Friday Favorites Linky Party 429

My husband and I are blessed with the pitter patter of new little feet this week. Meet our energetic house guest Mattis!

Hello. My name is Mattis.  

My husband and I wanted to help our friends by dogsitting but we had a little concern. Lacey still sometimes guards me from other dogs, which is one of the reasons she was rehomed with us. We've  worked on it (and still work on it when necessary) and established some rules ahead of time to set everyone up for success during Mattis' visit. We had a good first night - no guarding from anyone! 

How to Extend a Downspout the Easy Way

Your local building code my differ but most recommend the water running through the downspouts of your house discharge the water at least six feet away from the house’s foundation. Otherwise, the water can splash back and erode the soil around the downspout where rain water can get in to damage the foundation of your home.

Putting a splash block under each downspout is the easiest way to divert rainwater away from the foundation of your house and fix the problem.  That’s what the builder of my neighborhood did to our houses.

The results are hit and miss because the builder used a one measurement fits all approach and some of our downspouts are too high due to hills in the neighborhood and some of us have soil eroding under their splash blocks like my neighbor’s house shown below.

Pin this tutorial on Pinterest for later and share it with your friends!

Two Easy Ways to Extend an Existing House Downspout

Friday Favorites Linky Party 428

Time to link up and share your fantastic craft and DIY projects, recipes, tutorials, and ideas! I can't wait to see what you have in store for us this week!

How to Grow Basil Plants From Cuttings

Basil is one of my favorite herbs to grow in my self watering container garden.  It is affordable (especially if you grow basil from seeds,) fairly hardy (since I often forget plants need water to live,) and is the easiest (and cheapest) way to cook with the fancy varieties (opal basil, anyone?) I never see for sale in the grocery store. (Disclosure: I am including some affiliate links for your convenience.)

But the thing I really love about growing basil  is if you have one basil plant, you can use it to propagate the clippings to grow more basil plants!

Yes, really!

How to Propagate Basil Plants