Remodel Kitchen

While a high ceiling offers an occupant a sense of spaciousness, it does present some downsides. This one light bulb immediately above my work space has been out for weeks now, if not months. I finally got tired of squinting at the computer screen and dragged in the ladder. If all I needed was a folding chair, the light bulb would have been changed a long time ago. Some how, bringing in the ladder into the house seems like a lot more work than grabbing the closest folding chair. In the end, I just swapped in a new incandescent light bulb. I would use a compact fluorescent light bulb if the State didn’t require me to install dimmers, which I end up turning on at full power anyways. Next time, I’ll pick up some dimmable compact fluorescent light bulbs.

The Bissell SpotBot carpet cleaner is awesome. It works best for people who take off their shoes before entering the house and keep their carpet generally clean. And, when the occasional “oops” occurs, you pick up the SpotBot and let it do its job. The SpotBot has two tanks—one for clean water and one for waste water. The clean water tank contains marks on the side that indicate how much water and cleaning solution to add. Each full tank lasts for about 3 cleaning cycles (i.e., 3 spots) and uses up 8 oz. of cleaning solution.

So, why use the SpotBot instead of a standard carpet cleaner? Well, the best analogy would be the SpotBot operates like the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie Platinum Edition. Set it and forget it. Just plug in the SpotBot, fill the water tank, and push either the Surface Stain or Set-In Stain button to start the cleaning cycle. At this point, you can walk away for a few minutes until the cycle ends and the machine starts beeping. No standing in one place pushing the machine back-and-forth for a few minutes. It’s not the ideal tool if you have to clean a lot of carpet. However, for the occasional spill, it works great.

In all seriousness, I think the SpotBot is the ideal baby shower gift. Whenever a baby spits up, and all babies do, sometimes the spit up (or vomit) lands on your pristine carpet instead of the burping cloth. That’s the time to bring out the SpotBot to remove the milk stain from the carpet.

I have been living with a noisy outdoor water hose problem for 1 1/2 years now. Today, I finally had enough and decided to fix the problem. When ever someone uses the hose to water the garden, I can hear a harmonic sound resonating through the water pipes inside the house—quite loudly, in fact. Thinking that the problem was the hose bib, I switched the hose from one bib to another. No luck. The sound still permeated the house when I turned on the hose. So, I searched for noisy water hose on Google and found some sites mentioning that the problem may involve the backflow preventer on the hose bib. Thinking the problem may involve the hose bib, I returned outside and disconnected the garden hose. Turned on the water and I heard nothing but the sound of gushing water. So the problem was not the hose bib after all. Long story short, I switched out spray gun, turned on the water and the problem was solved. All this time, I thought the problem was with the hose bib (which would be “impossible” to fix), but it turned out that the spray gun was the culprit. Should have trouble shooted this like 18 months ago. Live and learn.

Last night, I tested the TV in anticipation of the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. I could see all the major channels clearly except for one: KNTV – NBC 11. Uh oh. Fortunately, I had an older television in another room. I switched it to NBC and the signal was clean. Same over-the-air antenna. Since none of this was making sense to me, I went ahead and switched the coaxial cable connecting the jack to the television. Bingo! A clear signal on both TVs now. While that solved my problem, I still don’t understand why it worked. Was the original cable loose? Can a loose cable only degrade the signal of one station and not the others?

Wow! The Terro Liquid Ant Baits worked really well. Once the ants discovered the treats, they came out en masse and swarmed into baits. I didn’t want the lack of baits to be the bottleneck, so I eventually had four baits out in one spot and all were equally tapped. During the first 24 hours, the number of ants that were participating in the feeding frenzy was frightening. At the 36 hour mark, the numbers were starting to thin. Within 48 hours, all the ants were pretty dead.

Unfortunately, that did not rid the entire house of ants. I move the traps to a second location where I noticed an ant trail and the pattern repeated itself. 48 hours later, these ants were gone as well.

