Home and Lifestyle

I’m hiding!

April 18, 2007 by Tricia

Chris came home from work a while ago, and I asked him if he’d go out to the store to pick up a few things for us. His first stop was to the corner store, and as soon as he came back he quickly closed the door and said “Hide, the Jehovah Witnesses are coming!”.

Now, we have nothing against Jehovah Witnesses but we don’t subscribe to their beliefs and have been caught in the past standing in our door way discussing the pro’s and con’s of such beliefs with them. Frankly we really don’t care to do that. They can leave their pamphlets at the door if they’d like and we will look at them, but in general we don’t like opening the door to people that appear to be selling things whether that be a product or a belief.

After Chris shut the door, he closed our living room curtains and turned out the lamp beside me. Yeah he really wasn’t interested in talking! Well, actually he was still going to go out to the store and I guess he was attempting to hide me.

So … Chris just went out to the store and I’m sitting in the dark, on the floor listening for that fateful knock on the door.

The Jehovah’s were on the other side of the street when Chris was busy closing the curtains and turning out lights. I’m not sure when they’ll get around to knocking on our door, but I have no doubt that they will. So here I sit, typing away on my laptop as I sit on the cool uncomfortable hardwood floor.

I’m going to give it 15 more minutes and then go back to life as normal. With any luck they might already think that no one is home since they probably saw Chris leave with the car.

Is this crazy or what? What lengths have you gone to in order to avoid something?

Down Bedding Sale at DownDeals.com

April 16, 2007 by Tricia

I keep saying that spring is the time of year when I and many others start to not only do our spring cleaning, or begin home renovation projects, but it’s also the time to get great deals on some of the items that we can’t live without during the cool winter months.

Yeah, that’s right. It’s the time for clearance and closeout sales. Of course, DownDeals.com is no exception to this rule as they too are having closeout and clearance sales on their bedding items. If you like to sleep in comfort, be surrounded by cozy soft warmth you should check out their Down Bedding Sale. Shipping is free if your order is over $50, and there’s also a coupon code near the top of the main page that will save you 25% on your down comforter purchases.

Not interested? Do you think down comforters and other down items are too hot? I guess you haven’t heard that you can buy items that give different levels of warmth. You’ll never be too hot under a down comforter again if you select the right warmth level with the sites special search tool. You can also use their search tool to select the correct pillow density if you are interested in buying some down filled pillows for your bedroom set.

I haven’t had a down comforter in years, but with the fevers that I get all the time, and air-conditioning in the summer perhaps I should get a down filled comforter. I could use it year round whenever I feel chilly.

Down comforters, pillows and other bedding related items would make a great gift too, especially since these items are on sale now. Check it out.

Remodel, blog and win contest!

April 16, 2007 by Tricia

Show of hands … How many of you enjoy doing Do It Yourself projects? It could be anything from painting a room, perhaps using an interesting painting technique like sponging or venetian plaster like I did. Or perhaps you’ve refinished your basement? Maybe your project involved tearing out a wall in a room and re-dry walling? Putting in a sky light? Re-finishing your kitchen, installing ceramic tile backsplash, Re-finishing antiques? Being creative and taking something old and worn and painting it or adding trim and making it into something new and functional?

Well, for those of you who have planned projects and hired someone to complete the job, or have a past, present or future do it yourself remodeling project you might be very interested in visiting RemodelingMySpace.com. Not only does this site aim to be your one stop place for just about everything to do with remodeling from How To video’s and articles, to scores of resources, but they are currently holding a contest.

This is an ideal contest for anyone who is planning or currently involved in a remodeling job.

The contest is called “Remodel, Blog and Win” and the grand prize winner will win $5,000 dollars! I’m going to tell you all about the contest, but I just wanted to let those of you who are not doing any remodeling projects that you too can win $250 by registering to vote in the contest.

Are you having a baby or have you already had one? Did you spend time fixing up the babies room? Yes? Well guess what – that’s a remodeling project.

As many of you know I’m a true do it yourselfer. I love renovating and doing projects to improve my home and garden. I know that many of you have mentioned your own past, present and future remodeling projects on this site whenever I’ve discussed my own. I hope that many of you will consider entering this fantastic contest.

