from Home My Heaven: Home Improvement Blog http://www.homemyheaven.co.uk/2017/03/reduce-home-heating-oil-bill.html
Bespoke kitchens, furniture makers London, have been designing, manufacturing and installing high specification bespoke kitchens London and handmade furniture London, since 1995
Wednesday, 29 March 2017
Easy Ways to Reduce your Home Heating Oil Bill
from Home My Heaven: Home Improvement Blog http://www.homemyheaven.co.uk/2017/03/reduce-home-heating-oil-bill.html
Wednesday, 22 March 2017
Monday, 20 March 2017
Friday, 17 March 2017
Top 3 Home Improvements That Can Increase Your Property Valuation
You can read more of her articles on decordecoratinganddesign.com.
from Home My Heaven: Home Improvement Blog http://www.homemyheaven.co.uk/2017/03/top-home-improvements.html
How to Avoid Hiring Cowboy Builders
Sometimes when you are looking in the telephone book or online for a contractor, it can seem like you are playing a game of Russian roulette. You don’t know if you are really calling a professional tradesperson to come to your home or business to do a repair or construction job or if you are contacting a cowboy builder that will end up ripping you off in some way.
If you are looking for a contractor to perform construction and/or trade work for you, here is how you can make sure you avoid hiring a cowboy builder.Ask for Builders’ Insurance Information
A reputable builder will normally carry a copy of the builders’ insurance policy information on them or in their vehicle. This type of insurance is invaluable as it protects you and your property from damage resulting from the work the builder is performing for you. You need to make sure the insurance policy covers the type of work they intend to do for you.
If a builder does not have this information on them, you should demand a copy of the policy terms before you allow them to start work and before you give them money for any reason like buying supplies and materials.
It may also help to read up on what insurance builders require so you know what to look for when hiring.
Ask about Trade Association Memberships
Builders and contractors often belong to trade associations that provide them with things like on-going training programs and industry connections they can call whenever they have a problem or issue. Find out if the builder belongs to any associations and get the name and contact information of the associations.
Builder and trade associations seek to protect the reputations of the organisations by not allowing disreputable people or companies from becoming or staying a member. You should check with any associations the builder claims to belong to and verify the builders’ standing and reputation. You should also check with industry oversight organisations such as Trading Standard and TrustMark to make sure the builder is in good standing and that there are not any complaints lodged against them.
References
A reputable builder will always have good references that they can give you to provide details on the type of work they have done for others. The references should include a contact name, telephone number, address, and the type of work performed. You need to call the references to make sure they are not fictitious. You should also ask a reference or two if you can come by sometime soon before the builder starts working for you so you can personally check out the work they did for the people providing the reference.
Online Reviews
There are websitesin the UK that focus on online reviews from consumers about builders and contractors. The reviews are done by people who have had a relationship with a company and can give their honest assessment about what they thought about the work and the cost of the work. The websites are good to use to track down information on the builder you are considering using for your project at your home or business. If the builder you are considering using has a lot of bad reviews, you’ll want to avoid using them.
The nice thing about these website reviews is that you’ll also be able to read reviews about builders who do great work for a good price. If the builder you are considered using doesn’t seem to live up to what they have promised others, you can call one of the other builders with good reviews to have them perform the work for you.
If you want to stay secure, check on the things listed above to make sure you are not hiring a cowboy builder who will most likely rip you off.
from Home My Heaven: Home Improvement Blog http://www.homemyheaven.co.uk/2017/03/how-to-avoid-hiring-cowboy-builders.html
5 Qualities to Look for in a Carpenter
Looking to hire a professional to work in your personal abode can be daunting, especially since workers will be most likely be coming in and out of your home. There are many attributes of a craftsperson that you need to be on the lookout for if nothing but the best will do.
Being skilful at the craft goes beyond saying. A carpenter should be good at what he or she does, be exemplary at mathematics to equate all the measurements involved in the project, and be current on technologies that are used in the field.
But what other qualities should a home owner seek out in a potential carpenter?
- Credentials
- Dedication
- Honesty/Communication
- Strength
- Fair Pricing
from Home My Heaven: Home Improvement Blog http://www.homemyheaven.co.uk/2017/03/qualities-carpenter.html
Saturday, 11 March 2017
Thursday, 9 March 2017
I Made a Thing… Now What? (Paint Stick Project)
I did a thing. And I also don’t know what to do with it now. Tray? Art? Not sure yet.
