New York Renovator

Would you believe that some folks are still hanging on to their old appliances? There’s a huge Internet market for repair parts and manuals for older appliances. It sure surprised me! I thought that those old fridges from I Love Lucy and Hazel and even The Brady Bunch had cluttered landfills eons ago. Nope. Some folks still have their old ice boxes and washing tubs!

My fridge is about… maybe 8 years old now. Before then, our fridge was an old “pick me up” from the curb (some neighbors had dumped theirs out there, but we spotted it and brought it in).

Old fridges had colors, too! Why are new fridges so boring?

It was one of those nice bottom-freezer kinds. Oh, those are so convenient! But YOW they are expensive, brand new. I don’t know how old that pick-me-up fridge was. Pretty old. When it ran, it ran well. But something happened (to the motor, maybe? can’t remember), and we decided to get a new one. Unfortunately, the brand new one is not nearly as good as the old clunker. Oh, it has more space inside, and the shelves are fancy glass instead of metal rungs… but the seal is lousy and the design of the door is poor.I had high expectations, since the new one was, well, NEW, and it was about $700 more expensive than the old one we’d had!

Do you have old appliances, still? Do you think the old ones work better than the new ones?

I have a clothes dryer that, after 18 years, is not very efficient anymore. But we have a very old TV that works fine; all my old computers work fine. And refrigerators work fine, too, as long as you keep the coolant level and the motor oiled.

Every once in a while, I like to surf the retail stores or the web and see what new gadgets they are adding to appliances. Honestly, the basic design of the refrigerator, stove, etc, hasn’t changed much in many years. The only thing manufacturers are doing is adding electronic panels to them, to appeal to Digital Women who want to check email, watch the weather AND chop the veggies at the same time.

OH my goodness, I just had a great idea– incorporate a small TV or computer monitor into the side or door of the fridge! Wouldn’t that be a space saver?! I’m sure the geeks could figure out a way to rig up a VGA cable to an inset monitor. Or maybe we could do it ourselves with supplies from Optimization-World.com. I think it’s a cool idea.

Anyway, when it comes to appliances, I’m not a fan of the massively gadgetized electronics. I’m rough on my washer and dryer and fridge– they are my work horses. The last thing I want is delicate circuitry in them to break down all the time.

Do you have a fancy appliance? Do you think it works well? If you had your choice, would you rather have a new appliance or a retro kind?

I recently wrote an article about pet-friendly lawn fertilizers, and the topic got me thinking more about my own lawn and my methods. Chemical lawn fertilizers, despite their claims of non-toxicity, are still chemical agents. These chemicals may remain in the lawn for quite some time. Dogs romp in the grass, and may absorb the chemicals into their skin. Cats nibble the grass and lick their paws. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like chemicals, period, and I don’t want my pets rolling around in it.

We want Fuzzy to be safe in the lawn.

There are ways to fertilizer and improve your lawn naturally, without any chemicals at all. And even better, the natural methods are less expensive and better for the environment, too. Here are some tips I have gathered throughout the course of my research.

1. Aerate your lawn.

Over time, grass lawns become packed down from foot traffic, lawn mowers, and thick growth. Grass needs air just like any organism. Use a lawn scarifier to aerate the grass. The scarifier, available as manual or powered devices, roll across your lawn. A roller with peg-like appendages puncture your lawn. Some fancier models remove dead grass, moss, and weeds, too. The small holes will be barely noticeable to you, but they provide little channels where air, water, and minerals can soak directly into grass roots.

2. Mulch the lawn.

Leaves are nutrient-packed mulch, like liquid gold for your lawn. It’s best to compost them the year before– pile up leaves in a bin in the fall, and allow them to decompose. By the time spring arrives, the leaves should have decayed into a dark loam. Sprinkle the mulch onto the lawn with a shovel, in broad strokes, and rake the mulch into the grass. This is THE best fertilizer for your grass.

Look for natural mulch without added colorants and chemicals.

3. Shred the grass clippings.

Some folks mow their lawns, then rake up the grass clippings and pile them on the street curb for the town to pick up. Know that if you do this, you are giving away some very valuable (and free!) fertilizer. Instead, invest in a lawn mower that shreds or mulches the grass as you mow it, and leave the clippings on the lawn. The clippings will decompose and provide the lawn with nitrogen and other yummy nutrients. Never leave clods of grass in your lawn, however. The clods block the sunlight and can cause fungus or mold to grow. Rake up large clods of grass clippings.

