Author: Katelyn Thomas

Sometimes, we have to leave a house vacant because a move happens before we sell. Other times, it is an estate issue. After seeing several people try to strip my neighbor’s house, which hasn’t been settled on, but is vacant and under contract, I realized that, even in nice neighborhoods, a vacant house might as well have a neon “Please vandalize me!” sign flashing out front. So, what do you do when you have to leave a house vacant?

• Get insurance – There is insurance for vacant homes and, if you don’t have it and you move away, your current policy may not cover your empty house. When my house was empty for several weeks between my “I so don’t want to be a landlord anymore!” epiphany and the sale of the home, I got a special, slightly more expensive policy.
• Consider a security system – The system will discourage a lot of potential vandals from even trying to break in and will scare most of the rest of them away.
• Ask for help – Enlist a reliable neighbor to keep an eye on the place and ask him or her to call the police if kids or strangers are loitering around. Specifically state that no one is authorized to be on the property and that you’ll notify the neighbor if you do expect anyone to come by. This way, your neighbor won’t be left to wonder if perhaps you did authorize someone to come in with a pickup truck and take away all the porch furniture and anything else that wasn’t nailed down.

Photo: K. Thomas

Post from: Blisstree

Tips for Leaving a House Vacant

I don’t know what it is about snow. Places that really get a lot, like Minnesota, and actually need to go to the store to get toilet paper and milk before a big snow aren’t filled with panicking shoppers. But in warmer places, people flock to the stores and buy every drop of milk, every loaf of bread and every roll of toilet paper. The shelves will literally be bare within a few hours. So, how do you opt out of the snow day madness? You prepare ahead of time. With a few simple purchases around October or November, you can be ready for a big snow storm. Then you can sit at home enjoying all the dramatic television footage of people rushing into stores to get the staples.

So what do you need?

• Yeast
• Bread flour (and ideally, bread machine!)
• Powdered eggs
• Powdered milk
• Several gallons of purified water
• Big pack of toilet paper
• At least a week’s extra of any essential medications
• Cocoa (So can’t come in from a romp in the snow to discover you are out!)

Stuff the pack of toilet paper under a bed so people don’t snitch it when you are almost out of your regular supply, stick the other items on a storm supply shelf in the pantry and you’re all set.

Are you a frantic “Aghh! I saw a flake!” shopper or a laid back “Oh, how pretty!” kind of person?

photo: SXC

Post from: Blisstree

Be Prepared for Snow Days and Skip the Grocery Store

A few years ago, I had a Mimosa tree. Because butterflies absolutely adored it and would literally cover its blossoms each summer, I was heartbroken when it died. However, in a last ditch effort to ensure Mimosas did not become extinct, it threw all its remaining energy into making baby Mimosas. Since I still had extensive gardens at the time, there were a lot of leafy bushes and I had trouble finding all those babies during the spring and summer months. Once there was a light blanket of snow on the ground and bushes were devoid of leaves, I could see the little guys very easily. (Mimosas don’t transplant well, so I couldn’t dig them up to give to people, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to find a few thousand people in my area dying to have a new tree anyway.)

Winter weeding like this is actually a great thing to do, since you will also be able to note where you could really have used an evergreen bush and make a few plans for setting up new gardens next year. It also gives you a chance to just get out and enjoy your garden at a time when you usually just huddle indoors and count down the days to spring. You may just find that you discover a whole new beauty in your flower beds, too. I saw the most amazing lacey seed head remains, frosty rocks and other things that were just lovely in my winter gardens.

The best thing about working on your garden in the winter, though, has got to be the fact that you aren’t as likely to get bitten by ticks, mosquitoes and other buggy varmints! Almost pest free gardening. Now that’s the life!

Do you work on your gardens in the winter?

Photo of dying tree by K Thomas

Post from: Blisstree

Winter Gardening Tip

Take out is usually a great way to blow your grocery budget, but when you are tired and don’t want to think about doing 15 minutes of menu planning and an hour of prep work, take out happens. To keep yourself from ordering take out a couple times a week when you are running late, why not try some of these shortcuts that can help you get a delicious meal on the table fast?