It started as a surplus of paint sticks to craft with as a goof while watching TV (crafting keeps my hands busy and mindless snacking to a minimum). I didn’t have a plan, and I was betting on it not really panning out. But as it took shape, I realized it could be used for any number of things: put magnets on the back, hang keys from it with little hooks, make it into a sign, and more…
It seems kind of strange to create something and then have too many options for it, but I basically got it finished up to a point, and can’t make a decision on the last step. So, I’m a little curious: what would you do with it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you want to make this… um… thingie, yourself, what you’ll need is a simple list of supplies (some are affiliates, which help support this site at no cost to you, but the FTC says I gotta share that disclosure with ya first):
Materials
- Safety glasses
- Pencil
- Paint stir sticks
- Miter box and saw
- Dremel or sandpaper (you could do without, but it makes sanding in the grooves much easier)
- Stainable wood glue
- Stainable wood filler
- Wood Stain (you know I like to mix my own, but I love ZAR products, but modern walnut is a favorite)
- Sealer
- Trim (I used some pre-primed stuff left over from another project)
- White paint
- Dealer’s choice: Magnets? Hooks? A small brush to do some hand lettering? A stencil?
Instructions
Because I never expected it to turn into something other than an activity to do while watching TV over the holidays, I didn’t actually have photos of the first few steps (I know, I know… bad blogger!). But it’s probably pretty straightforward just by looking at the pictures I do have (and you can scroll a little further down to step 3 to see the back side).
Step 1 – Gather a heaping pile of 1-gallon paint sticks (you know the kind – the stuff people use for amazing crafts like this). I find that Home Depot is more generous with these than Lowe’s, but that’s just my experience. If you’re like me, you would have gathered them over time from the home improvement store with the intention of doing a completely different (and bigger) project and ran out of steam. Such is the DIY life.
Get bored one night with the desire to make a craft. Maybe you’ve had a beer or two? I don’t know your life. (P.S. Rogue actually sent me a few to “try”… thanks guys!)
Step 2 – Put on safety glasses and sit on your bedroom floor with your supplies, fully aware that you are going to have to clean this up later (but, that’s Sober You’s problem). If you care about it, you might put a sheet or plastic underneath you to prevent stuff from getting into your carpet… because if you wind up sawing paint sticks on the floor, even if you try to be as tidy as possible, you will make a mess.
Step 3 – In my case, I had already cut the ends off of some of the sticks (just to get rid of the handle part) as well as several more at 45-degree angles for the previous project that I abandoned. Since these were unintended leftovers, I just grabbed the wood glue and first made a square frame (sophisticated graphic below for visual help). If you work it so that one end is always the first edge of the next side, it will form a square frame.
Step 4 -To help support the top layer of sticks, add a middle piece to the frame (this one has to be trimmed a little with the miter box before it will fit).
I also added a back piece for extra support for hanging, should I ever decide to hang it.
Since this was the part where I didn’t know if I was making a thing or not, I’ll just show you the back of the frame for reference (which again, sorry… I took pictures once I started to sand and stain in the garage).
Step 5 -Start playing around with placement before gluing, or just begin without a plan; this is not a high-risk project. I wanted lines going at all different angles so just started at a random spot and fanned out from there. To get the right cut, mark things from the back side and cut each piece manually on the miter box. Glue, cut, glue, cut.
Step 3 – Once the whole piece is filled in, reinforce the back with leftover bits that didn’t make the cut on the front (hopefully, this informs why it looks so weird on the back!). Then, fill in any small gaps with stainable wood filler, let dry, and sand.
Pick a stain, any stain. Then seal.
For a finishing touch, I added some leftover mitered trim to the edge. And voilà : a thing that I don’t know what to do with yet.
I took photos of my project blank, not knowing what to do with it next, but because of the extra piece on the back, I can either hang it on the wall or lay it flat on a table (the trim around the edge is even with the piece on the back so that it won’t wobble). I think I’m going to leave it as-is for now. Plus, the staged photos above will work great as my own personal stock/prop photos if I do a giveaway, etc). Here are my thoughts on other future uses so far:
- add magnets to the back to hold items like keys or whatever (similar to how you’d make a magnetic key older like this)
- add hooks to hang things and mount on a wall
- coat with salad bowl finish to make it food safe, and use it at your next party to display food or as a trivet
- add a stencil to the front to make it look more like “art”
- add a small mirror to the front and hang
- use it as a tray for my jewelry
- burn it with fire (no, I’m not actually going to do this, but if I asked 100 people what to do with something that had no intended purpose, at least one person would suggest throwing it away)
Do you have a different suggestion than my list above? I’d love to hear it!