Contest Benefits for Bloggers

This is a contest that delivers. Even if you don’t end up being the grand prize winner you can still reap many rewards just by entering:

1. YOU COULD WIN $5000! If you’re the grand prize winner

2. “People’s Choice” Award of $1000

3. Increased Exposure For Your Blog – This remodeling contest will be heavily promoted throughout the duration of the contest, and having entered – your site will be listed on the blog contestant’s list. This will generate exposure for your site and increase your sites traffic as homeowners, bloggers, and press visit your site to see your entry.

4. Increased Traffic For Your Blog – The public will be voting on entrants for the Peoples Choice Award, and this will cause registered and non-registered voters to visit your site in order to cast their vote, so this is another way that this contest will boost your sites traffic.

5. Link Juice For Your Blog – As I said earlier once you enter the contest there will be a link to your site posted on the Remodeling My Space site. One of the rules of the contest is that you must link to one of the sites resources that you thought was helpful for your project. There will be a lot of links going back and forth from contestants, the sites and other sites that discuss the contest like I’m doing now. Occasionally some of the contestants blogs will be linked to in order to highlight their project and blog postings.

6. Meet Other Bloggers Not In Your Niche

7. Create Valuable Content For Your Blog

8. Elevate Your Creative Mojo

9. Learn New Stuff With Our Tools

10. Get Inspired To Get Work Done Around The House!

11. contractors.com will also be cross promoting the site and thus your blog entries.

Now, I’ve only summarized a few of the ways that this contest will be beneficial to those who enter. Please visit the site to read more about the contest benefits for bloggers.

So what are the rules and how do you enter?

Now, if I list all of the information about entering and the rules here, this article will be far too long. I’m just going to highlight some of the important information that you should know, and you can continue to read the rest of the contest information at Remodel My Space.

This is a contest for anyone who has already started a remodeling project or who is about to start one. Everyone will have a chance to win. The judging criteria for the grand prize is based on creativity in both your actual remodeling project and how you go about showing your projects progress on your blog. Your budget, or the amount of resources available to you doesn’t factor in to the judging criteria. Creativity is key.

The contest began at midnight March 1st, 2007, and it will end at 11:59:59 p.m. EST on Friday, August 24, 2007. Contest winners will be announced Saturday September 1st, 2007. Public voting and automatic entry into the random voter draw will begin at 12:00:01 a.m. EST on Friday, May 1, 2007, or once they have 100 contestants – whichever comes first.

Entries can consist of projects and blog postings that began before the contests start date.

The grand prize of $5000 will be judged by a judging panel made up of 6 judges. 3 of the judges will be blogging experts, and 3 will be home improvement experts. The judges haven’t been announced yet, but they will be listed at least 30 days before the contest deadline.

Entries will be judged for best use of space, best use of materials, as in choices in decorating with color, and best use of your available budget for the project. Whether your project is big or small, done on an interior or exterior room it will be eligible for entry into the contest.

You can complete your project on your own, work as a team, or hire a professional contractor to complete your project.

Now to enter the contest you have to be able to show the judges and all the voters what your project looks like, perhaps even a step by step, start to finish article or series of posts. RemodelMySpace.com would like you to show your entries via blogs. If you don’t have a blog yet, no worries, you can take a look at their list of free blogging resources and start a blog or page at sites like MySpace, Blogger, or WordPress just to name a few.

Your blog posts will be judged for “Best use of blog space” as in – is your story an interesting read? Inclusion of pictures, images and videos including before and after pictures are encouraged. So is explaining your projects steps, what materials you used and how you used them. Did you tell your readers about resources you used to plan your project or about sites that inspired your design?

The Peoples Choice Award of $1000 US will go to the contestant with the highest number of votes.

As I mentioned earlier there will also be a prize of $250 for a random voter. Register on the site to vote in the contest to gain eligibility.

There’s already been a few great entries into the contest. Want to check out your potential competition or just get some great ideas for a future project? Visit the contest entries page.

One of the entrants – Grassroots Modern – is an all round great blog for those looking for modern renovation ideas. They have an ongoing kitchen remodeling project and they are keeping their readers up to date with postings on their progress.

Another contestant to visit would be Carley Brook Farm. This site has some great posts about planning your budget for a remodeling project, and fantastic “how to” articles. Check out their posts about frozen winter pipes, old plaster walls, and scraping painted wall paper. This is definitely a site to bookmark if you are doing a lot of work on your home and want to read about the trials and triumphs of others before you tackle your own project.

