Clean Air For The Holidays
November 20, 2007 | Leave a Comment
You Are What You Breathe
I hope that statement is not true. So what kind of interesting things do you think we breathe at home? Airborne particles are found in every home and include smoke, dust, pet dander, mold spores, dust mites, or pollen. These particles that are floating in the air that flows through our homes are for the most part very small. They vary in size from about 0.03 to 100 microns in size. So what is a micron? Well let’s put it into perspective. The average diameter of a human hair is 50 microns. As you can see, many of these particles are tiny.
Clean It Up
What would you think is the best way to improve the air quality in our homes? You guessed it, Change the filter on the HVAC system on a regular basis. There are a multitude of different types of filters on the market today. Everything from the inexpensive fiberglass filters to more costly electrostatically charged filters. Only you can decide which is best for your needs. Just remember the smaller sized particles could pass right through a standard fiberglass fiter and circulate back into the air you breath. It is recommended that the air filters in our homes be changed every 3 months to improve our air quality. If there has been a remodeling project in your home, you may want to change the filters more often to help clean the air quicker. This would also help in keeping the house cleaner from dust.
The Holidays Are Here
Why not welcome your holiday guests with cleaner air by changing the air filters in your home? Wouldn’t now be a great time to get on the quarterly schedule? Happy Holidays!
Atlanta Insulated Concrete Forms
September 13, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Over the last several days I have had the priviledge of meeting Bill Brown and examining first hand a project he is working on utilizing Insulated Concrete Forms. The first time I ever saw this type product in use was on HGTV with a room addition project and that has several years ago. Looking at the product you see the best of both construction worlds with concrete and rebar for rigidity and strength and expanded polystyrene for energy efficiency and sound attenuation. These are just some of the key benefits of Isulated Concrete Forms.
With all emphasis being put on ecologically and enviornmentally friendly construction practices in today’s building industry, it seems to make perfect sense for builders and homeowners alike to examine using this technology. While it may be slightly more expensive than traditional methods, the cost could easliy be amortized and recovered via the energy savings.
Finishing A Basement
March 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Having lived in Atlanta for most of my adult life, I have been exposed to basements and how they can be utilized to create addition space for homeowners. Recently several clients who are relocating to the metro Atlanta area from coastal areas have posed questions about basements and numerous questions about finishing a basement.
Finishing a basement is very similar to most other remodeling projects, with the exception that for this project your contractor should get a building permit from the county. By being permitted, your project will be inspected by the county to make certain that it is being built to current code.
The most important part of a project of this nature is to have a clear mental picture of what you want to do with the various spaces that are creating in the finished basement. You must then communicate to the contractor what you want and the contractor must communicate back with you and make additional suggestions toward refining the space. You should find that after a few conversations with your contractor you are both on the same sheet and the project can begin.
It’s Spring Cleaning Time
March 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment
So much for the indoor projects, spring is here so let’s get outside. A little bit of work now will yield itself to a spring, summer and fall of outdoor beauty. First of all take a walk around your home. Survey the areas that are in need of attention. Do the flower beds need to be cleaned out? Are trees and shrubs in need of pruning? Is it time for the deck or walkways and driveway to be pressure washed? OK, that should be enough to get you started.
Now for some must do projects. Without turning this into a political forum, I must let you know that I am definitely in favor of the death penalty for weeds. Give your lawn a fighting chance by applying a pre-emergent weed control. Also remember that your lawn is very hungry. A slow release fertilizer will help the grass to wake up when it’s time to grow. If you have an irrigation system, check for leaks or broken sprinkler heads. If you manually water, check your sprinklers for proper operation.
Well, have I left out any must do outdoor spring cleaning projects? Let me know what projects you think are most important.
Easy Remodeling Project
February 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment
How about a quick, easy and inexpensive remodeling project? Look around you home for dirty or soiled HVAC registers and air returns. Replacing them is very easy and fortunately, inexpensive. Just measure the size of the opening to obtain the replacement size that you need. Pay a visit to your favorite home improvement store such as Home Depot or Lowe’s and pick up the replacements. In a very short time you will see a cleaner more appealing appearance of the areas replaced. To make this project even easier use a portable drill to remove and replace the screws that hold the registers in. When painting a room go ahead and replace the registers to make the entire room look clean and fresh.
Do you have any quick and easy home remodeling projects that you would like to share? Feel free to add them in the comments section below.
How Much Paint?
January 15, 2007 | 1 Comment
Recently my wife purchased new bedding for our Master Bedroom. As we all know, one project leads to another project and so on and so on. Well the new bedding lead to a painting project.
If you have ever repainted a room you need to know how much paint to buy. The paint calculator at Behr Paint is very helpful with determining how much paint to buy. Of course you will also need to use good quality brushes and rollers for the detail work and the walls.
The painting project is complete. Now for the question, “How much paint does a good brush or roller hold”? Personally I don’t know the answer. What I do know is that it seems to be a lot, especially the roller covers. Clean up seemed to take forever. The paint continued to come out of the cover as it was washed over and over again.
OK the clean up venting is over. The room looks great and my wife is happy with it, after all that’s what matters.
Crown Moulding A Love Hate Relationship
December 19, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Have you ever walked into a room and noticed how classy the room looks because it has crown moulding. For that look to appear there had to be an experienced craftsman involved. My son and daughter-in-law, who are expecting in February wanted to dress up the babies room and crown moulding was one of the upgrades. Being the perfectionist that we are and of course wanting every thing just right for the babies room, we began our research. Joseph Fusco has an excellent article on how to cut crown moulding.
We read Joseph’s article and went wow! Let’s see, to install about $45.00 worth of crown moulding we are going to need to buy nails, caulk, paint and a $300.00 power compound mitre saw. The alternative was to attempt to use a coping saw and cut the contours on to one of the pieces of moulding. Neither of us felt comfortable about the coping saw. There has got to be another method for us to explore. Hark, let’s check out the Do It Yourself Network site. The magic answer appeared in the form of precut inside corner blocks. You just nail them into the corner and then cut the crown moulding straight at the ends and butt it up to the corner blocks. By utilizing the corner blocks you eliminate the difficult mitre cuts and turn this into a project that almost any homeowner can do. The corner blocks are available at most home improvement stores.
Now to the crown moulding purist this may not be the preffered method to install crown moulding, but for the homeowner looking to dress up a room it makes a viable alternative.