A badly damaged lawn full of weeds may need to be replaced.

4. Don’t over-mow the lawn.

If grass is cut too short, it cannot photosynthesize properly to produce enough food for growth. The weeds will eventually overpower the weakened grass. For most grasses, the lawn mower should be set to 2 to 3 inches. A good rule to follow is called the 2/3 rule: mow only the top third of grass, and leave the other 2/3 intact.

5. Keep weeds at bay.

Weeds are fellow competitors, contending with grass for water, sunlight, and soil nutrients. Large weeds such as burdocks and plantain should be removed quickly before they establish a party in your lawn.

Weeding the lawn is a tough one for me. My front lawn used to be a lush, beautiful lawn. Then came several years of destructive flooding, where muddy waters and silt covered my lawn. The flooding introduced a profligate number of weeds seeds. My lawn has never really recovered, and it is not possible to root out all the weeds that wiped out my lawn. So sometimes, in serious cases, you can only do so much before you have to completely re-sod the lawn.

I hope these tips help you! There ARE ways to make your home environment an enjoyable place– and a safe place– for your pets.

I always wanted one of those *real* memory foam mattresses. I’d endured the spring coil for many decades before the darling husband shelled out the big bucks for a memory foam. We got a Tempurpedic on sale, and I did a review shortly after. It remains one of my most popular blog posts, surprisingly.

We’ve had ours for almost two years now! Has it really been that long?! But I’m happy to say that it’s still very, very nice. And SO comfortable.

Because of herniated spinal disks and sciatica, I was in a lot of pain with the regular spring coil bed. Since we have had a memory foam mattress, I have not had one “big” bout of back problems. So I’m very partial to the memory foam.

What really stinks is the foundation. We got a generic brand name foundation for the set, and after 6 months, it started squeaking like crazy. Apparently, the foundation is constructed of cardboard and plastic ribbing! Very cheap. We’ve replaced the foundation set every 6 months for 18 months (warranty) until the furniture store said they wouldn’t replace the foundation anymore, and we’d have to buy a new set. :-p I won’t get into how much that totally stinks. I guess I could sue them for breach or warranty, perhaps….

Anyway. The memory foam mattress itself is outstanding. After two years, here are some things I’ve learned.

The memory foam mattress IS a little hot. It’s constructed of some kind of plastic something or other, and therefore retains heat very well. I am a hot person by nature, so I get overheated sometimes. It’s not blistering hot as some reviewers would have you believe, but it’s a pretty toasty mattress in the winter, and warm in the summer. On the plus side, if you live in a cold climate or your house is cold all winter, this is THE mattress to get.

Livvy loves the mattress

The complete bed set sits lower than the average bed. So you drop into it at night and crawl up out of it in the morning. I’d rather have a higher bed. Someday, I’m going to build a bed frame out of solid lumber. This will raise the bed and replace that lousy, squeaky foundation.

The memory foam does soften over time. When we first got it, it was firm. It’s loosened a little. It’s still very comfortable, but it is softer. Also, when it’s cold, the bed is firmer, and when it’s warm, the bed relaxes. The material is sensitive to temperatures.

The mattress is extremely heavy. VERY heavy. It takes two guys to haul it up the stairs, and even then, I wondered if they were going to spill back down again….

Overall, I recommend the memory foam mattress. You can no doubt get much better deals online than retail. It was expensive, retail. You cannot use regular box springs with the memory foam, though– it must have a solid foundation. I recommend you stay far away from the generic no-brand labels and stick with the big names for the foundation. Or, build your own solid wood bed frame.

Is it any surprise that home entertainment has made tremendous advances in the past ten years. Remember WAY BACK when, about 15 years ago, when we all had one of these?

But now, there are these:

Yow. I have the first TV but certainly not the second. Actually, I’d purchased a newer, fancier model with a flat screen just a few years ago, only to be completely outdated by the plasma, HDTV, super fancified models. I feel so old.

TV really isn’t all that important to us. I still have a barebones tube TV (we picked it up off the curb, for pete’s sake), but I have a very high-end, high octane computer and an iPad for watching stuff. It’s all a matter of priorities.

As a family, we like to watch DVDs and Internet documentaries during dinner, but since we have no television reception, we are limited to watching movies on my small laptop screen. I’ve been investigating my choice for a few months (I take forever to make sure decisions), and am leaning more toward HDMI cables or a converter to rig the laptop to the TV. Getting the cables or converter at Optimization-World.com is WAY cheaper than buying a digital TV. They also sell nice VGA cables for computer to monitor connections.

