Cast iron cookware is the longest-lived item in any kitchen. Short of outright abuse, a good piece of cast iron could serve your great grandchildren. Do your homework before investing in cast iron. More »
Cast-iron cookware – Home and Garden – Kitchen and Dining – Shopping – Cookware
Dual flush toilets, despite the amount of water they save, used to be quite costly to obtain (around three hundred dollars). Nowadays, though, you can convert the toilet you already have for about thirty dollars and a half hour of work. More »
Home ownership is a completely different affair than renting and is more expensive than you initially imagine. Set up a phantom expense account to determine if you’re ready for the transition. More »
It's tough to completely screw up painting a room—dump the paint on the floor maybe?—but painting a room really well isn't that easy, either. Home blog Re-Nest's guide to painting a room efficiently offers a few expert tips.
Re-Nest’s guide to room-painting covers everything from making sure to remember to remove all the fixture and switch covers before getting into painting to the importance of edging in the areas you’re going to paint for nice even color and clean edges. If you’ve helped paint a room before but never done the cutting in part, it’s worth a read:
Cutting In: This is the most time consuming, but most important step to ensure a good looking paint job. When using the brush we just dip it directly into the paint can rather than pouring into a separate container to minimize wasted paint, but never dip a brush more than 1/3 [the] length of the brush or else you’ll risk ruining the brush because it will be very difficult to clean. When handling the brush, hold it as you would a pencil for maximum control. Press the brush lightly against the surface, then, as you move the brush, add just enough pressure to make the bristles fan away from the direction of your brushstroke. The bent bristles and the pressure will release a fine bead of paint that will spread perfectly along the edge you are creating.
Beginning at the corner of the room, use your angled brush to cut in (also known as edging), applying a thick band (2-3″ wide) of paint along the perimeter where you’re cutting in. Do this in 4-5″ long sections to ensure precision and a sufficient coating of paint. You will need to cut-in around all trim, ceiling/wall intersections, inside corners, and anywhere there is a change in color.
Check out the link below for the full guide, and if you consider yourself a bit of an expert hand at room painting, share your expertise in the comments.
If you hate waste and it seems a shame to throw away a jar of spicy or exotic mustard without getting the last bit of flavor out of it, this clever trick will turn that left over mustard into salad dressing.
At MarthaStewart.com they’re big fans of lists and galleries of clever and trendy things you can do around the house. In this week’s “40 Good Things” list they share a great tip for using the mustard left after the last sandwich is made, to create home made dressing:
Have a tiny bit of mustard left in the jar? Toss in a few ingredients, and shake a tangy Dijon vinaigrette right in the container. A crushed garlic clove, some chopped fresh herbs and minced shallot will add the right flavor. Pour in balsamic vinegar, season with salt and pepper, then close the lid and shake. Add olive oil; shake again to emulsify the dressing, and then drizzle over your favorite salad. With a tightly sealed lid, it will keep in the refrigerator for up to one week.
Sounds delicious and a perfect “after life” for the jar of Dijon mustard I’ve just about polished off. Check out the link below to browse through some of the other clever tips in their roundup. Have a frugal tip of your own to share? Let’s hear about it in the comments.
If you don’t have a knife sharpening kit and you’re in between taking knives down to the cutlery store to get sharpened, you can put a little bite back into your knife with a coffee mug.
Photo by Rhett Maxwell.
Over at the site DIYLife they highlight a way to sharpen the edge of a knife using a coffee mug:
It’s true, the bottom of most ceramic coffee mugs have a flat, unglazed ring that is the perfect surface for giving that dull knife a quick sharpening. Just run the blade across the bottom of the mug at a 45-degree angle, working from the butt up near the knife’s handle to the tip. Slide the blade downward in one direction, keeping your fingers out of the way as you work.
We'd definitely stress that this isn't a perfect solution for continually sharpening your knives—if you want to sharpen your own knives the Spyderco Sharpmaker is an awesome at-home solution—but if you need to clean up the edge and buy yourself some more time before a proper sharpening, it'll do in a pinch.
Check out the full article at the link below for additional information and tips on sharpening other kitchen implements. If you have a knife sharpening tip or trick to share, let’s hear about it in the comments.
Next time you inadvertently ding or bruise a piece of beloved wooden furniture, head to your pantry. According to all-things-home blog Apartment Therapy, all you need to cover up that ding is a single walnut.
