Do it yourself projects and home improvement articles

Hostas revisited after a month

homeimprovement — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:34:40 +0000

Thunderbolt Hosta a month later

The lighting is a bit different as this picture was taken in the morning but notice that this hosta has flowered, added a couple layers of leaves and the bottom leaves have gotten bigger. I probably have it in too much sun.

Thunderbolt at the end of May

Krossa Regal after a month

I took off the bad leaf and the plant seems much more compact now. Coloring is quite a bit different with this morning sunlight.

Krossa Regal earlier after just planting

Blue Angel Hosta - after one month picture

We’ve got a few more leaves on this Blue Angel Hosta and it looks like the flowering is finished. This one has a long way to go but we are making progress.

Blue Angel

Daybreak Hosta

Looking pretty full a month later. I think this hosta is appreciative of the sun more than the others.

Daybreak at the end of May

This one is still a little rough around the edges but is beginning to flower and is getting enormous. Compare with a month ago below.

It looks like the slugs have been after this one. I’ll have to put some egg shells around it.

This green and white hosta looks similar to a “Night before Christmas” hosta.

Elegans a month after planting. A bit fuller than before.

Elegans

Frances Williams Hosta

Latest acquisition. We’ll keep an eye on it.

Growing Hostas

homeimprovement — Sat, 31 May 2008 21:05:58 +0000

Thunderbolt

Here’s a recent hosta acquisition of mine. This is called “Thunderbolt.”
Large (leaf 81-144 square inches; plant 18”-28” tall)

I was attracted to this plant instantly. I probably didn’t give it enough space as 36-48″ is the recommended spacing. I probably paid too much for it but it sure is striking.

Krossa Regal

This is a blue hosta and is showing the effects of being recently divided (see browning on the leaf). The Krossa Regal will reach a size of 70×36″ with 4 to 5′ flower scapes (pretty massive). As you can see I’ve got a long way to go to get there.

Blue Angel

Here’s another blue hosta - Blue Angel. This one had been subject to a lot of sun as you can see by the flowers. Could grow to as much as 6 feet wide and 30 inches tall. What a beast! Here’s a nice photo of a rather full size Blue Angel.

Daybreak

I’m pretty sure that this hosta is Daybreak. Daybreak makes a nice contrast to the blue hostas. It seems to like the sun as well as it is in a fairly sunny location.

I have these hosta all over my yard and they seem to be rather pedestrian. I recently transplanted this one but it has really taken to frequent waterings. Not sure what it is called. It’s pretty much just a plain green hosta. I’ll keep researching to see if I can find the name.

This green and white hosta looks similar to a “Night before Christmas” hosta. The White Christmas hosta seems to have quite a bit more white in the leaves.

Elegans

Another plant obtained from a nursery. This has probably been in a little too much sun. This Blue Hosta should be a stunner. Here’s a great shot of a full size elegans. I love those blue corrugated leaves.

This is a hosta I moved last year. It seems to be the opposite of the Thunderbolt as it has the yellow on the edges of the leaves. It really loves its new spot in the shade and has grown immensely since last year. It looks very similar to a Satisfaction hosta but not quite the same. In searching for it, I came across two really beautiful hosta - “Great Expectations” and “Cathedral Windows.” Look those up for a thrill.

Memory Foam Mattresses are Garbage

homeimprovement — Mon, 19 May 2008 04:04:52 +0000

Less than two years ago, I bought a memory foam mattress off of ebay.com. I know, I know, big mistake! It was an 8″ QUEEN MATTRESS W/ 3″ MEMORY FOAM 5.3lb density. Memory foam is pretty much an oxymoron. There’s basically no such thing as foam that retains the memory of its shape or whatever their claim was - “keeping you in a natural, ergonomical position” - bullshite - memory foam does not provide adequate support for your back.

Almost two years later, my wife’s back and mine are not in good shape. I’m taking delivery of a real mattress in a couple days. We can’t wait to get rid of the sleep on cloud garbage. Hopefully, with time, our backs will get better. The seller’s id was sleeponcloud. Now sleeponcloud is no longer on ebay.com as a seller. Fancy that!

Seller information at the time was:

Seller Information
Katherine Vu
Westminster, CA 92683 United States

I’ve sent an email to sleeponcloudmattress@yahoo.com. And I traced the 800 number - 800-709-9525 - to this website - http://www.memoryfoam4u.com/returnpolicy

I’ll be interested to see if they respond. Do yourself a favor - don’t waste your time with memory foam.

