How to Replace a Rain Barrel Spigot

My rain barrel has been harvesting water for the last three years. I couldn’t be happier with it. Even better my rain barrel keeps a soggy side of my house dry.

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The only downside to my 40 gallon bundle of joy is after three years of faithful service the shut off valve on the attached hose broke. I can’t unscrew it and use a regular garden hose with my rain barrel rock because it has a hose instead of a spigot. 

18 Easy Summer DIY Projects That Will Motivate You

Summer is my favorite season. I think I am part plant because I love being out in the sun after suffering though the cold and harsh winter. I’m  too Type A to sit in a lawn chair and tan (which is actually skin damage. Who knew?) I’m not into sports much either. I spend time outdoors getting my DIY on!

I lovingly refer to summer as Project Season. 

There is nothing like the feeling of accomplishment that comes from finishing a DIY project. It might be a little project that ends up taking all day because you are new but that’s OK because everyone has to start someplace and every super smart DIYer I know had to start at the beginning.

 

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I just want you to pick up the tool of your choice and try. I get a thrill when someone like Diane of The Big Green Purse lets me know you were inspired to make try making a repair yourself. You go Diane! Woot! Woot! 

DIY doesn’t have to be all big scary power tools unless you want it to be. One of my favorite gardeners Anna from Green Talk insists she isn’t a DIYer, yet she has an amazing garden and spends hours tending it with love. So yes Anna, you are a DIYer your tool of choice is a trowel instead of a hammer and that’s OK.
 

18 of My Favorite Summer DIY Projects

 

Everything You Need to Know About Indoor Allergies and Air Pollution but Didn’t Know You Should Ask

  This post is brought to you by a partnership between Condo Blues and Air Filter Buy.

I thought I had reducing household air pollution and allergens all figured it. As soon as I change the filter on our HVAC system and clean regularly with green cleaners I should be good when it comes to my air born allergies, right?

Nope. Not so much.

My new allergist not only gave me a more comprehensive list of my allergens, he also gave me marching orders to reduce the amount of indoor pollutants in our house. 

I’ve been doing a ton of research on indoor air pollution. I found this info graphic called Everything You Need to Know About Indoor Air Pollution helpful and want to share it with you.  I personally found it helpful because it shines some light on the health issues related to indoor air pollution as well as telling you what simple steps families can do to protect themselves.

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Not to scare you or anything, but do you know indoor air pollution caused nearly 8% of worldwide fatalities in 2012?

Help a girl out, what do you do to reduce dust and allergens in your home?

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How to Clean Sandpaper on a Belt Sander

Sandpaper lasts me quite awhile because I rarely have a project where I bust open a new sanding belt and sand all the grit off the belt before it is time to switch to a different grit during the project.

Needing to change a still gritty sanding belt because it is clogged and gunked up with sawdust is a different matter.

Why does it always happen when you’ve got just a little bit left to sand and you’re out of new sanding belts? Is it some DIY conspiracy I don’t know about? Possibly.





Did you know you can clean sandpaper and prolong its life? Yep, you can! Cleaning a sanding belt is a cheap and easy thing to do. You might already have just what you need to do it too.

3 Cheap and Easy Ways to Clean Sanding Belts and Prolong Their Life

14 Epic Star Wars DIY Projects

Happy Star Wars Day! May the Fourth be with you!

When Star Wars came out, it was the first movie to have have major toy tie ins. Some of the toys were pretty good like the action figures. Some of the toys were not so great like the flashlight light sabers. And most of the time, the toy or character thing you wanted as a kid didn’t exist so you had to make it.

Now all of those Star War maker kids are grown up. They share the Star Wars movies with their children and play with the cool new Star Wars toys they didn’t have when we were kids. But the coolest thing of all is those maker kid grew up and are still making epic Star Wars DIY projects. Some for their kids but mostly for themselves.

May the Fourth Be With You: 14 Star Wars DIY Décor Projects

18 Awesome Playhouses You Have to See to Believe!

I think one of the best thing about being a parent is being able to build your child a playhouse or tree fort. Sure, you can buy your kid  one of those  little plastic huts at the toy store and call it a playhouse. But why when there are so many crazy fun and unusual playhouses out there to build instead?

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How fun is this little crooked house on  A Place Imagined? A former Disney artist built this whimsical fairy playhouse from found materials.

