Remodel Kitchen

Previously, I had discussed grante kitchen counters. After you have selected your counter material, the color/pattern, and the finish, you will need to select an edge style. The first time I saw a kitchen counter with a 1 1/2″ mitered edge, I fell in love. The kitchen counter had simple yet elegant lines, and looked absolutely solid. I don’t like excessively ornate styles, and I am not an ogee fan.

I love the mitered edge because the counter and the edge do not appear as two separate pieces. Unlike other edges, the seam in a mitered edge is hidden along the top edge and is not noticeable. For other edge styles, the seam appears in the middle of the edge where the edge was glued to the counter. You may not notice it now, but after you’ve seen a mitered edge, you will notice the seam every time you see a granite counter with a non-mitered edge.

Selecting kitchen counters can be an exhausting process.

• What material shall I use?
• What color/pattern shall I select?
• What finish shall I use?

Consumer Reports actually ranks the different kitcen counter materials. For me, I wanted an attractive, low maintenance solution. So, the toss-up was between engineered stone and natural granite. I really liked many of the colors offered by CaesarStone, a manufacturer of engineered stone. However, most showrooms only display a small sample block of the engineered stone, usually in a binder. I found it difficult to visualize how an entire slab would appear based on a small square slab. In contrast, granite is easier to visualize since you can pick the actual slab that will be used to fabricate the counters. However, granite offers a lot of different colors and patterns, and each slab offers some variance from the others. I ended up picking granite over Caesarstone mainly out of price considerations.

A designer suggested black honed granite, which is more of a grayish black instead of a true black. Honed granite has a matte finish instead of a polished, glossy look. Granite Gold works great at cleaning polished granite. For a honed surface, I find that hot water and a microfiber works well at removing the shine when some cooking oil splashes on the counter.

I never understood the Itsy Bitsy Spider song when I was a kid.  What the heck is a waterspout?  Nowadays, children have it easy.  Everything is spoon-fed to them.  You sing the spider song and see the nice colorful drawings of a rain gutter and the downspout.  Oh, that waterspout.  Well, it’s been raining quite a bit as of late, in contrast to last winter.  And, because of that, I’m hearing that drip, drip, drip sound more and more often.  Enough to actually do something about it.  Actually, the dripping sound was so noisy that my neighbor asked about it.  So, I head down to Orchard Supply Hardware and pick up “The Silencer.” OSH is selling them for $2.39/unit. With tax, my total cost is $2.59/unit. The Arkco website has them for $14.00/6-pack, or $2.33/unit, and this price includes sales tax, handling and shipping. Could have save $0.25/unit if I had first checked online.Basically, this product is a sponge with a magnetic backing. You can probably fabricate something like this on your own. I opened the package and placed the magnet on the lowest bend of the downspout. I don’t have any technical sensors to measure the decrease in decibels, but I can say that this product made an appreciable difference. It did not completely stop the dripping noise because water dripping on a sponge makes some noise. However, the sound level went from very obvious to barely perceptible. It’s worth the two bucks and change.

Out of the box, the Black and Decker LawnHog come pre-assembled. Put away your tools because you won’t be needing them. All I had to do was

1. Straighten the handle and hand tighten the nuts and bolts;
2. Assemble the rear bag, which entails slipping a mesh bag over a metal frame;
3. Replace the mulching attachment with the rear bag.

That’s it. Oh, also, I had to adjust the clipping height which was remarkably easy. However, to get started, you need an extension cord. So, measure out the distance from the further corner of your lawn to the electrical outlet and add about 10 feet. You need some slack to turn the lawn mower around. You also need an extension cord with the correct gauge; i.e., not all extension cords are the same!

This mower just pushed my rake into retirement. With the manual push reel lawn mower, I had to spend way too much time raking up all the grass clippings after I was done mowing. The LawnHog sucked up all the grass and leaves, so I didn’t have to clean-up afterwards. The lawn was pretty clean except for some pine chips that my cedar tree has been shedding since Fall. Not too sure what to do about that since these slip through the rake too.

Lived with the hand push reel mower for 8 months, and now it’s finally time to set it to rest. I had no problem cutting grass with a manual lawnmower. I can zip around the front yard and back yard quickly in no time. However, raking up all the grass just got to be a drag. Clean-up took longer than the actual mowing. So, I could either hire a gardener or try out an electric lawnmower. I got some quotes from a few gardeners and their price was much higher than I had expected. Gulp. I followed Consumer Reports lead on this one and picked up a Black and Decker LawnHog. I also checked out the mixed reviews on Amazon, with most complaints focusing on the durability of the lawnmower. Without much other choices to pick from, I went ahead with the purchase. Now, the box that the lawnmower came in was big and heavy. That’s as good a reason as any to order from Amazon. The UPS guy dropped off the box at my front door, and the lawnmower has been waiting for some action since then. If I have some free time this weekend, I’ll unbox the lawnmower and test it out.

