New York Renovator

I get a lot of ideas for renovating from books and magazines, and they also help me to keep on top of the latest technology or development in home building and other stuff like manufactured homes designs. Here’s a tip for you if you like magazine subscriptions: Amazon.com is having an outstanding sale on subscriptions right now. Many of them are $5 a year! House Beautiful, Country Living, Good Housekeeping, Veranda, and more on on sale. Even This Old House is affordable, at $10 a year.

Magazines are so low right now because hardly anyone is buying them; more people are turning to electronic media (like websites and online books and magazines) to get their information. I like online media, sure. but I do prefer printed stuff! So $5 a year is a steal! I couldn’t find out any information on long these sales will last; get them while you can, I guess.

Summer is over and winter’s chills are beginning to roll in. Need a good reason to start planning your mid-winter vacation early? There’s an incredible travel promotion if you’ve been waiting in the wings for a deal. It’s the Accor Hotels 3-Day Super Sale Asia Pacific deal. I’ve spent the morning looking it over and it looks amazing!

Accor Hotels has opened up more than a million hotel rooms around the world– for all needs and budgets– for three days: October 27th, 28th, and 29th, 2009. You can obtain the steep discounts when you order online for stays from December 9, 2009, to April 10, 2010. The Super Sale is occurring at a time of record-low airfares across the Asia Pacific area. It’s a frugal paradise, people. The hotels are simply beautiful: locations available for Accor Hotels 3-Day Super Sale Asia Pacific include: Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Korea, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Fiji, Indonesia, Taiwan, India, and Bali. Rates are as low as $30 per night (Thailand!) with most rates in the $50-70 range. Accor Hotels, the European leader in hotels around the world, has hotels in over 90 countries with over 4,000 hotels. I’ve browsed the site and the hotels are just exquisite!

Next to the beautiful hotels and outstanding service, the great thing about Accor is that they have built a structure of hotels to accommodate various needs and budgets, all revolving around the “name brands.” For example, the All Seasons Accor hotel brand is perfect for economically-minded travelers, or brief visits. The Mecure and Pullman and other name-brand Accor hotels are more expensive and have more luxurious features (such as regional, gourmet dining experiences and such). So no matter your travel need, be it a backpacking experience in New Zealand, or a business meeting in Japan, or a honeymoon in Hong Kong, you can stay with the reliable Accor brand. Plus, Accor is known throughout the world for it’s outstanding hospitality and beautiful locations.

This is such a great getaway opportunity! I would think that this would make a beautiful gift, too, and just in time for the holidays. See the Accor Hotels 3-Day Super Sale Asia Pacific page for more details.

No! It’s not MY house I’m talking about.

Although it could be….

nah, MY house was made from good stuff. 150 year-old stuff. It’s actually turning into garbage now.

Anyway, this is about a rather cool and very eccentric house called the Nit Wit Ridge house. There’s a whole slew of photos on a Flickr page about it from someone who visited the place. It’s pretty wild– toilet seats for windows, a statue made from a chipped enamel bowl, a lovely metal chain-link fence that graces the, uh, beautiful front yard. Talk about salvage!

The place was made by Arthur Harold Beal, alias Capt Nit Wit or Der Tinkerpaw, and it is located, unsurprisingly, in California. He started it in 1928 (I just KNEW it started during the Great Depression, even before I read that). For 51 years, Der Tinkerpaw has been collecting another man’s junk to build his treasure palace. Hey, must be easy on the budget. Some of the things are pretty inventive. I give him kudos for creativity!

Tours of the place are free (yay!). Check the news link above for more details, if this is a must-see place to go. If you go, be sure to take photos and send them my way. It makes me feel SO much better about my rickety old place! At least I have REAL windows and not toilet seats for my fresh air! LOL

hat tip to Just Cool Design for the story.

I recently blogged about my “I shoulda had a V-8!” moment (buying construction materials at salvage yards), and I just had another idea– buying refurbished or sharply discounted materials! I often go to Buy.com to buy my electronics stuff now (they have the best prices and free shipping), and I recently discovered that Buy.com has home and outdoor stuff, too. And actually, you can get building materials, tools, and household supplies at great prices there, too!

For example, check out this DeWalt replacement battery for my power drill. I’ve been looking for new batteries, but have been balking at the price at my local Home Depot: $100!! Guess how much this is at Buy.com? Go on, GUESS!

$57!!! That’s almost HALF the price!! Very cool.

I can’t believe I used to buy retail prices for all the stuff we need around here. Holy cow, think of all the money I wasted! I love Buy.com– they are the only place I get my electronics from anymore– and they have a great variety on everything (stuff like baby items, jewelry, books, clothing, etc). The home products are at good prices, and they variety is impressive– spray paint, garbage bags, plumbing joints, glass cutters, sandpaper, smoke detectors, power tools, etc etc! Pretty neat! Check out the weekly sale page at Buy.com for good deals, too. I love Buy.com!! Before you buy anything retail, check them out for deals first.