So I’m pleased as punch that there are affordable options out there for old fogies like me. Maybe I’ll even write a tutorial once I finally get the ball rolling on the project….

The Old House Journal has a terrific article called How to Find Energy Efficient Bulbs That Don’t Suck: Nutrition Facts for Light Bulbs.

Starting in January 2011 light bulbs are required to be labeled with lumens, watts, kelvins and efficacy. Greek to you too? Not worry. The label is now clear, easy to understand and full of fun colors.

It’s good news to me. Here in New York State, we will be forced to use only CFLs (or LEDs) for lighting. I have discovered that not all CFLs are created equal, and have often wondered why the differences seems so enigmatic. I had no idea about kelvins and lumens and all that jazz. I recently purchased some “full spectrum” bulbs for our desk lamps, in the hopes that these bulbs would give us a little energy perk and cheer up our spirits on the gloomy days that New York often suffers. I’d heard that full spectrum bulbs simulate sunlight and therefore help improve mood and maybe help Thyroid imbalance and make you faster than a speeding bullet and etc. Honestly, I don’t rely on light bulbs to cure diseases! But if full spectrum bulbs give us a little psychological boost, then, hey- why not? Honestly, I can’t say I have noticed a huge difference. Maybe. I’m a pretty chipper person, anyway, especially when I’m at my desk.

Anyway, now we have a little guide for choosing CFLs. I like it. Here’s what Old House Journal said:

1. Bedroom and Living Room: Pick a bulb in the “yellow” range as close to 2700K as you can get.

2. Garage, Basement, Laundry and Utility Room: These are rooms where mimicking the sun is okay. So, look for bulbs in the “white” range and have a high color temperature of about 5800K. Don’t go too much higher than that or you’ll end up in the ugly “blue” range.

3. Computer Screen: There is a great free program I use called F.lux. It makes the color of your computer’s display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.

For more specific information, see the U.S. Department of Energy’s CFL lighting facts chart here (opens as a pdf document).

In 2012, sales of incandescent light bulbs in New York State will be illegal. The bulbs nominated to fill the void: Compact Fluorescent Lights, or CFLs. The government’s Energy Star website says that CFL bulbs use “75% less energy than standard incandescent bulbs and lasts up to 10 times longer.”

Honestly, I’ve been using CFL bulbs for certain rooms, and I haven’t seen any big difference between them an incandescent bulbs; CFLs may last a LITTLE longer than incandescent, but NO WAY not 10 times longer. Maybe 1.5 times. As a matter of fact, I filled my living room chandelier with CFL bulbs in December, and already one has blown. :-p These suckers are pricey, too. No one ever says that they COST 20 times more than incandescent. I have yet to see any reviews on CFLs, like I see all the hgh reviews and etc. If you know of a website that offers some statistics, I’m curious.

Anyway, I’m mainly against CFLs because they contain mercury, one of the most toxic neurotoxins known to man. Currently, there is no system for disposal of the bulbs that we will all be forced to use. Oh, there are a whopping total of THREE recycling centers in New York State (all near Albany) that accept CFLs from residents only (at the time of this writing, to my knowledge). But what are homeowners to do with burned-out CFLs? Throw them in the trash for the landfills? Imagine all the mercury polluting the environment, seeping into the water system. Ugh.

Some experts recommend that we save all our CFLs until the state figures out how to dispose of them all.

Uh, hello? We are supposed to stash old bulbs in bags under our beds until you guys figure out what to do with them?! You mean you didn’t have this all planned out BEFORE you passed such a law?

*rolls eyes*

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

How about you? Is your state regulating CFLs? Do you see a noticeable difference between them and the incandescents?

Oh yeah, Find the Kitty. I left you in terrible suspense on Friday, didn’t I? Haha! Lin just can’t contain herself– WHERE’S Livvy? Were your guesses correct?!?!

Sorry if I haven’t been around. Since I got some new wheels, I’ve been zipping around town with my newfound FREEDOM, baby! Booyah!!! We have a travel vehicle once again! I’m thinking about getting some New York Traveler promotional items. How about a big car magnet with my logo on the side, huh? Or maybe some Mrs. Mecomber Bic Clic Stic pens or groovy GOPromos personalized notepads??? I think it would be SO cool. I actually will be getting some New York Traveler t-shirts for us to wear when we visit museums and such.