Adorable!

Mother’s Day Tool Giveaway with WORX Tools: 3 Winners!

One of the benefits of living in a condo is having a homeowner’s association that mows our yard. Unfortunately sometimes the lawn guys are more about doing the job quickly than accurately.   Husband and I figure it time to invest in lawn tools so we can trim and tidy up the edging the lawn service hits and misses.




Husband and I checked out the WORX 20V MaxLithium GT Trimmer/Edger/Mini-mower and it’s pretty neat. It take the place of three power lawn tools in your garage, a grass trimmer, an edger, and a mini-mower, very nice for those of us with limited tool storage space. The other feature Husband and I appreciate is the how easily the telescoping shaft adjusts to the user’s height. When it comes to yard work Husband and I trade off jobs as our schedules permit (and who gets tired of wonky edging first.)

Recycled Kitchen Cabinet and Wood Pallet Workbench

I needed a workbench in the garage. I also wanted one place to store all of my tools in my workshop. I’m low to the ground at 4’11”. It makes more sense to store my tools in my workbench than above the workbench on shelves or peg board.  

Originally my plan was to buy matching bathroom cabinets at the Habitat Restore since bathroom base cabinets aren’t as tall as kitchen cabinets.  I would finally have a work surface that is at the correct height for my size!

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Father in law said there were  two mismatched kitchen base cabinets that have been forgotten in his garage for years and offered them to me.

Change of plans. Free is good.

What’s Better Than a Vacation? Winning a MAKEcation of Course!

I have a decent collection of tools and know how to use them but there a number of things I’d like to try but would feel more confident if someone showed me how to use say, a lathe, so I can keep my figures while working on my first project.

I can’t be the only one who feels this way about using tools, can I?

I guess not because Craftsman is holding another MAKEcation event this September Sept. 24-27 in Brooklyn, New York and will teach you how to use all sorts of tools to make really cool things. It sounds like DIY Vacation Heaven!

Last year they taught everyone how to make a wood goblet on a lathe. Learning how to use a lathe is on my Bucket List.

 

You can win a chance to go to the ultimate making vacation that will put true makers' blood, sweat and tools to the test, letting you sharpen skills and learn new ones. 

15 Unique Garden Border and Edging Ideas

Now that it is officially Spring, I’m ready to start planning our landscaping. I found a bunch of clever, unusual, and some down right weird ideas for garden borders and edging one day while I was researching what to plant and where to plant it.

I thought I’d share because maybe you need new garden borders too.

Or you just like to look at garden p*rn. that’s OK too.

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21 Drought Tolerant Plants for Your Yard

You are getting excited for the Spring planting season?

Me too!

Although I am not looking forward to how much it will cost us to keep a new landscape watered all summer long.

One way to avoid a high summer water bill is to plan my new landscape with native plants. Since I often forget plants need water to grow, they should be drought tolerant too.

Since I know pretty much nothing about native or drought tolerant plants, I'm cruising over to Organizing Made Fun and reading her 21 suggestions for Going Native: Drought Tolerant Plants for Your Yard.

Check it out now and pin it for later!

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Can Your Laminate Flooring Kill You?

Last Sunday, 60 Minutes investigated Lumber Liquidators Chinese made laminate flooring for unsafe levels of formaldehyde in  Lumber Liquidators Linked to Health and Safety Violations. 




The basics of the story I linked to are this:

• 60 Minutes bought 150 boxes of laminate flooring from several Lumber Liquidators stores throughout Californian.

• 60 Minutes asked three independent labs to test the samples to see if the formaldehyde in the laminate flooring (mostly in the glue used to make the laminate) meets California’s strict formaldehyde emissions standards, called CARB 2.

• The lab results showed all of Lumber Liquidators Chinese made laminate flooring was from 6 to 7 times over the state limit and some laminate samples were up to 20 times over the state limit.

• Lumber Liquidators American made laminate flooring as well as Lumber Liquidators flooring they purchased from Lowes and Home Depot passed testing.

• 60 Minutes then purchased 31 Chinese made laminate samples from Lumber Liquidators stores in four states and sent the samples to two certified labs for formaldehyde testing.