How do you rearrange the furniture after moving day? Without the able assistance of movers, we tried to move a heavy Toshiba television. Not one of those modern slim plasma TVs mind you, but a 5-year-old CRT. That big and bulky 200-pound monster was designed to sit in one place. We managed to ease it off the television stand and onto the floor. However, after we moved the television stand, we couldn’t get the television back off the ground.

After a few days of meditation, I headed down to the local U-Haul for a Forearm Forklift. I could have gotten a much better price via Amazon, but I didn’t want to wait another 3-4 days. So, with the Forearm Forklift in hand, I headed back home. This time, the television just floated off the floor, much to my amazement. Here’s the big secret. (1) Instead of lifting the television with my fingers, my much thicker and stronger forearms supported the weight of the object. (2) I didn’t have to search around for some non-existent handle or crevice to grab ahold of the television. The lifting straps make it easier to lift heavy objects without obvious places to grab onto. (3) With the Forearm Forklift, I could begin lifting from a position higher off the ground. So, instead of crouching down completely and being unable to generate any lifting power, I started the lift while seated. I didn’t have to lift using any upper body strength. Standing upright was enough power to hoist the television back onto its television stand.

I no longer fear the television. With the Forearm Forklift, we could move it again if we wanted to. It’s also much cheaper than a hydraulic lift table, which was the other solution I was contemplating.

How do you clean the burner caps on a gas range? I’m not talking about that fresh drop of oil that can be easily wiped off with a paper towel. I mean that burnt on gunk that just won’t come off. For me, the magic combination is a Dobie cleaning pad and Soft Scrub. It still requires some effort, but I have been able to tackle most stains that plain detergent and baking powder haven’t been able to clean up. However, this part confuses me. What’s up with Soft Scrub with Bleach? The whole point of using Soft Scrub (I thought) was because you wanted to avoid using a harsher cleanser. However, once you toss a caustic cleaning substance like bleach into the mix, is Soft Scrub still a safe and mild cleanser?

The Porcher Semplice Basin will be a stunning addition to any bathroom. However, be careful if you are relying on the dimensions stated on the Porcher website. Listed as the Semplice Rectangle Basin by Porcher, the overall dimensions provided are 15-1/4″ x 15-1/4″ x 6″. So, how can a 15-1/4″ x 15-1/4″ basin be a rectangle? It cannot.

The spec sheet repeats this error by listing the above dimensions. However, the drawing shows a 21-3/4″ x 15-1/4″ x 6″ basin, which conforms more to the traditional dimensions of a rectangle. So, if you are looking for a square basin, don’t be fooled by the square dimensions and end up buying the rectangular one (like I did).

I’ve been experiencing problems with my phone line and DSL connection for quite a few months now. However, the problem was always intermittent. I would experience static on my phone line and DSL loss of signal errors at random, non-reproducible intervals. I just couldn’t figure out what was going on. So, I finally called AT&T and asked them to check it out.

They sent a service technician and, as I expected, the line was clean while he was here. However, 2-3 hours later, the phone line started acting up again and the 2Wire HomePortal was bathed in red lights again. Oh well, that repair didn’t work.

A few days later, AT&T calls back to ask how they did. I told them that the technician could not fix the problem because the line was clean when he showed up. And, I didn’t give it much thought after that. But, lo and behold, a few days later, someone from AT&T calls me back and asks if they can send another technician out to troubleshoot my connection. Well, this second guy fixed the problem.Almost a week has passed and the DSL connection has been rock solid. No static on the phone line either.

So, the technician tells me that I shouldn’t have the data line routed to all my phone jacks. Said that was fine for older houses with a limited number of jacks. However, for newer houses with 8-10 jacks, wiring the data to all phone jacks will weaken the data signal and cause interference. I don’t know if his explanation was technically right or not, but his fix of converting one phone jack to become a dedicated data line sure worked.

A gardener and automatic sprinklers make lawn maintenance a snap. I don’t have to remember to water the lawn. When the lawn needs a hair cut, someone comes by every week or every other week to give it a trim and clean-up all the cut grass and dead leaves hanging about. In fact, maintaining a lawn looks a little too easy until I had to write a check to the gardener and another one to the water company. Then, I realized that low maintenance doesn’t mean low cost.

So, in a bid to tighten the belt a little, I tried cutting the grass myself. Trying to make the “environmental” choice, I started off with a manual push reel mower. Lured by the promise of low maintenance and “free” exercise, I jumped at this opportunity. I now realize the error of my ways. I did not find a manual mower to be difficult or slow to operate. I probably could cut grass with a manual mower as fast as I could with a powered mower. However, where the manual mower failed was when it was time to clean-up the mess. It takes quite some time and effort to rake up all the clipped grass. In fact, the clean-up takes longer than cutting the grass itself. I could never get the rear attachment to work properly and catch the clipped grass. So, I will be continuing my lawn experiment, but will be looking at an electric mower.