Improve Your Home and Garden
From the category archives:
Seems like everyone has discovered outdoor living spaces. Many homeowners are even tearing out their lawns to create these “living room extensions.” Not only do they give you additional space to entertain and spend time with your family, they often add significant value to your home. Versatile outdoor living spaces can be as simple or [...]
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At this year’s Builders Home and Remodeling Show in St. Charles, the first ever Mills Apple Show was held. Of course, Halloween is around the corner and pumpkins are sold being sold everywhere, but believe it or not, October is the National Apple Month! At the Mills Apple Show, bushels of Midwestern apple varieties were [...]
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The BP oil spill travesty has jolted a lot of homeowners into exploring alternative forms of energy that were once deemed cost prohibitive. “Our industry is expanding dramatically because the price of residential solar panels has dropped,” says Susan Brown of the Kansas- and Missouri-based Energy Savings Store. But before plunging into this rapidly growing technology, here are [...]
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Termites like wood. They don’t care if the wood is old growth, new growth, responsibly harvested or clear-cut; they just want to eat it. Wouldn’t it be grand if you could just explain to the bugs that you are trying to be green and therefore don’t want to use pesticides in your home? You could [...]
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As a child growing up in the Midwest, my parents always kept a large freezer in our back room. Now, admittedly, at the time, my main interest in that freezer centered around the stash of popsicles and ice cream I knew were kept in there. But my parents focused on stocking it with fruits, vegetables, [...]
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A small greenhouse sounds appealing to many homeowners, especially as the price of fresh produce continues to rise. Yet to some homeowners it also sounds … complicated. A new method of growing doesn’t have to be difficult, though. Larry Strobel of Simply Solar Greenhouses in Bell City, MO, shared tips and information on getting started [...]
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When you hear the term “green cleaning,” you probably don’t think about your vacuum cleaner. By now we’re all aware of the dangers of toxins in cleaning products and how they affect our family through direct contact or by breathing their fumes. But you probably don’t give much thought to how vacuuming your home affects [...]
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Are you trying to sell your home? Has your realtor suggested home staging might help you get a serious offer? Staging a home makes it appear as spacious and attractive as possible, but it also involves major de-cluttering. Where will you put items that must be hidden away while the home is for sale? Things like family [...]
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You will meet the Indigo Bunting in pastures, along the edges of swamps or along roadsides that are lined with trees or bushes anytime between the later part of May and September. He is the deepest ultramarine blue and certainly cannot be confused with other bluebirds. The front of his head and chin are a [...]
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Do you think worms are yucky? While worms may not be attractive, they are a gardener’s best friend. Worms provide us with some of the best ways possible to organically fertilize, nurture, and protect our gardens. We wanted all the dirt on worms, so we asked worm expert Becky Halphin of Windswept Worm Farm in [...]
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Heat, light, food, and good health-amenities that none of us can do without. Unfortunately, the meteoric rise in cost for all four over the last 10 years shows no sign of slowing anytime soon. But you can fight back. As a homeowner, you can reduce your expenditures on all four by retrofitting your home with [...]
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PLASTICS!!! You may think, “The Graduate,” but it’s time to change that thinking to Dennis Trost’s company! Trost Plastics is an exhibitor at the next week’s St. Louis Builders Home and Garden Show….and for very good reason. Consumers are clamoring to get their hands on Trost Plastics fencing, awnings, decks and pergola. I wondered why [...]
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While terms like “surface tension” and “surface adhesion” may give some of us traumatic flashbacks to high school science class, it is principles like these that are being employed every day in home improvement and maintenance. For the Gutter Cover Company, surface tension is the science behind its flagship product, The Gutter Cover. Based [...]
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My friend Janelle is from a family of pioneers. No, they didn’t own a covered wagon, but her dad was one of the first people I knew to go solar. When Janelle and I were in sixth grade, her father spent most of that spring installing a solar panel the size of Nevada on his [...]
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Commonly known as Mexican petunia, Ruella brittoniana, has become a popular annual in the Midwest, being used as both as a bedding plant and a container accent. The genus name honors Jean de la Ruella (1474-1537) a French herbalist. There are some taxonomic and nomenclature issues, but Ruella brittoniana is the name most commonly used. [...]
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It’s the beginning of Spring and the end of the day. You are completely worn out from shoveling wood chips onto all your trees and flowerbeds. As you sip iced tea and compliment yourself on a job well done, you are thrilled to be done with this chore…until this time next year. But mulching doesn’t [...]
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If building a new home is in your future, how would you like to save thousands of dollars in the process? You can when you become a builder owner and act as your own general contractor. Your first reaction to that idea may be horror. You may know nothing about the construction process. In fact, you [...]
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Do you have the urge to run away from the clutter in your home? Are your closets in danger of being classified a federal disaster area? If you answered yes to either question, consider a closet organizing system. “Homeowners and business owners typically want the biggest bang for their buck in terms of more effective use of the square footage [...]
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Do you have the urge to run away from the clutter in your home? Should your overflowing closets be classified a Federal disaster area? If the answer is yes, consider closet organizing systems to rid your home of unwanted clutter. Closet Tailors, St. Louis, MO, designs closet organizer plans that are both cost efficient and environmentally friendly. “Homeowners and business [...]
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