OK OK enough teasing. Here’s the original photo of Livvy.

She’s hiding here. Under the island.

Please excuse the dust bunnies. They are taking over the house. :-p

She literally SQUEEZED under the island. It was funny watching her. I only had a split second to snap a photo with the cell phone, so that’s why it’s a little blurry.

So you guys were RIGHT!!!!! You’re all professional kitty finders, you are!

When it comes to getting promo stuff, I REALLY ought to market the cat. I think she’s more popular on the Internet than I am. :-p

Besides being a clock freak, I LOVE signs. I love retro signs, safety signs, traffic signs, goofy posters, everything. I’m just as happy having a framed copy of the U.S. Constitution next to my tin sign “DRINK COFFEE! Do stupid things faster with more energy!”

Finding funny signs is another matter, though. I have located a very few online stores that sell retro signs, but they charge an arm and a leg!! But I just found a new website called http://www.safetysign.com/. This is neat! They have EVERYTHING– parking signs, stop signs, facility signs, recreation signs, OMG the lists are endless. AND I can create my own sign! *snicker* So I can be as eccentric as I want, and they’ll make it for me. This is very cool. Hm, I’m currently looking for a “Toxic Waste” sign for my kitchen, lol. Or maybe hang it over the dog’s area. :-p

I liked this one. Ha!

Oh, this would be PERFECT over my desk!

And I’d put this in all the kids’ rooms. (And in mine, ai chihuahua).

So there’s a sign for every body for every situation, lol. I there are a gadzillion different signs. The prices are actually pretty good, and you can order U-Channels Posts with mounting hardware in different colors. VERY COOL! Because I need to place a few “DO NOT PARK IN PRIVATE DRIVE” in my front yard. I live near a popular ice cream store, and all summer long I am asking people to please move their cars so I can get out of my driveway.

Check out the site! It’s cute. The site has mostly safety signs and such, but if you like quirky decor, or are in need a of gentle reminder for traffic passers-by, it’s a great place to get some signs!

Here’s the latest update for all you who wait breathlessly for the continuing saga in my pitifully mundane life!

I FINALLY got a clock.

Woooo I live dangerously, don’t I??

Seriously… it’s been a long time since I started chattering on about this. EVen before we gutted the dining room, I didn’t like the cheesy $5 plastic clock that hung there. After we renovated, I wanted something very elegant. It had to be readable, large, but traditional looking. All the ones I saw at my retailers were upwards of $40. Whoa.

I found a beautiful Kalvin Large Clock in Brown Cherry by Howard Miller at CSN Stores! They sent it to me for my review! Aren’t they totally swell!!! Here it is.

It looks so pretty in my dining room with the Grecian accents.

I LOVE the large numbers. No more squinting when I need to know the time!

It’s a very simple clock– it runs on one “A” battery and has the traditional plastic wheel that you spin to rotate the hands. The clock has a second hand, too (I love those). The case is acrylic. It’s a big clock– over 15 inches. The price was a little over $27 (it’s on sale) and that included the free shipping. Shipping was fast and the packaging was good. I’m pretty impressed, a clock this large and this nice for such a price.

Thanks to CSN Stores for sponsoring me. CSN Stores is a great place to shop. They have everything– home decor, furniture, bed and bath stuff, kitchen stuff, pet supplies, lots more. Prices are good, the selection is incredible, and the shipping is, in many cases, FREE and FAST. I kept the UPS man hopping this past week. I recommend CSN Stores, my experience was very good there. I’m going to become an affiliate, I like them so much.

So. IT’S DONE! I finally got my clock!!

Hee hee.

Doesn’t it look like a Cleopatra chair?

It’s actually called a “chaise lounge chair” *ahem*.

I am looking to replace the living room furniture in the near future. I’m tired of the cat-scratched sofa and the two funky, upholstered orange throwbacks from the 1970s that were found curbside…. :-p I don’t particularly like the straight-back chairs and I don’t like futons, bean bags, or Barca Loungers. I actually prefer to lounge on a long couch, but I can’t fit it into my small office very comfortably.

Lounge chairs seem to be very nice. There’s a lot of them at the Chaise Lounge Chair Store, with a variety of styles and colors. I prefer the more traditional styles (I’m not terribly find of contemporary anything), but the store has some pretty eccentric styles that are amazing! I may get one for my office some day, that and a papyrus fan and a slave who feeds me from a cluster of grapes….