Seth Godin complained about Verizon’s customer service in his blog. The funny thing is that I can relate even though I have never used Verizon in my entire life. Just substitute the name of your local phone company; i.e., SBC, AT&T or whatever it’s called these days. I’m not sure why the telecom industry insists on delivering a subpar customer experience, but it happens regularly. The easy route would be to attribute it to their monopoly status, but not all monopolies act badly.

What irritates me most is when I have to navigate through multiple levels of menus. I just need to type in a couple words and Google can figure out what I’m looking for in less than a second. Why can’t the phone company route calls with similar efficiency?

Pixar transformed ants into an oppressed class of cute and cuddly bugs. However, in reality, ants are neither cute nor cuddly. And, from the human perspective, ants are the oppressors, not the oppressed. Just ask any homeowner currently experiencing an ant invasion. Although you may be tempted to use ant spray because it stops ants dead in their tracks, I would recommend using ant baits instead. The problem with ant spray is that it only kills the small minority of visible ants. The survivors then have to search for a different access point into your home. Next time, you may not be so lucky. The ant trail may not be detectable so all you will see is small battalions of ants inside without an obvious trail outside. The better solution then is to control the ants using ant baits. The promise behind ant baits is that the ants will take the poison back to the nest and wipe out the entire colony.

I was at the local hardware store this morning looking for some more ant control answers.
I had previously set out some Grant’s Ant Stakes, but the ants weren’t biting. I’m not sure why, but the ants just ignored it. After a week, I was ready to try something new. So, I picked up a package of Terro Liquid Ant Baits as well a pack of Raid Ant Baits. Yes, time to escalate. I wasn’t about to try out a new product for another week, only to return back to the hardware store in frustration. So, I opened up a buffet line. Terro in one corner and Raid in another. Within an hour, the ants were swarming all over the Terro ant bait, so much so that I opened another ant bait so that the hungry masses would not have to wait in line. And, after seeing both stations packed, I opened another. Then, it dawned on me. The key ingredient for ant baits isn’t the poison, it’s the lure. If ants walk past the bait without taking a nibble, then it doesn’t matter what active ingredient is contained within the product. So, short of polling the ants, the best bet is to buy a variety of products and let the ants decide. If they favor one product over another, give them all they want. Don’t put out ant bait sequentially or else you might be two to three weeks into an infestation before you figure out what works or not.

The main types of door knobs are the round knob, the oval or egg knob, and the lever. Each have their merits. Levers are the easiest to operate for both the elderly and young. If you have toddlers or young children running around the house, they can easily open doors operated by a lever once they can reach the handle. Oval knobs or egg knobs are not as easy to operate as a lever, but still easier than the round knob. While shopping around for door knobs, consider how you may be able to secure a door to prevent a child from accidently running out. The traditional plastic door knob covers designed for round knobs may not fit on an oval or egg knob. For levers, you may be able to find a child-safety lock at your local hardware store.

New York Times DealBook: G.E. Looks to Sell Its Appliances Unit. General Electric is planning to sell its appliances division, one of the longest-running businesses in the conglomerate’s 120-year history, a person briefed on the matter said Wednesday.

The DealBook lists the potential buyers as Haier, Bosch and LG. Any surprise that foreign companies are looking to purchase American assets while the dollar is low?

I have a large cedar that lives in the front yard. I needed some broken tree limbs removed and called three tree service contractors. The bids and recommendations were all over the place. The contractor I ended up hiring had sent out a certified arborist to evaluate the tree. The arborist recommended that I only remove the broken tree limbs. She said that the tree should not be trimmed back, especially at this time of the year. The other two companies offered to remove the broken limbs and trim back the tree.

Initially, I was hesitant to call an arborist. To me, “certified” means “more expensive.” However, in this case, the recommended course of action by the arborist ended up costing less than the full trim offered by the other contractors. Sometimes, following the advice of someone that you think will be the most expensive will actually cost you the least.