Yep, you heard me right!  For those of us who spent many hours in a treehouse as kids, we know the benefit of having a place that sooths the soul.  There is something tranquil and peaceful being suspended in the trees so it make perfect since to me to build an office or a guesthouse up in the trees and away from the hustle and bustle of your life on earth.

Of course, you will have to get permission from the kids to share their perceived territory as well as find a good floor plan and contractor.  There are certain things that have to be taken into account like a suspended toilet and other water facilities that will need to be plumbed.  This doesn’t make it any harder or easier just a different set of circumstances.  The main thing above safety is having some fun!

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.

Those of us who have been around the repair and renovation industries have known about Angie’s List for years.  It has always been a reputable place for consumers to go and find good a good handyman service that has been recommended by other’s who have used them and I have talked about them before.  However, they now have a new service for consumers that is just as great.

The new service is to find doctors in your area that have been recommended by others.  No more guessing if the doctor you are seeing has a good or bed reputation.  You can now go to Angie’s List and find doctors that are good enough to be recommended by people just like us.  It’s a great way for good doctors to be found and a fantastic thing for us!

Take a look at all of the services you can find at Angie’s List and participate with those you know that do a great job for you!

I meet with a group of business owners and we were talking the other day about how everyone is afraid of spending money right now and one of the guys stated that we forget what spending $150.00 can do for all of us.  He went on and talked about how he recently spent around $150.00 to get his business cards printed then asked the printer in the group what he spent $170.00 on the week after that.  (Yes, it is a small town we live in!)  My printer friend said he needed a tree dug up and removed from his property because had been told it would damage his pipes in a few years.

Jack, the tree trimmer in the county then took over and said, that’s kind of funny because I took my truck in to Mac the other day to get it tuned up and it cost me a little over $190.00 to get that done.  Mac wasn’t there but the guy that works at the local newspaper and doubles as a graphic artist laughed as he said that Mac had hired him to do a flyer to pass out around town and he was charging him $125.00 to get that done.  So I looked around and realized that $150.00 dollars generated a total of $635.00 in a little over a week!  Now this could get the economy rolling again if we just understood the power of $150.00.

We feel compelled to acknowledge that most of us have been touched or know someone that has been touched by the current economic situation.  It has hit us on a personal level as my wife’s company is closing their doors in April.  At first, we thought how bad this was going to be and then after discussing it further, we decided to look at it as a blessing in disguise.  When I was growing up, my father had a saying that he used every tine things got tight, “They can’t eat you”.

No matter what else has changed, they (whoever they are) still can’t eat you.  So we choose to stay positive and encouraged by the spirit that has always prevailed in this country that says, never count us out; we will be back better than ever!  Yes, it may be hard and may take some time but we will all be better off in years to come.  We refuse to buy into the hype of doom and gloom in America because we come from those who have fought their way out of hardships much greater than this and we know a brighter future is ahead.  We will put our heads down and work toward that; an honorable goal indeed.

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.

My wife and I just learned that our dear neighbors of 24 years are about to be grandparents for the first time! This is out of character for us to use the blog for personal notes, but when we learned the news we just couldn’t help it.  There are some things in life worth stopping and celebrating, and I cannot think of a better thing to celebrate than grandparenthood. You both are going to have so much fun!

Spring is my favorite time of year. Everything’s in bloom, the world is alive again, and… it’s time to do some spring cleaning. Okay, so I love everything about Spring except that last little bit.

But spring cleaning is a ritual at our house nonetheless. We take a weekend and get out all the things we’ve accumulated and find new homes for them in our storage shed out back.

Every year, we find things in the shed we no longer want to keep, and we either donate them somewhere, or sell them in a garage sale (usually every 2 or 3 years). This always frees up the space we need to store all the wonderful new items we found we couldn’t live without. But then for the rest of the year we can feel good that we have securely and properly stored our belongings to be able to access them at any time we need them again. We get into our shed often, and we use it like a large detached walk-in closet.

I guess we’ll be picking a weekend soon to set aside for some spring cleaning. I’ll be glad when it’s over and done again, so I can get back to enjoying Spring!

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!