Los Angeles Eco-Home Impressive

homeimprovement — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:57:09 +0000

I watched a bit of Eco-Home on public television. Eco-Home is a house in Los Angeles, Ca that takes advantage of green practices in order to have little or no impact on the environment. Among the green practices employed are using native and other drought resistant plants in place of a lawn (a Xeriscape); collecting and re-using grey water to irrigate fruit trees in the back yard; employing solar panels to generate electricity; heating water with a solar water heater; using a sunpipe to light the kitchen during the day; using low flush toilets to conserve water; composting kitchen scraps and other materials to enrich the soil; as well as many other environmentally sound practices.

The other advantage to going green is that some of these green items/practices are very affordable and end up saving you money in the long run. I really liked the sunpipe which is an item you install on your roof and pipe down to the room you want to illuminate. The sunpipe collects sunlight and reflects down to the room you want to light. I’ve seen something like this at home and garden shows. Here’s a nice little factoid on sunpipes - If your SunPipe® allows you to turn off just 300 watts of light bulbs for 5hrs/day, 5 days/wk, you’ll keep 650 Lbs of CO2 out of our air every year. I wish I had integrated one into my garage/home office. Looks like they start around $400 or so. They would probably take several years to pay for the initial cost in electricity savings.

I’ve also been slowly eliminating my lawn from year to year. I’ll keep thinking of ways to do so. A landscaper strongly recommended Pachysandra terminalis. I may give that a try.

RoundUp WeedKiller lessons

homeimprovement — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:55:09 +0000

I was over at Sears Hardware debating whether to pick up the regular pre-mixed, spray bottle RoundUp or the concentrated version that makes 2.5 gallons of Roundup or 5 gallons (slightly more diluted) of Roundup. I ended up getting the 15 ounce bottle of concentrate. I mixed it up using 6 ounces of Roundup to 1 gallon of water. It seems to be taking much longer to kill the weeds. I’ve sprayed them three times now.

What I suppose happened, is that Sears probably doesn’t move much of the concentrate so who knows how long that stuff has sat on the shelf. I imagine over time that it breaks down and isn’t as effective.

So if you go to buy Roundup, opt for the pre-mixed, spray bottle version or check with the store to make sure the concentrated version of Roundup hasn’t been sitting on the shelf for over a year.

Delta Water Amplifying Shower Head

homeimprovement — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:28:44 +0000

I recently picked up the Delta Fluidics Adjustable Shower Head. I already head a 2.5 gpm navy shower head but never liked it’s look and it actually cooled the water as it delivered it to you. If the shower head considerably mists the water that actually cools the water being delivered to you. So although you are using less water than a normal showerhead, you are using more hot water than you need to because you are continually turning up the hot water.The Delta Fluidics Adjustable Shower Head doesn’t mist the water as much and actually feels like its delivering more water to you. It is adjustable between 1.8 gpm and 2.5 gpm. Since it doesn’t cool the water as much, you also use less hot water.My first water saving appliance was the 1.6 gpf toilet. I switched two 5 gallon toilets out with these water saving units and watched my water bill drop by a third. I’ll be interested to watch my water bill with the new shower head working at 1.8 gpm and it may have an impact on my natural gas bill as well if I do indeed use less hot water in the shower. Check it out, it’s only $25 and you get free super saver shipping at Amazon.

Update: A nice little benefit to this showerhead is that since it does not mist so much, your showers will be less steamy and thus less fogging on your mirror.

Update: Ok, let’s start measuring the savings, shall we? From 11/14/2007 through 02/16/2008, I used 11 CCF of water. Around the middle of May, I should get my next water bill. It will be interesting to see what water savings has resulted. Also, the Delta Shower Head seems unaffected by toilet flushings during shower time (at least when running in 1.8 GPM mode) - not bad!

Squirrel Trapping Adventure

homeimprovement — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:22:27 +0000

Trapping Squirrels and the Damage that they did to my shed

As you can see, some red squirrels were desperate to make a home out of my shed. In fact, they already had made a home out of my shed. At that point, I entered into a constant back and forth. I would seal them out and they would chew their way back in to my shed. They even chewed through the shingles on the roof. You can’t see all the holes in the side of the soffit or underneath it. Where you see the wood boards screwed into the side of the soffit is where several more squirrels holes were. There were more underneath as well.

At this point, it was time to call in a professional. With the help of Dave at A-1 Wildlife Removal, we got rid of all the red squirrels. We did still see one in the other yard but he/she hasn’t ventured over here as of yet.

Trapped and hog-tied, you ain’t going no damn wheres, varmint

If you want to catch a squirrel then put the trap right next to where they are entering your building. And I mean right next to the entrance. Dave didn’t mess around. How about this design? Right next to the entrance.

For all of you worried about the health of the shed, well she’s doin’ just fine, thankyou!