The last entrant I’ll discuss is 10K kitchen remodel. Almost everyone becomes interested in remodeling their kitchen at some point. I certainly belong in that group, and I’m interested in doing it as inexpensively as possible which of course means I’m going to get my own hands dirty. The owners of 10k kitchen remodel would also like to complete their kitchen remodeling project for a reasonably low cost of only 10K. That’s a tight budget for a complete kitchen remodel but it can be done, and this site will show you how they are managing to remodel their kitchen without spending too much money.

Are you up to the challenge? I think this is a worthwhile contest, and I’m certain that many of you would qualify for some aspect of this contest. Please do visit the site and read all of the contest information. There’s nothing complicated about the contest, and of course there are a lot of benefits as far as site promotion goes for all of the bloggers who enter too.

But wait! There’s more!

As for the RemodelingMySpace site itself? If you are working on, or planning any kind of remodeling projects, you simply must visit this site. I could easily write another one or two posts about this site as it’s just chock full of free resources. You’ll find all kinds of how to articles and ideas, photo galleries full of design ideas, how to and do it yourself videos, and useful tools like the remodeling cost estimator, and measurement conversion tools.

RemodelingMySpace also has free software downloads like Googles 3D remodeling software. Then there’s the online home value estimator.

Plus for those of you who are not DIY’ers there’s the contractor finder/locator. You can find a contractor for just about any kind of remodeling work pretty much anywhere in North America using contractors.com contractor finder. There are listings for contractors who build home additions, decks and porches, kitchen, basement and bathroom renovations and many more. Use the Contractor finder/locator search tool on RemodelingMySpace’s front page to find a contractor that suits your needs in your area.

I really could go on and on about this site. RemodelingMySpace.com has a motto and it’s “The Best Ideas Come From Sharing…”. They live up to their motto. Their site is so full of information that I don’t think they will have any trouble becoming the authority site for anyone who’s planning any kind of renovation or remodeling project. I’ve already bookmarked the site, and I’m going to link to it in my blogroll for easy reference as well. That’s how strongly I feel about this sites importance as a top resource for DIY’ers. There’s a wealth of information within the site. I urge you to begin exploring now.

Trapped in the dark

April 16, 2007 by Tricia

Unbelievable! Our power went out!

I was sitting there in total darkness. Ok, well I was, but I went and found some candles so I guess I was sitting in candle light as I waited for the power to return.

The house was so silent it was eerie. Chris went to bed early because he has to wake up at 5 a.m. to get ready for work. He did wake up when the power first went off though. You see it flickered a few times before failing and this triggered my radio alarm clock and made it blast music for a few seconds. I guess he might have also woken up because his c-pap machine that he must wear each night for his sleep apnea would have stopped working too. No more air forcefully being blasted into his nose. I’m sure he didn’t mind that it was off. LOL

I was in the middle of writing a big article for an advertiser. I had actually spoken with the advertiser via email on and off for a few days and we had decided that my article of his site going up on a Monday might be best because I sometimes have a peak in site traffic on Mondays. Hmmm I hate it when things I promise don’t work out – especially if they are due to circumstances that I have no control over. Luckily the power came back on after an hour and I’m busy working on the post again. I did lose what I had written. That was a drag!

All I wanted to do was finish writing and posting my article and then I was going to go to bed so that I would actually get up at a decent time for a change. Now, I’m sitting here trying to re-write what I had written and hoping that it comes out as good as it did the first time round. So much for actually going to bed early for a change.

The power was on just up the street. The street lights and traffic lights were working in that area, but here it was only darkness. The power failure was just from the corner of my part of the street and eastward. I’m sure the hospital, if was effected had to go on back up generator power. I used to hate when the power would go out at the hospital. All the doors would automatically shut, and the fans that circulated air would stop and it would get so warm.

That’s one nice thing about living so close to a hospital. We are on the same power grid as the hospital so when the power goes out in the area or in the city like the big blackout of 2003, they work to restore power to this area first. Well, I mean any areas with hospitals or areas that offer vital services to the public would be first on the list of course. Luckily the power doesn’t go out here very often.

Naturally I wasn’t able to access the Internet either. Our wireless router was off so our Internet connection was down. I wrote the bulk of this post, and have just now changed the tense from present to past, in my email program while using my laptop. Worried the whole time that my laptop battery wouldn’t last the length of the power failure. If the laptops battery had failed I wouldn’t have gotten anything done.

I’m so happy the power came back on … I just hope it stays on at least until I’m done the article that I promised I’d have already posted by now.