1. Buy all the ingredients for fast and easy meals and keep them on hand. One example is soft taco shells, shredded Mexican cheese, frozen corn and beans and a package of pre-seasoned taco turkey. Freeze your turkey, corn and beans, put the shells and cheese in the fridge and you’ve got the ingredients for an emergency meal that goes from freezer to table in under an hour.
2. Use a service like Let’s Dish or Suddenly Suppers to create a few weeks of “from scratch” meals and pop them in the freezer. They are a bit more expensive than grocery store sales combined with coupons, but they are usually cheaper than dinner out.
3. Make your own frozen meals during holidays or other times you cook too much food. I like to plate up five Thanksgiving dinners and use my vacuum sealer to get rid of all the extra air so the meals freeze well.
4. Have breakfast or lunch for dinner. Sometimes, serving eggs, waffles and sausage can be a nice break. Most people with half empty pantries still have breakfast food in the fridge and freezer.
5. Use a site like Recipe Key to help you throw together a meal using your pantry ingredients.

Photo: SXC

Post from: Blisstree

Five Shortcuts to Keep You From Reaching for the Take Out Menus

I was looking at pictures of houses for sale the other day and came across a cute idea that was…poorly executed. A child’s bedroom had her handprints on the walls. Except they were red and the paint was a little drippy. I’ll leave my first thought to your imagination. I’m pretty sure that house is going to be on the market til someone gets in there with a roller and some nice primer. Anyway, I imagined this idea done with non toxic pink, blue, yellow, or other gentler paint colors and I realized it would be a lot of fun.

One great way to use handprints on the wall would be to make a foot high strip of white down the center of the wall. Then, let your children create their own “wallpaper border” around the room with their handprints. You could also try framing a section of the wall to make a “canvas” for the kids to add a rainbow of handprints to.

If you want to create a keepsake and make a colorful mural at the same time, try buying a large blank canvas and hanging it on the wall. Then, you can help your children add their handprints to it each year to create a hand growth chart.

Do you let your kids get creative with their walls?

Photo: SXC

Post from: Blisstree

Fun Kids Mural Idea

One of the loveliest photos I’ve ever taken was of an ice covered snow branch after a particularly big storm. I took it from my porch because the ice was too slippery to walk on. Ever since then, I’ve been taking pictures of snowy branches, icicles, etc and printing them in black and white. These snowy scenes make lovely art for the walls.

To take your own snowy photos to create black and white art, you should:

• Try to create a frame for the photo. Shooting through a v in a tree’s branches or having branches framing one side of a snowy scene can add interest.
• Think about settings. Unless you want a grainy look, like an old fashioned movie still, you’ll want to shoot with the lowest possible ISO and plenty of light. (Your automatic setting should help you out if you are using a digital camera.)
• Have fun. You can take a ton of photos with digital cameras without spending anything but some battery juice, so go ahead and be creative.

Don’t feel like you can make decent art for your walls with your own camera? You can. Really. However, if you don’t want to try, Snowflake Bentley has you covered with some beautiful public domain snowflake images.

Photo: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce

Post from: Blisstree

Snowed In? Make Art for the Walls

I was thinking the other day about how big an impact scents have on our holidays. We all smell Christmas trees and cinnamon around the winter holidays and are reminded right away of special Christmas memories. But what scents should we fill our homes with for Valentines Day?

• Chocolate – Oh, yes. Gooey, rich “I’m working in a candy factory” chocolate. I once worked a few weeks in a Wockenfuss candy store as holiday help and the smell was just heavenly. (Although by the end of my short stay, I had no desire for chocolate. Luckily, it was a temporary aberration!) A nice chocolate candle on a candle warmer will do if you don’t feel like cooking, but you could also try baking a nice batch of brownies. Mmm.
• Roses – If the person you love has gifted you with a few dozen, you don’t need anything else. For those of you who don’t have a house that looks like a bouquet convention, candles, potpourri, or some nice scented room sprays should do the trick.
• Cinnamon – Those spicy little red hot candies that are such a part of our Valentines Day celebrations have a spicy cinnamon scent that make us think love and romance. Try cinnamon sticks, cinnamon water simmering on the stove, or candles. (Make sure you don’t leave the cinnamon water unattended!)
• Strawberries – That sweet strawberry scent is perfect, especially when you mix it with hints of chocolate. Candles again, of course!