I was reading the blog Back2theLand, in which Bonnie discusses all the great deals she finds for her home on Craigslist online, for her local area. It was a “I shoulda had a V-8!” moment! What a terrific idea!

When we first bought this house, there were a few salvage stores in the area. They have since closed. The nearest one is in Madison, NY– a long haul if we’re getting large stuff like doors, porch posts, etc. It’s not unusual to be driving down rural roads (like I did recently) and see something like this:

There’s a lot that can be found at a salvage barn, I think. And it’s kind of fun sorting through things. It’s like walking back in time. I wonder how old this sink is, and where it was used? It’s still in good shape.

Well anyway, because the salvage areas nearest us had closed, I pretty much gave up on finding anything recycled for our house. But after reading Bonnie’s post, it was like “Oh yeah!!” There’s a LOT to be found online, at Craigslist or with online auctions. So I’ll put that bug in your ear, too– if you’re looking for cheap materials and don’t mind cleaning it up or hauling it home, check out the many places online to find salvage materials. Oftentimes, the salvage stuff is in excellent shape for a tiny fraction of the cost of new stuff. It can really help the budget!

So thanks, Bonnie! I’ve never tried out online auctions or anything– I think I will, now!

Another vacuum bites the dust. :-p

We got this machine in October, and have been trying to endure it since then. We’ve resisted the urge to throw it out the window… but have come pretty close a few times. I wish vacuum manufacturers would realize that we consumers don’t want a vacuum with the latest doo-dad, fancy accoutrement, microchip and hard drives that remember our last vacuum session, etc!!! I just want a vacuum that VACUUMS! Simple enough?! Gah!

I bought this particular GE vac because it is lightweight, has a powerful motor, and is bagless. The vacuum directions say to replace the little filter once a month ($10 per filter). But the filters on this thing are teeny-tiny– the size of an index card. And my old house is very dusty (we have a bird and the walls are the original plaster). So guess how frequently I have to replace the filter? ONCE A WEEK. Yes you read that right. ONCE a week. If I don’t, the vacuum will not pick anything up. I’ve had it! Forget it! No more of this.

Anyway, I think I’m going back to bagged vacuum cleaners. My experiments with the filter/bagless models have all failed, and the filters are costing me a fortune. It’s like printer ink– the printers are inexpensive cheapos, but the manufacturers getcha with the cost of the ink. Grrrr.

I don’t know why I am so focused on air fresheners lately; perhaps it is due to the cold weather settling in, and we are indoors all the time? If there’s one thing about old houses, they do tend to smell. I have a very sensitive nose, so the smells of old lathe-and-plaster, 150-year old mouse nests in the walls, and the wet basement smells drive me near crazy every winter. I’m always trying out new fresheners. I can’t bake apple pies and zucchini breads every day, now can I? On really cold days, besides baking, I sometimes simmer orange peels and cinnamon bark on the stove. There is something really wonderful about oranges and cinnamon on cold, snowy days; but I don’t always have a fresh supply of either.

I saw this hilarious video at Dine-o-meter blog. Oh my word, this is terrific! It’s all a funny spoof, but making the air freshener is for real. The video is done by Jolene Sugarbaker, and it’s great! LOL. I checked out Jolene’s site (is it just me, or is Jolene really a GUY??) and “she’s” been doing this since 1993! How could I have possibly missed this?! This is really fun. My son watched the video, and this looks like a really fun craft project.

I haven’t seen any of those scented oils at the Dollar Store; but then again, I haven’t ever looked. This look like a frugal, fun way to make your own scented air freshener! LOL. I also like Jolene’s suggestion of prettying up the jars with baubles, kind of like how kids decorate hoto digital frames with sequins and such. Maybe I’ll have the kids make a video of them doing the craft, and I’ll post about how our version runs. I am curious as to how well this sceneted freshener would work– my house is pretty big and pretty smelly…

I’ve always preferred drawing my house plans and ideas on graph paper, by hand. As much as I love the computer, and as much as I have incoporated a lot of my tasks to it, I just can’t seem to leave the age-old tradition of graph paper and pencil (and for me, a big eraser). I have seen some pretty fancy computer software in stores recently, that promise to help you design, plan, envision, and do everything for your home plans. I tried one of these programs, about 10 years ago, and I hated it. Software has come a long way, I know, but… is the software really worth it? Has anyone tried it and liked it?