The folks at Apartment Therapy know a thing or two about making an almost-perfect piece of furniture perfect, and according to them, a walnut—under the right circumstances—can buff out a ding in vintage wooden furniture with the best of 'em. The simple method, in, *ahem*, a nutshell:
1. Identify areas of your wooden furniture that are unsightly because they have been bumped or scraped.
2. Get your walnut.
3. Rub the walnut on the damaged area.
4. Watch in amazement as the damaged area begins to darken.
5. Step back and admire your work. Hey, you didn’t even break a sweat!
Ever tried this yourself, or have a better method? Let’s hear about it in the comments.
Ed. note: It can be pretty expensive (and a big pain) to install a wired, whole-house speaker system, but reader Tom O’Brien writes in with his low-tech solution: Route your speakers through the phone lines already installed in your house.
Here’s Tom’s set-up:
Using existing telephone wire and powered speakers, it’s fairly simple to connect speakers throughout the house via existing phone lines. This will work only if the lines have 3 extra wires, such as when no land line is in use, or if the house has 6 (very common) or 8 strand telephone wire. Cat 3 wire is 8 strand.
Each audio jack in the setup can connect to any source or supply output to speakers. All power is supplied by the input and output components. This is just a big complicated extension cable.
I live in an old 3 level house. This permits the same audio to be played throughout. Off/on and volume controls are on the remote speakers, as with any powered speaker. This will possibly violate the sensibilities of audiophiles, but the sound is fine for me.
Materials include:
- 3.5 mm headphone jacks from Radio Shack
- Repurposed Cat 5 or Cat 3 junction boxes drilled out for audio jacks. Home Depot’s are cheapest.
Tools:
- Soldering iron
All audio files, podcasts, etc are saved on netbook PC at “Home Base” (pictured above).
Note 2 cords plugged into panel. One is output from computer, other is to the speakers on shelf.
A CD player, portable mp3 player or any other source can be plugged in as well, hence so many jacks at home base.
The good speakers in living room.
3.5 mm headphone jacks from Radio Shack.
This is a cover panel for an in-wall junction box. The example has both speaker jacks and a phone jack and uses cat 3 (8 strand) wire. It would have been easier to just wire in a second box for the speaker jacks.
This is suitable for an in wall junction box.
The 3 screws at the top are for the audio jacks, the 4 screws at the bottom connect a 2 line phone via the cat 3 phone jack in the center.
External box wired in to existing phone system.
Double sided tape works well to secure wood to the box.
Thanks for the great suggestion, Tom! If you’re looking for a higher-tech solution that’ll still keep it cheap, check out our previous guide to using an AirPort Express to set up wireless, multi-room music playback.
There are a lot of nice bookcases out there, but many of them don’t fit your exact walls, and most can’t be installed in an apartment. That can be worked around in crafty style with plumbing pipes and some weekend time.
Using actual plumbing pipes and wood boards of their choice, a couple with really high walls but not a lot of leeway for in-unit construction built a perfect set of shelves for their stuff. Using a previous Apartment Therapy how-to, Elizabeth and Mike, with the help of handy friend Roger, bought and designed custom shelves for a price that’s not all that shocking:
In order to keep costs down, Roger designed a unit using standard measurements, so that no pipe or pine boards would need custom cuts. They found everything they needed at Home Depot for $250 (including all basic supplies, like tarps, tools, and brushes). The black matte finish of the pipes wasn’t exactly what they had envisioned, but they loved the result.
Hit the link for a full photo walkthrough. What have you used to make your own shelves in your own apartment or home before? Tell us—or, better yet, show us—in the comments.
iPhone only: How do you know if the color you want so much for your kitchen renovation is sea foam green or surf green? Let the Ben Color Capture App for iPhone help you figure it out.
Inspiration strikes at the strangest times. You’ll search for the perfect paint color for weeks, only to stumble across it splashed on the side of a city bus advertisement as you’re heading to lunch. Whip out your iPhone, snap a pic, then fire up the Ben app. Open up the picture you just took, tap anywhere on the image that displays the color you like, and the app will name the closest match available in a Benjamin Moore paint color. Alternatively, you can use a picture you’ve already got stored in your camera roll.
A store locator feature lets you know the nearest place that stocks Benjamin Moore paint, so you can run right over and grab some. Once you’ve settled on a paint color you like, the app also clues you in on what other colors will compliment your selection and keep you from making eye-burning choices like purple walls with fuchsia trim.
If you’re planning on doing some repainting, there’s really no reason not to grab this handy and free little app.