What scents remind you of Valentines Day?

Photo: SXC

Post from: Blisstree

Valentines Day Scents

I have an art studio and I painted it a warm white because it is huge and I figured the white color would make the most of the light and would make a neutral backdrop while I was working. But I keep seeing all those makeovers on HGTV or DIY where they paint art studios and craft rooms in very bold colors. It made me wonder if I was missing something, so I asked the Valspar color experts what the best palette choices were for enhancing creativity.

Ann suggests choosing the Warm Glow collection. She recommends a warm white for most of the room (Pause a second so I can enjoy the I did it right feeling…) and to add color to some areas in the space. For example, she suggests painting an alcove chocolate brown and using it as a place to hang work. The chocolate brown shows off artwork well. She says that many people with a bathroom adjoining the space will paint it a rich pink or deep orange color. If you don’t have an alcove, Ann recommends painting a five foot wide stripe down an area to create a space to hang artwork.

Sue mentions that people with general purpose craft rooms often go with some of the Warm Glow colors on the walls instead of a warm white. Many of them favor peach and sage. She says one fun thing to try is to frame one wall with six to nine inches of neutral paint and then use color in the center. She says it makes a great accent wall to show off hobbies and crafts.

Photo: SXC

Post from: Blisstree

Craft Room or Art Studio Colors

Do you do a lot of laundry? If you have kids or pets, the answer is probably yes. I know I do quite a few loads over the course of a week. Since laundry involves a lot of electricity, water and detergent, I’ve been looking into thrifty laundry tips. There are a lot of really complicated things you can do, but people with kids and pets often don’t have time for complicated. I was only interested in tips that seemed pretty easy to do. Here are my favorite:

• Don’t use the heat setting to dry jeans, rugs, or big towels. I actually put down a piece of linoleum and put a drying rack on it to dry my jeans and rugs. I toss jeans in the dryer on the air setting for a few minutes to “fluff” them after they are dry. Before that, I was sometimes running the dryer for an hour to get the jeans dry.
• Cut dryer sheets and dye catcher sheets in half. I have had no problems doing this and it is nice to have a box last twice as long as it used to.
• Use Borax to make laundry detergent more effective if you have hard water. I’ve noticed clothing seems to be holding up better, too, after adding a bit to every load, so I think it is worth the added expense.

What is your favorite thrifty laundry tip?

Photo: amazon.com

Post from: Blisstree

Thrifty Laundry Tips

My house doesn’t have a lot of closets on the first floor. There’s an under the stairs pantry area, but nowhere to stick all the brooms, vacuums and other stuff. I hated having everything just sit there out in the open, though. It looked so messy and everyone who visited would feel like they were interrupting me in the middle of vacuuming. “Are you sure? I can stop back in an hour…”

Then one day, I was staring blankly at an empty nook in front of me and being mildly irritated by the vacuum off to the side while I was working on some interview questions. A light bulb went off in my head and the interview question I was in the middle of formulating, which I’m sure would have been hard hitting and thought provoking, was forgotten. A nook, a vacuum…All I needed was a screen and I’d have a portable broom closet. I found a screen that matched the room’s decor, put all the brooms and vacuums in the nook and pulled the screen in front of it. The cleaning tools are out of sight, but still easily accessible and I am thrilled.

Pretty obvious, huh? Since it took me five years to realize the solution was staring me right in the face, though, I thought I’d share it with you.

Photo via amazon.com

Post from: Blisstree

Use a Screen to Create a Broom Closet

If you have kids or have kids coming to visit and you don’t have a cozy spot for them to curl up with a good book, you’re missing out on a great way to encourage reading. Even children with no interest in reading can be tempted to flip through an enticing picture book or two when they’re tucked away on a window seat behind a curtain. A little private nook is the perfect place to daydream, explore new worlds and discover fascinating characters you’ll love for a lifetime.