The post I Made a Thing… Now What? (Paint Stick Project) appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.
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from The Ugly Duckling House http://www.uglyducklinghouse.com/diy-paint-stick-art-tray/
Sunday, 5 March 2017
How Smart is your Smart Meter
What is a smart meter and how do they work?
How smart is your smart meter?
How does my smart meter work?
The benefits of installing a smart meter
Rolling out smarter meters
What will my smart meter cost me?
Can I say no to my smart meter?
What is the evidence smart meters can help?
from Home My Heaven: Home Improvement Blog http://www.homemyheaven.co.uk/2017/03/How-Smart-Meter.html
The Different Types of Paving for Outdoor Landscaping
Natural Stone
Slate
Concrete Paving
Gravel and Stone Chips
Brick Paving
from Home My Heaven: Home Improvement Blog http://www.homemyheaven.co.uk/2017/03/different-types-paving.html
Wednesday, 1 March 2017
It’s WAR!
Have you ever had a clip from a childhood cartoon stuck in your head? The kind where you can almost make out the context of why this odd little clip of some kind of person (animal?) shouting “It’s WAAAARRRR!” repeatedly is forever burned into your long-term memory, but then you go looking for it on the internet, and realize you have too little information to locate the clip to include in your blog post?
I digress. But anyway, as the title implies: it’s freaking war, folks. Meet the latest little guy in a series of assholes to decide that my house is their new BFF and food source:
What’s happening here: apparently the fixes I paid for last year on my chimney didn’t get fixed enough… or perhaps some was fixed, but other parts were not, leaving the stuff that wasn’t to still suffer from wood rot over the winter. I’m guessing on all of this, because this area is literally over my head and I have to make my best educated guess before I devise a plan of attack.
Well, not actual attack. Because that would be a crime.
Woodpeckers are a federally protected species as a migratory bird (and endangered, though you wouldn’t guess such a thing when they’re waking you up). Last I checked though, chucking a pine cone in their vicinity to get them off my house isn’t lethal (especially since the wind resistance of a pine cone makes them difficult to target accurately), so I’m good there.
Annoyed — because they come back after a little while to start chowing down again — but good.
The most annoying part? The chimney area runs directly behind the wall in my master bedroom… the wall that I put the bed and my headboard against. Meaning that a series of irritated, persistent tap-tap-tapping is how I have been waking up for the last week. Which then makes Charlie bolt upright from her dog bed, and then sometimes start barking thinking it’s the front door, and a general mix of chaos and rage ensues.
It would be funny if I weren’t so tired.
I think it’s a wood rot/insect situation mainly because of the areas they’re going after. It doesn’t seem like a territory thing, and there are plenty of pine trees around for shelter (which are other possible reasons why woodpeckers make all that noise; sometimes, it’s not for food, but I think it is in my case). Every year, I have issues with carpenter bees because the house has wood siding, and you also remember that freaking squirrel, so this is just the latest in a long, long list of dealing with pests and my home.
This is basically the price one pays for having a cedar home. It’s charming, but pests are abundant, and winter isn’t always kind… especially if the previous fix wasn’t done correctly or completely. If I could afford to replace the siding entirely, I would, but I don’t think that’s in the cards anytime soon. So, I keep fixing smaller stuff.
As you can probably guess, this means that this spring, I’m going to embark on a new series of how to deal with woodpeckers. Some folks on my personal Facebook have already advised I try aluminum tape, mylar balloons stapled to the house (house bling! score! not tacky at all!), a sticky substance that’s said to make it really gross for them to attach themselves to (which also sounds gross for me to clean up after), give them suet in a different spot in the back yard to keep them from the house, and of course, figuring out if it really is a bug thing that I have to solve first, and then hope the WP’s go away after the area is treated.
It’s going to be an interesting learning experience to see what works and what doesn’t, but I think I can handle it. I’ve got my war paint ready.
The post It’s WAR! appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.
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from The Ugly Duckling House http://www.uglyducklinghouse.com/war-on-woodpeckers/