Home & Garden

It’s the perfect time to begin your dream back yard.  Your new swimming pool can be ready for you and your family by this spring.  Perfect timing for the hot weather quickly approaching. 

This spring, Carrier is offering consumers an incentive to purchase and install a new heating and cooling system in their home—the better the system, the bigger the rebate!  On qualifying products, consumers can receive up to a $1,200 rebate on a Carrier system.  The new Cool Choices program from Carrier gives you the opportunity to redeem your $1200 rebate for Cash, Travel, or Merchandise.  That’s right, you are in control of your reward!

With the first warm days of spring, most residents of Santa Clarita find themselves driven to the great outdoors.  Thoughts of home-grown tomatoes and peppers offer encouragement to get out and prepare the vegetable garden.
If your yard does not have an area designated for a vegetable garden, consider creating one from a section of lawn or an unused side yard.  All that is needed is soil and a sunny area.  Even large containers set on a sunny patio will serve to grow many vegetables.

Last month I addressed water hardness and the difference in a dissolved and a suspended solid.  Now that we know water hardness is a dissolved solid and generally cannot be removed by filtration, what can a whole house filter do for us?
An effective whole house filter should be effective at reducing sediment, pharmaceuticals, chlorine or chloramines, trace elements of heavy metals and odors.  The ability to backwash itself is an absolute must.

While many are choosing to hunker-down, there’s always those fortunate few who seem to make the right choice; they are at the right place at the right time.  They don’t miss windows of opportunities and they reap all the benefits. It’s predicted that this spring will be...

I thought it would be a good idea to go over some suggestions to give you a few ideas on how you can begin planning your next painting project.  Painting is still one of the most cost-effective ways to update your home, and selecting the right colors makes all the difference!  Below are some examples of the color trends for 2010.

Building a wood fence can be a fun and rewarding project. In addition to providing value to your home it increases your security and privacy. You’ll find it’s not a difficult job and I will show you the easy method of building your fence.
Before you get started you must first figure out your fence line. This will help you calculate the materials needed to build your fence. When determining your fence line the best thing to do is talk to your neighbors.

The Greener, Cleaner, Cost Saving Way to Your New Kitchen Cabinets

The kitchen is the heart of your home and should be beautiful, as well as functional.  Unfortunately, to replace cabinets just because they are worn out or for beauty’s sake is a very expensive, time consuming and inconvenient proposition.
There is an alternative to this costly, often frustrating and messy job of remodeling known as cabinet refacing.  This alternative to remodeling allows you to use your kitchen, in a moderate manner, during the work of refacing and restyling.
Cabinet refacing and restyling is the cleaner, greener way to your new kitchen.

OW Lee, the premium luxury name in casual furniture and accessories invites you to decorate your outdoor room!  Going online at: www.owlee.com lets you explore a world of options in design and color combinations like no other brand.  Choose from beautiful handcrafted wrought iron and aluminum patio furniture including dining, seating, fire pits, customized draperies, and elegant pillows.  Since 1947, OW Lee has offered a complete line of high end residential, contract, and hospitality furniture made in California.

Homeowners today realize what a terrific investment they’ve made installing a swimming pool and spa in their backyards.  It adds value to your property, but more importantly, the backyard now becomes a focal point and center of activity for all forms of entertaining.

Are you looking to refresh the décor of your entire home or makeover one of your rooms?  Ready for a new look for your favorite couch?  Is it time to dress up your windows?  Coming Home Fabrics is the place to be and has just what you need to give your home a new look.  Choose from a wide variety of their in stock bolts of all types of decorator fabric to make your home beautiful, including chenilles, tapestry, velvet, silks, sheers, florals, plaids, stripes, paisley and linens. 

There are many points of entry for water intrusion. Some things can be done by the homeowner to prevent such occurrence.
Water should exit the property completely.  Many homes only have the yard sloped so that water runs away from the home and into the street.  If water creates a puddle in the yard this is not good.  Filling some areas will sometimes help get the water to drain away.

Why wait to remodel?  Now is the time to raise the value of your house and receive a return of 100 to 150 percent by remodeling your kitchen and/or bathroom.  The possibilities are endless ranging from prices to styles.  The first step is to find out what you’re looking for and what your needs are, and then meet with a designer to go over the plan details.

This month I’ll touch on new paints, tile grout, and tools for women!
Tidbit: Nifty new paints you should know about are magnetic paint - great for a kitchen wall to create order to schedules and calendars.  With dry-erase paint kids can draw wall art, and then erase it! 

The key to a green, healthy lawn may lie underground, ground that is often hard and dry.  One major obstacle that homeowners must deal with in Santa Clarita is compacted soil.  During the construction phase of home building, the soil is compacted by heavy machinery. This is done intentionally, much to the chagrin of those who work in the garden.

The water in the SCV is harder than most regions in the state.  New residents learn this quickly but why is this so?  The answer is quite simple once we understand some of the basic properties of water.
Water is known as “The Universal Solvent” and tends to dissolve almost anything it comes in contact with.  In its journey to us, water collects minerals that present as dissolved and as suspended solids. 

With the required removal of automatic water softeners from the Santa Clarita Valley there have been many alternative water treatments introduced.  Some of them are new and claim different benefits that most cannot prove through any third party independent testing or certification/validation.  At the same time, most do employ Carbon Filtration as an integral part of their overall systems.

During the first few months of a New Year, most of us are inclined to take stock of our lives.  We tend to look at this as a time of renewal, a time to make positive changes.  One way to start making those changes is to look at and start dealing with our stuff.
Disorganization and clutter affects many Americans.