The perfect book nook is very comfortable to curl up in, has plenty of light, either from a window or a pin up lamp on the wall and is a bit secluded. Mine is a window seat between two cupboards in the upstairs hall. It has some overstuffed cushions on it and a bookshelf filled with the best picture books and chapter books is very close by. I usually will leave a book or two casually on the window seat to attract attention.

My grandmother’s nook was in a hallway, too. It was a delicate little upholstered lady’s chair that was just the right size for a child to curl up in. The light poured into the space from a set of windows that ran across the wall. A basket of shabby books my mom used to read was positioned right beside it. You could look down through the loft railing at all the activity below, but it was hard for anyone to see you tucked back in that little corner.

Do you have a book nook for kids to read in at your house?

Photo: SXC

Post from: Blisstree

Set Up a Book Nook

All those homilies about starting at the bottom and working your way up? They don’t apply to cleaning your house. In fact, if you do start at the bottom, you’re going to reach the top, look down and realize you have to start all over again because every time you clean the step above, dust and dirt fall onto the step you’ve just cleaned.

I clearly remember being a puzzled child with a sponge in my hand and listening to my mom explain that if I wanted to help her clean the steps, I had to go to the very top to start cleaning and work my way down. I sort of assumed everyone had a similar experience and all grown ups knew to start at the top with cleaning. Then, I worked at a job with a janitor who was new to the profession and possibly had never cleaned before. He was pretty bummed out to discover that the steps were still dirty when he was done.

So, if you are new to cleaning a house or building, here are a few tips to help you get it done right:

• Begin with dusting the ceiling and ceiling fans or light fixtures hanging from it. I have yet to clean a really dusty fan without seeing a bit of dust fall onto the floor and probably never will.
• Clean the walls. This way, it doesn’t matter if you drip water on the floor or end up shaking some dust around.
• Do the windows. Some people prefer to save them for last. I haven’t had any problems with vacuuming stirring up so much dust it made the windows dirty again, though.
• Roll up any area rugs and take them outside to give them a good shaking.
• Clean the floor. Finally! Now that all the dust and dirt has fallen, you are ready to clean the floor.

And if you are lucky, it will stay clean for five whole minutes!

Do you clean from top to bottom?

photo: SXC

Post from: Blisstree

Cleaning Is One Place Where You Don’t Start at the Bottom!

There are about a zillion and one paint colors. Okay, I am exaggerating a bit, but have you ever gone into a store, asked for white paint and then had the guy mixing the paint respond with, “Shell white, Ecru white, Pale white, Robin’s egg white, Sand, Sand Dollar…” Yup. There are more whites than I care to list. So add in the other colors in the color wheel and…Eep.

With this overabundance of paint colors, we need a way to narrow things down fast. That’s why I asked the Valspar color experts about palette choices for living rooms. Luckily, they knew exactly what is going on.

Sue says traditional bathroom colors are the current choice for living rooms. People are spending a lot of time in these rooms and want to relax while they are there. The water inspired colors in traditional bathroom palettes have a calming feel, so it is no surprise that the tranquil colors from our bathrooms are flowing into the foyer and living room areas.

Do you plan to use the quiet blues and greens from the Wishing Well palette in your living room this year or are you more of a wake up the room with bold colors person?

Photo: Valspar

Post from: Blisstree

Deciding Which Color Palette to Use in a Living Room

You’re struggling to make ends meet and you have a spare room and bath in the basement. There’s even an outside entrance down there. You’re thinking that renting out the spare room might be a great way to add some much needed cash to the family coffers. But is it really the right choice for you? Before you start advertising for a roommate, make sure you can handle all the possible issues involved in renting out a room:

1. Is everyone on board with the decision? Renting a room to someone could mean a lot of changes. The kids might have to be quiet during the day to allow a renter working the nightshift to sleep. They might resent giving up a former playroom. Your spouse might be frustrated by feeling like you have a permanent houseguest.
2. Do you know your future renter? Even people who have rented rooms to younger brothers and sisters may find that they are very different from the fun childhood playmates they recall. One might be incredibly messy and never clean up after herself. Another might find howling at the moon at 1 a.m. as he or she staggers home after a wild party to be absolutely hilarious.
3. Do you have a plan for screening possible renters you don’t know? Renting to someone you don’t know can be more than annoying. It can prove deadly.
4. Can you deal with the hassle of evicting non-paying renters? It can be just as tough to kick someone out of a room as it is to kick him or her out of a rental unit, especially in states where handing someone a key is a binding contract.
5. Is it legal? I know in my area, there are several towns that are angry about negligent landlords. They are enacting some pretty tough regulations that will end up affecting anyone who rents, not just the people that don’t care about their properties.