Got Varmints! Contact Dave at A-1 Wildlife Removal
614 231-4667
Urban Animal Specialist
Geese, Racoons, Squirrels,
Skunks, Groundhogs, Chipmunks,
Birds, Rats, Possums & More
Licensed and Insured - ODNR Permit
24 hour service - serving the Central Ohio area

World’s best snow removal system

homeimprovement — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:52:13 +0000

I have to laugh at my neighbor. He bought a $500-$600 snowblower and it take him 30 minutes to clear his driveway. He then spends another 30 minutes with a shovel. What a complete dork. For $45 I have a better snow removal system and it takes me 10 minutes to do my drive, sidewalk and patio. Yep, the janitor’s push broom is the best snow removal system that I have found to date. No aching back, no sore muscles and no problems. Granted the push broom is only good until a certain depth of snow - maybe 5 or 6 inches but here in central Ohio we rarely get more than a few inches at a time. Even if we do get more than that, I just hit the driveway a couple times with the push broom before it accumulates. And to think that I almost spent $600 on a snowblower. What a joke!

Simple tips for keeping your home warmer in the wintertime

homeimprovement — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 18:42:54 +0000

Here’s a couple simple tips for keeping your home warmer in the wintertime as well as cooler in the summertime. Have you ever gone to turn on a light and felt cold air streaming from the light switch? Or have you ever gone to plug something in an outlet and felt the same thing? These are basically holes in your wall and you need to seal them up to keep the cold out. Sealing them up is something you can do very simply and inexpensively.What you see to the left are Frost King Electric Outlet Sealers. They also make Light Switch Sealers as well. Grab yourself a few packs each of these and a cordless screwdriver and you can seal up all the electric outlets and light outlets in your house in about 30 minutes. Will you notice the difference? Definitely when you go to turn on a light or plug a light in. You’ve got to have at least 50-100 outlets in your home. I imagine sealing 50-100 or so will result in some appreciable difference in how your home feels. Besides they’re about a buck a pack. Give it a shot and see.

Another thing that I recently did was to take some thick plastic and wrap my screens with it to the windows of my back porch. These screens are about 4′ by 5′. My back porch is sort of a sun room with those old louvered windows that you crank open and close. Problem is - the windows don’t close all the way anymore which leads to some serious cold air intrusion. I took some packaging tape and some thick plastic and, after taking out the screens, wrapped the screens with the plastic. My back porch was over 20 degrees warmer than the outdoor temperature yesterday. This also creates a nice buffer zone between the outside and the house even when it’s only 5-10 degrees warmer in the porch than it is outside. I also get less worked up now when the wife leaves the door open which leads to the porch.

Has the new furnace lived up to its billing

homeimprovement — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:52:28 +0000

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I purchased a new furnace back in November. Let’s do a quick and dirty comparison of last year to this year on gas bills.

Nov 06 - 39 Ccf - Nov 07 - 14 Ccf

Dec 06 - 45 Ccf E - Dec 07 - 57 Ccf Estimated

Jan 07 - 56 Ccf - Jan 08 111 Ccf

Feb 07 - 53 Ccf Estimate - Feb 08 - 89 Ccf Estimated

March 07 - 128 Ccf - March 08 - 127 Ccf

April 07 - 35 Ccf - April 08 - 78 Ccf Estimated

Well it appears we’ve been using quite a bit more natural gas this winter. We have been keeping the thermostat at around 70 and one of us is generally home all day. Last year, we kept the thermostat at around 65 or so. Let’s look at some other factors as well.

Here’s electric usage for last year and this year

Nov 06 806 KWH - Nov 07 800 KWH

Dec 06 1200 KWH - Dec 07 1152 KWH

Jan 07 1258 KWH - Jan 08 1164 KWH

Feb 07 1677 KWH - Feb 08 1311 KWH

Mar 07 - 1322 KWH - Mar 08 1716 KWH took a beating in March!

Apr 07 1027 KWH - April 08 ???

So while natural gas consumption has gone up, electricity usage has dropped way down. Notice the huge drop in February. Also, I believe the date of the bill actually reflects usage for the previous month.

Why the change? Last year, we kept the old furnace at around 65 and relied upon portable electric heaters to heat the rooms we mainly used. This year, our reliance on electric heaters has dropped significantly (at least in the house). On top of that, I converted my garage into a full time office and despite heating that solely with electric heaters, my electric bill has fallen. Perhaps my garage was not as tough to heat as I previously thought.

I also imagine the furnace’s blower uses a lot less electricity than my old furnace’s blower. I’ve recently replaced several incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs so will see if that has a further impact on the electricity bill.

Stay tuned for my new water saving shower head report. This shower head saves water, delivers a full spray and doesn’t cool the hot water as it delivers it to you.