HOME AND GARDEN

Advice on Home Improvement and Gardening Projects

Are you green enough?

It is an odd question, certainly, when asked outside the context of St. Patrick's Day.

Get used to it; we'll continue to ride the groundswell of green into 2009 as environmental stewardship permeates every facet of day-to-day living. But it will be tempered by the Go Lean movement -- a byproduct of economic uncertainty.

What does that mean for the average household? More home-grown produce, less store-bought extravagance and no weekends financed on credit cards.

Furniture will be smaller and multifunctional, interiors will make greater use of Earth-friendly products from bamboo floors to clay-coated walls, and harnessing the sun's energy will become cost-effective.

Continue reading "Home and Garden trends for 2009: Lean and green" »

We start 2009 licking our collective wounds, and it has little to do with New Year's celebrations or the Detroit Lions.

Michigan is an economic basket case, with nearly 1 in 10 residents out of work. While it is too soon to talk about Armageddon, once-comfortable suburbanites are starting to feel the pinch and making changes that for legions of Depression-era families was second nature.

They are growing their own food.

Continue reading "More families save grocery money by planting gardens" »

You've been putting it off -- repairing that perpetually leaky faucet, repainting those tired bedroom walls, replacing worn-out carpet or perhaps redecorating the living room.

But now it's 2009, time to resolve to get at those long-neglected projects.

THIS WEEK'S QUESTION

"What are your home improvement resolutions for the new year?"

Continue reading "What's your home improvement resolution for 2009?" »

It can be so very frustrating when you know you have more than enough square footage, yet some rooms are too big, or cramped or simply not functional. Clearly an addition is not needed, but how do you reallocate spaces that relate to each other and are in the right proportion? While considering this, attention has to be paid to access and views of the outdoors, interior views (what you see from where), and the ultimate lifestyle you want to have.

Continue reading "Changes to home improve traffic flow, room usage and outdoor access" »

Have you been thinking about selling some unwanted antiques or collectibles online and don't know where to start? Has the economy turned you into a salesperson of all of your unwanted clutter? Do you want to take advantage of a worldwide audience of buyers? Selling on the Internet is easy for the big guys, but how do regular folks generate some extra cash online?

As always, tip No. 1 is to find out what you have and what it's worth before you sell anything anywhere.

Know your market: Certain items sell better in certain markets. For instance, Pennsylvania Impressionist landscape paintings sell better in Pennsylvania than they do in New Mexico. Think broadly about potential markets.

Continue reading "Some tips for selling your antiques and collectibles online" »

I often find I have both too many and too few seeds! So I'm hosting a snail-mail seed swap as a way to get rid of your extra seeds, while picking up something new to try.

MLive is not renewing blog contracts for 2009, so this is my last entry. You can keep following my gardening adventures at Garden Faerie's Musings.

Continue reading "Join Monica's Seed Swap" »

Timing has never been my strong suit. So I didn't remember to buy my holiday amaryllis until three days after Christmas, and then only coincidentally. I bet it'll bloom by February! I bought it mostly as an experiment, because I want to find out whether those instructions for getting it to rebloom next season really work! Yep, I'm a bit of a rebel and a bit of a scientist.

Continue reading "Amaryllis After-Holiday Care" »

Q. I live in a 1,000 square foot house to which an addition was added several years ago. The bathroom and bedroom in the addition are always cold, as they are the rooms farthest from the furnace. There is a dirt crawl space under the house and the ducts run through there. How much heat is being lost in the crawl space on its way to the rooms in the addition? Is there anything we can do about this? M.M. Kittery.

Continue reading "Insulate ductwork in rooms further away from furnace" »