Recently my sister-in-law decided to redo a spare bedroom and turn it into a playroom for her two small children. To the dismay of their mother, one of the things these two like to do is draw on the walls so I suggested we paint at least one wall with chalkboard paint and let them have that wall to express their creativity. She was delighted at the suggestion and I even had some chalkboard paint left over from another project in our kitchen this past spring to donate to the cause.

My wife convinced me to help them pain since I was “so experienced”. I was actually pleased to do it because I wanted to see how my idea turned out. After we got the paint on I decided to make it into a giant chalkboard and lined the borders of the wall with some stained wood trim and fastened a wider piece on the bottom for the tray. I surprised the kids with those big fat pieces of chalk and the largest eraser I could find and they went to town on that wall. The excitement and joy was thanks enough but I sure did enjoy those lemon bars my sister-in-law made just for me!

Here are a couple of things you can do that don’t cost much, if anything and they will save you bucks immediately!

1. Go to the website of your local energy or utility company and find their energy audit.  Most of them are free and this audit can help you save up to 30% on your energy bill each year.  You can go to the government’s energy site to help you find someone in your area if you can’t do it on your own.  All this takes is a little time and effort and is well worth both!
2. Having a friend who works in a local home improvement store really pays off some time.  I was thinking about purchasing one of the new low-flow toilets but didn’t really want to spend the money right now.  She told me to get a 1 gallon milk jug and clean it out really good; fill it up with water and drop it in the tank.  Easy and anybody can do this!  You save 1 to 2 gallons of water per flush depending on the size plastic container you use.

If you have other great ideas, let us know.  We always like passing on money saving tips to everyone.

It was on the six o’clock news today, do it yourself repairs is making a comeback!  It seems that since all you hear on the news is about the economy sinking, we are now taking it upon ourselves to fix our own faucets, paint our own walls and plant our own flowerbeds.

I understand that there are people and companies out there that may think this is a bad idea, however, there have always been a great deal of people who prefer to do things around their houses themselves and what they learn is; there are times you should not do certain things and you learn your limits.  Everywhere you look these days you can find good instructions about how to accomplish most chores and repairs around the home but there will always be room for professionals either actually doing some or all the work or just being a consultant to those who would like to do it themselves.  Just remember to get the best information you can before starting a project and make sure you have the tools you need to complete the job.

I have just read some pretty unbelievable statistics in regard to landfills.  It is estimated that 80 of everything in our landfills are reusable material! I don’t know about you but that hit me like a rock.  I am the anti-clutter king.  I want anything I don’t use out of my shed and garage and somewhere else.  I’ve never looked at sorting the stuff into categories that can be recycled, reused or toxic, i.e. paints and fertilizers and pesticides even though I do take them to the special dumping place for those types of materials.

Now that I know the amount of stuff that is thrown in the landfill that can be used for building materials and other renewable products, I have pledged to be careful about what I toss into the trashcan.  Our family will be making trip to the scrap yard and the recycle bins on a regular basis from now on.  Just think if every family WAS like mine how much useful material has been thrown away over the years.  Now if every family changed… WE WOULD impact the world as we know it!

One of the things I deal with is the amount of shoes that are in the bottom of the closet I share with my wife.  I don’t know if all women are like this but my wife has a pair of shoes for every day of the month, plus some!  It doesn’t matter how many racks I seem to buy, the shoes always outnumber the spaces.  With this in mind I have gone out to find a solution at the local hardware store and online and WOW is all I can say!

Who knew there were so many choices in shoe storage!  Before, I just bought the normal wire shoe rack, thinking that was what was out there.  Boy was I wrong!  There are shoe cases that hang on your door; shoe drawers the hang from the clothes rack and shoes storage shelves that can be put up all over the place!  It just depends on how many shoes you have to store and the space you have available to make it happen. I am now in the process of revamping our closet with shoes in mind and am looking forward to having the floor back!

It’s funny, spring comes every year whether I’m ready or not.  There have been years that I have been ahead of the game and others where I have been way behind.  Unfortunately, this year I am behind!  So with this in mind I have set aside several weekend days coming up to get caught up.  Now this will be moved around if bad weather and ice continues so I can actually make some progress, but the main thing is setting time aside to get things prepared for springtime.

Even if you’re not into gardening or doing much outside, it is great to at least access anything that needs to be done so you can make arrangements to hire someone who can do it for you.  One of the things I see that gets neglected each year is cleaning out the gutters.  No one ever really wants to clean the gutters but it is something that can save you a good deal of maintance cost down the line if you do each year.  If nothing else, get one of those gutter systems that have screens over them to cut down on the maintance.  In the long term, you will be glad you did.

Have you ever seen something and said, “I think I could do that” and go out and try to replicate it with dismal results.  Well this happens more than you can imagine.  However, there are many ways to find out how to do things yourself if you need to save money or just want to create or build something yourself.  It may take you a little while and some energy to get it done, almost anything you want to do you can do it yourself with the right directions.

There are limits to this when you get into the professional realm.  You can find some great how to sites that also let you contribute to the site as well with writing and video or you can find some fun homemade video’s and instructions like this how to make a composter video we found on a great go green site.  Whatever you do, make sure you understand all the tools and supplies you will need before you start and read through the instructions and make sure you understand them.

There are a couple of things that everyone should do at their homes when cold weather is on the way.  The first is to make sure you have adequate insulation for your plumbing and sewage pipes and drains that may be exposed to the elements or to outside walls on your main floors but also in your basements and crawl spaces.  These are the areas that are hardest hit by the bitter cold we see coming down out of Canada.

The other area you will need to be prepared is to make sure you have adequate heating oil or propane to carry you through several days past when you think the weather might lift.  If for any reason you believe you may run out, have a backup plan of some sort.  That might be using a fireplace and having your family sleep in the room where it resides or an alternative heating source.  If that source has an open flame or can be tipped over easily, divide the night into shifts to make sure someone is always awake and watching just in case the worse happens.  There are more fires in the bitter cold than just about any other time of year so be safe first!

It seems that the beginning of the New Year is a great time to make an adjustment or two to our site.  We have had several people suggest that we expand our information beyond the storage and do-it-yourself and do some product reviews as well as more yard and gardening information.

After much thought we have decided to add more and more to the site throughout the 2009 year and hope to make this site a great place for you to find information in regard to many fun and interesting things.  We hope you like it and look forward to hearing more from you throughout the year.

Have a very safe and wonderful New Year’s Eve and join us for a great 2009!

As more and more areas are affected by drought and water restrictions in the U. S. people are turning to an old traditional practice of collecting rain water.  We have traded in the simple clay pots that have been used in many places around the world for the last 2000 years to gather water, for plastic barrels that we can hook up to our gutter system.  The practice of rainwater harvesting will only increase as water becomes more and scarce as predicted.  When you start to think of water as the most important natural resource we must have to survive, you start to understand why so many peoples through the years have taken so much care to preserve the water they have.

Up until the recent challenges, the U. S. has been insulated from many of the consequences from the lack of this crucial resource.  However, as more and more municipalities struggle with keeping pace with the population’s use of the available water, it has become extremely clear that we should do whatever we can to gather and promote water conservation that most of us can participate in with harvesting rain water.