Once you know what you are up against, you can make an informed decision about whether you want to rent out a room. For some people, it turns out to be the best thing that ever happened. The kids end up with an honorary grandparent, aunt, or big brother and no one can believe the new roommate was once a stranger. For others, it turns out to be a disaster. (Or at least a bit annoying when the tenant keeps forgetting to clean up after his dog!)

Have you rented out a room? Was it a good decision for your family?

Photo: SXC

Post from: Blisstree

Is Renting Out a Room Right for Your Family?

Mr. Handyman has put together a list of great tips for helping us get our homes back in order during the spring months for me to share with you. (I don’t know about you, but I am so a list person. If it isn’t on a list, I forget to do it. So, a home maintenance checklist is something that gets me excited.)

Take Care of Your Gutters
   a.. Clogged gutters and downspouts can cause water damage.
   b.. Make sure they are cleaned, repaired or replaced if necessary for the impending spring showers and thunderstorms.

Power Wash to Start the Year With a Clean Outside
   a.. Porches, decks and siding can benefit from a super wash.
   b.. Removing grime, mildew, sap and other materials can extend the life of your home’s exterior materials.

Maintain Decks to Be Sure You Have a Safe and Fun Summer
   a.. Inspect deck thoroughly, including underneath.
   b.. Moisture damage near the joints is a common problem in decks that can result in structural problems.
   c.. Check steps and railings to make sure they are safe.

Make Sure Cooling Units Are Ready for Summer
   a.. Change filters on existing air conditioning window units for efficient operation.
   b.. Programmable thermostats can be installed to regulate energy use.

Keep Your Water Heater Well Maintained
   a.. Draining sediment regularly can extend the life of the water heater.

A few more from me:

    b.. Check for leaks and rusty spots.

    c.. Be sure the thermostat isn’t set too high to avoid having anyone accidentally burn him or herself. (Way too many articles about babies suffering from series burns after bathtub accidents recently. Please, please check your hot water temperature.)

Organize Your Outdoor Items
   a.. Shelving and storage can be installed in garages to help organize spring tools.

Caulk It Up
   a.. Check the caulk around windows and doors.
   b.. Caulk can help to lower energy costs and keep the house cool.

Photo: SXC

Post from: Blisstree

Tips for Spring Maintenance from Mr. Handyman

We all used to have dinky television sets and we sat on a sofa that was positioned against the opposite wall. Being too close to the set wasn’t a problem for anyone but children sitting on the floor who kept scooting just a bit closer to the set as if the excitement and suspense of their favorite show was pulling them into the set. Fast forward to today. Our sets are as big as movie screens used to be! On top of that, we’re being all trendy with our sofa placement and are sticking it boldly in the middle of the room. Wow! Any closer and we’d be sitting in the screen.

So, how do you figure out how far back you should move your sofa? According to IKEA spokesperson Janice Simonsen, you should move your sofa back from your television a distance that is 2.5 times the size of your screen. I hope you have a really big family room if you have a huge screen. It wouldn’t really be much fun if your sofa had to move into the dining room while your TV stayed in the family room just so you were far enough away.

Is your sofa too close to your television set?

Photo: SXC

Post from: Blisstree

How Far Should You Be From Your Television?

I like to collect vintage tins. It started out with button tins, which I took the poor vintage buttons out of. Do you know what decades of being stored in an airtight container does to those poor things? The different plastics emit gases and they all sit there it the chemical filled tins. Soon, all the metal buttons get corroded, the plastic buttons crack and crumble and the leather buttons get all icky. Anyway, once I put the buttons into containers that breathed, I ended up with some awfully cute tins. I started displaying them or using them to store things that didn’t need to breathe inside. (Or, if they needed to breathe, I didn’t close the lid tightly.) 