Spruce up a wall with a Wallhog

April 15, 2007 by Tricia

Have you guys heard of walhogs yet? Wallhogs are basically posters, vinyl or canvas prints that you place on your wall.

Wallhogs can be created from your own digital photos or images to create wall posters, large reusable vinyl wall hangings, and canvas prints in a variety sizes with the largest being up to 7 feet tall. If you don’t have great images of your own to use, you can browse through the wallhog image catalogue to chose a photo or image that suits your needs.

Imagine that? Think of how thrilled your child would be to have a photo or image of one of their favorite things, scenes or people on their wall? If you wanted to, you could probably cover one whole wall or the majority of a wall with one of the vinyl wallhogs. I know if I was still a kid I’d just love that.

When I told my husband about wallhogs we both immediately thought of using one in our soon to be refinished basement. I could take a photo of our garden, perhaps a view from the house looking out at the whole garden and we could put a wallhog on the basement wall that would be closest to our garden. Every time we’d go into the basement and look towards that wall it would be just like looking out into our garden. No more dingy dark basement for us. It would be alive with the feeling that our garden gives us when we are sitting in it.

Businesses could use wallhogs to display life size images of their products, logos or perhaps even corporate events that they are proud to have taken part in.

There are simply so many ways that home owners and businesses could use wallhogs it’ s unbelievable.

Posters can be created in sizes from 24″ tall and 4 feet wide, or as large as 7 feet by 4.5 feet. Posters have a high gloss finish and just like any of the wallhog products, they are usually created quickly and shipped out within 72 hours of the time that you placed your order.

Just like posters, vinyl images can be created in very large sizes. They can be made in sizes from 2 to 7 feet in height, by 4.5 feet wide. That’s huge! You could certainly cover all, or a large portion of a wall with one of the vinyl wallhogs. Vinyl images are shipped out within three days of your order and like all of the wallhog products there is no minimum order. You can order just one, or as many as your heart desires.

The vinyl images are reusable too. You can install one on a wall very easily and if for some reason you’d like to take it down you can store it and then reuse it where ever you please.

As you can see from this image they can remove the background from the photo in order to highlight the focus of the picture. Background removal is free of charge.

The third type of wallhog that you can create is a canvas print. Canvas prints can be create in sizes from 11 x 14 inches up to as much as 24″ by 36″. The inks and canvas material used are of high quality. Canvas images orders have a fast turn around and are often shipped on the same day.

As you can see wallhogs are quite versatile and they are simple to order too. To create a wallhog you just need to decide whether you’d like a poster, vinyl image or canvas print, pick an image from their catalogue or upload your own image, and then follow the easy steps to create a wallhog of the exact size and type that you’d like.

The prices are reasonable too. Going over the site the lowest price I saw was 19.99 for a 2 foot by 4 foot poster, and the highest priced item that I saw was the very large 84″ tall X 52″ vinyl image for $79.99. Don’t you think that’s reasonable for the versatility, size and quality that you’d get when ordering a wallhog?

If you are a photographer or artist you can upload your own images and sell them in the wallhog catalogue. Photographers and artists who sell their images in the wallhog catalogue are also offered a discount price on wallhogs of their own so that they can sell them to their customers through the wallhog reseller program.

I’ve posted some photos on my sites that some people have left comments on stating “that could be a wallhog”. So, I’ve been thinking of placing some of my images in the wallhog catalogue too. Why not? If people like my photos enough to leave comments suggesting that they’d make great wallhogs why not allow them to use them for that purpose and make a little bit of money too?

If you think that wallhogs are a great idea why don’t you go on over to the Wallhog.com website and see what you can create with your images. Browse through their catalogue while you’re there too as there is a wide assortment of images and I’m sure you’d find something that you’d enjoy using.

Wallhogs they have kindly offered to host a contest by supplying a free wallhog to the contest winner. The wallhog would be of the winners choice. If they’d approve my idea I’d love to hold a contest where my readers could submit landscape, cityscape, wildlife and nature photos. I’d hold the contest and allow my site visitors to vote on the images. The best 10 images would then go through a secondary voting process to pick the grand prize winner. If the people at wallhogs approve this contest idea I’ll let you know and we’ll have ourselves some fun.

If you’d be interested in participating in this type of contest please leave a comment so that the people from Wallhogs can see that the contest would be a great idea to host.

I’m hiding!

Down Bedding Sale at DownDeals.com

Remodel, blog and win contest!

Trapped in the dark

Spruce up a wall with a Wallhog

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