• Both labs reported that 30 samples were over the formaldehyde limit, some as high as 13 times. 1 sample of Chinese made laminate flooring passed testinga.
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6 Smart Strategies to Organize a Garage and Workshop

Our garage and workshop was an unorganized mess!  I put the organize the garage project off for long time because I was overwhelmed by the clutter. Where do I start? Ack!

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By accident or design (I’m going to go with by design because it sounds like I had a plan all along instead of a make it up as I go along series of happy accidents) I broke my big garage organization project into several smaller, less overwhelming projects.

Guess what? Three days later (I had a lot of stuff to deal with) I had an organized workshop I can use without tripping over anything. I discovered some things I thought were working weren’t and why. I made changes according my needs and organization style. My garage is now neat and stays that way.

Yay!

This method worked so well on helping my clear my garage clutter madness that I’m using it to organize other parts of my house. You can too!

Organize Your Garage in Three Easy Questions

I make most DIY projects harder or take 10 times longer because I have to hunt for stuff in the jumble of crap the tool shelves eventually become in my garage. It needs to change.

Welcome to my nightmare.

It’s time to face the fact that while tool storage shelves work for some people, they aren’t working for me. I have tons of garage organization ideas on my Pinterest boards (follow Condo Blues on Pinterest, pretty please?)

I have even more people telling me I should create/build/buy garage organizers like the kind they like.  I appreciate the helpful suggestions. But  I have some of those suggested organizers and they aren’t working for me right now.

I need to learn how to determine how to organize my workshop and garage according to my habits and organizing style first before I go crazy installing the slat wall of my dreams or whatever.
 

How to Make a Garage and Workshop Organization Plan with Three Simple Questions

17 Resources that will Motivate You to Declutter and Organize

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Winter is a great time to get organized. Since most of us are stuck inside because of the snow and the cold and a little restless, why not use that energy to clean and organize the post Christmas carnage in my craft room, right?

Small Space Industrial Open Pantry Yay or Nay?

A worn valve on our water heater flooded the utility, laundry, and kitchen after Husband started the dishwasher on Christmas Eve Eve morning.

Husband shut the water heater off while I called plumbers. Apparently plumbers are crazy busy with smart people who have plumbers do pre-emptive work on their pipes before overloading their plumbing with guests, cooking, and cold weather. It was a Festivus miracle I found a plumber during regular business hours that day!

That didn’t make my cranky feeling go way as I mopped the rest of the water, hoped we didn’t need to buy a replacement water heater (fortunately we just needed to replace a valve – whew!), and pulled a mountain of chaos out of the utility room so the plumber could find the water heater had room to work.

Wood Laminate Floors: Yay or Nay?

 I never really thought about the carpeting in my house except for vacuuming dog fur tumbleweeds when Lacey's coat changes for the season and spot cleaning coffee spills because I am a klutz.

Th Great Water Damage Room Renovations is forcing me to think about replacing my bedroom floor covering. The question is with what?  And am I stuck with horrible wood laminate flooring if we don't go with carpet?

How to Cover Popcorn and Textured Ceilings

One of the first things Husband wanted to change when we bought in our condo are the textured ceilings. I told Husband if he wanted to soak the texture with water so it is loose enough to scrape off off with a hand scraper while standing on a ladder in. every. room. of. the. house. the project is all his.

10 years later we still have textured ceilings we don't like.

We learned to deal with the fifth wall in every room we aren't crazy about. We didn't think about changing our ceilings until I flooded the house and damaged the kitchen ceiling. 

How to Remove Grout and Regrout Tile

The grout in the Master bathroom shower is chipping. The other grout patches I did as a quick fix are discoloring. I’ve been putting this job off forever. When Husband went out of town on business, I figured it was time to do remove the bathroom grout and add new grout to the tile. 

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This job isn’t hard. However is probably messier and takes longer than you might originally think. At least it did for me.

No Sew Halloween Apron

My sister and I are foodies. We often send each other email with the subject line MAKE THIS and a recipe. During one of our conversations the subject turned to food, as it usually does, and how cooking messes can ruin clothes.

There is a solution for that. It’s called an apron.

Halloween is my sister’s favorite holiday. We share the same warped sense of humor. I made her a no sew apron I know she’ll wear for Halloween and quite possibly during the rest of the year to serve as a funny warning to others.

Don’t Make Me Poison Your Dinner Apron