The software is pricey, too– I’ve seen it listed for over $50 and some is as high as $100. Consider that when you realize that graph paper is $3 for 50 sheets, and pencils are just pennies (and if you are really cheap, you can always grab some of those promotional pens that businesses give away, for free).
The only problem with hand-drawing a floor plan are the multitudes of changes that you make on the paper. I like my plans to look neat; and a paper can only take so much erasing. So I have drawn tons and tons of floor plans, each with various changes. I’ve lost track of them all. :S Software has the benefit of instantly saving everything. But the software programs just don’t seem to be precise enough, unless things have changed and programs have realy improved. I have to recreate another floor plan for my first floor and I’m dreading having to draw it all over again. But on the other hand, I really wonder if software will be accurate and if I can learn the program quickly enough. What do you think?

About a year ago, I blogged about my plight with can openers. They hate me! When I married, I got three can openers as wedding gifts. Before my first anniversary, they were all dead. I have tried buying various models, only to see them defunct within a few months. I reverted to my very old hand can opener, something my grandmother gave me when I was single. Her can opener has lasted me years– decades! But last year, it started to fail. The spinner wasn’t spinning. I bought another hand-cranking can opener (all made in China, now), and it broke within a month. Again, I bought another, and it broke. I was at wit’s end!

My sister read my post and came over one day, carrying her can opener. She said she had two, and I could have one of them. (Ain’t she sweet?) She showed me how to use it and treat it real nice (remember I said can openers hate me). But this was a can opener like no other– it didn’t have any flowery names like “Sunbeam” or “Can Opener Delight.”
This was a honking towering big black monster with a growling blade. It was a BLACK & DECKER can opener!! The father of all can openers!

Nonetheless, I had a pretty bad track record with can openers. But I was reminded that although can openers hate me, my power tools do love me. I immediately bonded with this can opener because it has the same name as my jigsaw and my screwdriver set (very reliable). Black & Decker make monster power saws– a can opener by them has got to be good, right?!

Well I’m happy to say that the Black & Decker has performed exceptionally well. It tolerates my nuances, my quirks, my sloppy can-holding technique… and still the B&D bites through my canned corn like it’s a stick of butter. I’m pretty impressed. I think the end of this story just may be “and they lived happily ever after.”

“Upright Vacuum” isn’t exactly a creative name for GE’s gold-colored vac. I guess it’s better than the model number (169171). I bought the vacuum at WalMart several months ago when my lemon (a Dirt Devil) died. I had only a few qualifications and I’d be happy:

HEPA filter
onboard attachments
lightweight
small amperage use
actually vacuumed floors

I don’t know why vacuums are generally very poorly made. I haven’t had a good, solid, quality vacuum in about 25 years, when Sears and GE made them in this country. All the vacuums seem to be made of cheap plastic and fragile moving parts. We usually replace our vacuum every year or two, and that’s a LOT to add to the credit cards for a $50 to $100 appliance.

The GE has three separate filters, all very small. One is a HEPA filter about the size of an index card. The other two filters are small plastic foam filters. The HEPA must be replaced every month ($10) but the plastic foam filters are washable– you just rinse them out.

Two positive and two negative things stand out with this vacuum. For one, it’s a pretty powerful vacuum at 10amps and 120 volts. It does a good job on low shag (or no shag carpets). It picks up dirt from my indoor-outdoor carpeting like no other vacuum has before.

The HEPA filter idea is nice, even though it’s small. The monthly cost of $10 is a little steep. My floors are not all carpeted so I think I can stretch the time span a little.

Negatively, the machine has an adjustable handle, but it’s a joke. It wobbles so bad that the vacuum is unstable. So the handle must be kept at a short-height setting. And the dirt container (with “dual cyclone action”) does not stay in the vacuum. One of the kids was carrying the vacuum down the stairs, holding the handle in the front. The handle is part of the dirt container. It popped out of the latch and the vacuum went tumbling down the stairs. The vacuum was amazingly not broken! But we now know that you can’t use the front handle… so it’s awkward to carry.

My daughter does the vacuuming in the house. She is mildly satisfied with the GE Upright Vacuum, but there are a few glaring blemishes. Here is her list of pros and cons:

Pros:
Has a height adjuster in the handle
Uses a filter, not a bag
Has a hose and attachments
Works better than a broom…
Shiny gold paint (put it in the corner and guests will never guess it’s a vac!)
Vacuums short carpets well

Cons:
Adjustable handle is wobbly and unstable
Does not vacuum corners well (too thick and bulky)
Dirt container empties from the bottom, so it’s awkward and messy
Cord is not long enough
Tools are a little loose and rickety in their places
Does not vacuum thicker carpets well

So the consensus is… we’ll probably be looking for another vacuum in a year or two. I have yet to find the “perfect” vacuum. Maybe instead of the stores, I should try the garage sales and look for an old Kirby or Kenmore….