistent with everything.

One piece of advice we got from a cousin who does commercial and residential renos; Make sure that you hire someone who has solid business sense over an expert craftsman. Truer words could never have been spoken.

In my limited experience with contractors and subcontractors, I’d rather deal with the business person who shows up on time, provides updates, checks in with me (without me having to hunt him/her down) provides paperwork and completes the job as requested; than work with the craftsman. Remember the craftsman is an Artiste in the truest sense of the word… as a result the work, (when and if completed) is a thing of beauty. But its worse than having your molars pulled by a team of Clydesdales hopped up on amphetamines to get the craftsman to actually do the work, and do it on a budget and in a reasonable amount of time.