Photo:SXC

Then, one day, I found a tin for a few cents in a thrift store. Before you fear the worst, let me assure you that I am terribly selective, so have only collected about twenty tins all together. If I end up with one I don’t want, I can use tin snips to cut it up and then use it for collage work or pass it on to friends who are into metalworking.

Tins make a nice display if you group them together with a variety of other tins in similar colors. They also look great mixed in with collectibles with a similar theme. For example, a tea tin fits in well with tea cups and tea pots.

Do you collect vintage tins?

Post from: Blisstree

Vintage Tins Make Fun Collectibles

When people heard I was talking to some color experts from Valspar, I got a few questions. One of the biggest was whether staying in style by using colors from a palette each year means repainting and redecorating year after year. Here are the two reader questions and the answers that Ann and Sue gave:

Are there any tips for people who want to incorporate a palette from this year into a room with last year’s colors?
Ann says: 

There is a gentle transition from one year to the next. You can find something from palettes to work with existing space. For example, in my chartreuse green living room, I went from gold accessories to copper.

Will this year’s colors be completely out of date next year?

Ann says:

No. We’re starting off on a whole new series of colors right now. We’re tending more toward purples, peaches and water colors. We’re transitioning into a whole new trend and it will be around for awhile.

Sue says:

There’s an 18 -24 month average with color trends. The colors we see will be around for at least two years and they’ll probably actually be around five years or so.

I hope readers who are unsure about using a new color palette in their homes will be reassured by Sue and Ann’s answers!

Photo: SXC

Post from: Blisstree

How Long Are Color Trends Staying Around?

If you’re a parent, you’ve probably met this guy that’s been hanging out at my house lately. His name is Not Me and he is a bit destructive. He breaks, spills, or messes up everything in the house that gets damaged and never stays around to fix it. This week, he’s been really busy and I have a ton of little repairs to make. While it doesn’t work for spackling the wall, I have found that my hot glue gun is a great way to make quite a lot of other quick repairs, like gluing chair rail molding back in place after Not Me decides to yank it out of the wall. They weren’t meant to be permanent repairs, but the glue is holding up surprisingly well, so a few of them may be permanent after all.

A few other things I was able to repair with a glue gun are:

• A loose piece of veneer.
• A chip in the floor.
• Drawer front on a cabinet that kept coming off despite screws and wood glue.

Now, if any of them come loose and need to be repaired again, I’ll have to spring for a bottle of Gorilla Glue. I hate buying it because it is expensive and, almost as soon as I bring it home, it adheres itself to the fingers of the nearest guy and leaves, never to be seen again. Hot glue guns are too girly for them to “borrow” and I have the same gun I had when I was in high school!

Have you ever used a hot glue gun to make a home repair?

Photo via amazon.com

Post from: Blisstree

Hot Glue Guns Can Make a Quick Fix

I can slap paint on art canvases like nobody’s business. A blank canvas never worries me. When it comes to walls, though, I feel a little nervous. Is this color really going to look right? What if there aren’t any accessories to match it? So, I tend to rely on paint palettes. Since I depend on the expertise of the paint experts, I thought it would be fun to ask how they come up with the color palettes they give us.

Sue Kim from Valspar answered my question:

We look at what consumers are enjoying, what they are buying and the way they are living. Then, we connect all of that with colors to create the palettes.

This year is a very transitional time. The palettes’ warm chalky colors and soothing water colors will help people feel like they are making a new, fresh start.

I think Sue is right. 2010 is a very transitional year. A lot of people are starting to see a light at the end of the gloomy economy tunnel. And then there’s the whole new decade thing we’ve got going.

I love the palette names, too. Peaceful Optimism? Yup. I’ll take some of that!

Do you plan to repaint a room or two this year?

Photo of Brushed Lavender paint from Peaceful Optimism paint palette courtesy of Valspar

Post from: Blisstree

How Paint Colors Are Chosen