Tips For Homemakers

If you have looked around in Home Depot or Lowe’s in the flooring department, you have probably seen the peel and stick twelve inch squares.  I do remodeling and cleaning for someone and look for easy and quick remedies to correct the messes that tenants have made.

These tiles range from 36 cent to 99 cent per square at my Home Depot.  I particularly like the parquet-looking squares which were 75 cents per square.  There are real dark looking wood and then the lighter wood.  They are so quick and easy to install and if one gets damaged in the future, you just pull it up and put another one down.   Just be sure to fit them together snugly (like a puzzle fit)  so they don’t have room to slide yet not so tight that the flooring will buckle.

Cutting the squares is easy, too.  Just use a box cutter and cut across the top of the square.   All you need to do is score the top and then bend the square and it will break apart.  I have a large wooden cutting board that I lie the square on and then use a ruler to make the straight line.

I put the peel and stick squares in my bathroom this past weekend and it cost less than 20 dollars.  I was struggling to make the perfect cut around my toilet and bathroom cabinet so my husband volunteered to remove both.  I am so glad he did because the job looks perfect now.

Be sure and remove the baseboards.  The baseboards can cover a multitude of errors.  lol

Have fun…I love my new look in my bathroom.

I have been really busy lately, thus the lack of writing on this blog.

I have been doing some interior painting and my husband was trying to help.  I realized there are some tips I gave him that I could share with others.

First, painting is rolling paint on the wall….not scrubbing or pressing real hard.  When he painted with a brush, the brush looked like he had been scrubbing with it.

Another thing, when you start to roll paint on the wall make sure you start in the center of the wall.  If you start at the top or bottom, it is harder to spread the extra paint.  Your roller is full of paint and you need to spread it evenly.

I put newspaper down around the bottom of the floor.  It worked well because if I dripped paint, I could just lift the newspaper up and throw it away so I didn’t step in it and then track it on the carpet.  Also, I found I could push down on the newspaper around the edge and get down further on the bottom of the wall where the baseboard was going to cover.

The black sponges (that look like fudgsicles except smaller) work great for the trim work.  They get into the small little corners and work really well for window frames, too.  There are at least three different sizes and one fit perfectly for the inside of the window.

Keep a wet paper towel or two handy, too.  If you do drip on the floor or carpet, immediately wipe it up.  The semi-gloss latex scrapes right up off the floor if it turns into a dried spot. But the carpet needs a lot of water to get it up and not leave some residue.

That’s about all for now…I love painting.  Everything looks so fresh and new.

My husband pulled the drawstring out of his pajama bottoms accidentally and was busy apologizing for ruining his pajamas. Little did he know, I can repair that problem. Once I fixed it, he immediately said I should list it in my blog.

I take a safety pin and hook it to the end of the string and push it through the opening on one side. Be careful to push at the bottom of the pin, not on the side. If you push on the side, you take the chance of making the pin open up while in the tract which presents a bigger problem.

Be sure and push it an inch or so and then pull the material back. You will see what I mean when you start doing it. The material is gathered so you are stretching the material while holding on to the pin. It is best not to let go of the pin.

Then once you get all the way through, pull the drawstring out and remove the pin. Then I tie a knot on each end of the drawstring so it is too fat to be pulled through again.

I used a $6.99 bottle of gel drain cleaner and still had a clogged sink. I went online and found a solution with items most people have in their home.

You take 1/4 cup of baking soda and pour down your drain. Mine didn’t want to go down since the edge of the drain was wet. I added a small amount of water to flush it down. Then I added a cup of vinegar. Boy, did it bubble!!!!! I used the plunger, too.

I did it a couple of times since it was really clogged up.

It worked better than the expensive drain cleaner.

Our dogs are outside dogs but I cannot help but feel sorry for them when they are in the driving rain. They have shelter but it seems two of them don’t want to get into the same shelter even though one shelter is 4×8 foot. Go figure.

A quick solution is to put up a (PUP, ha ha) tent. It was $17.96 for a 5×6 foot floor area. Two of the three dogs got into it immediately and took an afternoon nap. My third dog is older and just wants to be left alone so I am sure she will end up in the 4×8 ft shelter.

Even if you don’t want to use the tent as any type of permanent solution, it is great to have if you just need some shade when the trees lose their leaves.

Do you hate flipping through your coupons at the grocery store? I sure do.

I found if I use an envelope to make my grocery list on and then put all my coupons in the envelope, it works great. By looking through my coupons at home, it reminds me that I need some items, too.

It really helps to only clip coupons that you use on a regular basis or if you have been wanting to try an item.

I occasionally make pancakes from scratch and they are very good but not that much better than the “complete” pancake mixes you buy.

My mom makes really good pancakes and part of the reason is because she adds vanilla flavoring and melted butter to the “complete” mix. I make enough for two people and I usually add a teaspoon of vanilla and maybe two teaspoons of melted butter. Then I also add some wheat bran. You can buy that in the cereal aisle. Just add a couple tablespoons of it though.

You will find you won’t get hungry so fast when you add the wheat bran. The butter and vanilla flavoring really add to the flavor. yummy

I recently visited NC and my sister, Sandy had some pecan trees growing in her yard in unwanted areas. I think the squirrels are the culprits or just a strong wind blowing the pecans everywhere. Well, I hate to see a tree go to waste so I asked her if I could dig them up.

I borrowed my sister, Wanda’s red rectangular bucket without realizing it is her husband’s car washing bucket. Sorry, Mike. I will return it in August.

Make sure you dig the tree up carefully without damaging the roots. It is always best to try to get enough dirt around the tree’s roots that they are undisturbed but in my case, I decided to try something different since the dirt was unwanted in my two week old car.

I filled the bucket half way with water and then dropped the small trees into the bucket roots first, of course. My trip is 10 hours so I knew I wouldn’t be planting the trees until the following day.

One of the trees is producing new leaves so I know at least one will make it out of the six I brought. Three of them had damaged roots so I suspect they probably won’t make it but I planted them anyway.

I also noticed plenty more crepe myrtles growing along the ditch. Some of them are only a foot tall with blooms on them. My husband has taken a couple days off and he will be digging in the ditches, that’s for sure. With me, of course. lol

My husband told me he found another use for Windex. He has one of those watches with an elastic band that you just slip on your wrist. After awhile the band starts looking dull and I am sure there is some dead skin getting in there. He sprayed the Windex on the band and wiped it clean. It was so much easier than soaking it and then scrubbing it with a toothbrush.

I was at the grocery store the other day and I was delighted to see some beautiful peaches in the produce isle. But much to my dismay, they were hard. Needless to say, I was talking to a stranger, as usual, telling her how I wanted some soft peaches. She told me that if I put the peaches in a brown paper bag and let them sit for 24 hours, they would become soft. Now, I didn’t try this yet because I did manage to find four soft peaches that day so I haven’t tried it yet, but I wanted to pass this idea on to you guys.

August 10…I have tried this a couple times now.  It definitely works.