HomeSpot HQ

Your Home Maintenance Partner

Nina Hiatt

Guarding Against Winter Wear on the Home

by

Winter is a time of wonder as the snow sets in, the hot cocoa fills your pantry, and we trade in tennis shoes for boots and wool socks. But winter weather can bring a lot of wear and tear on your home—here are some steps you can take to minimize the damage.

Preventative

How to protect your home during winterPrevention is the best medicine, and it’s half the battle in protecting your home against the ravages of snow, ice, and all that’s in-between.

  • The Roof – Inspect your roof and shingles now. Look for leaks, abnormal wear, or other problem indicators and fix them now to avoid a leaky or caved-in roof later in the winter. In addition, be sure you check the beams and trusses in your attic; many times the previous homeowners will have removed pieces of the beams as part of renovations. This is a serious safety concern (especially with all the snow that will be piling up on your roof), so if you find trusses missing—or even pieces of them missing—call in an expert immediately.
  • Branches – Not only can critters use them to gain easier access to your home (and then burrow in through the roof or walls), these branches can become dangerous when weighed down with heavy snowfall. Never mind ruining your perfect garden shed plans, a snow-laden bough can crush cars, crash garages, and possibly even fall on your house! Yikes! So avoid that nightmare now and keep your sheds and Chevys safe by calling a tree surgeon if you suspect some branches my cause problems (a professional will know how to remove the limb without exposing the tree to damage or infections).
  • cracked pipes from freezingPipes – There’s nothing that ruins a month as easily as a cracked pipe and the flooding it can cause in your home. This isn’t as much a problem in warmer climates, but for most homes the worry of pipes freezing is very real. Check pipes for signs of weakness or wear and replace any that are getting too old. Beyond that, unscrew garden hoses from outdoor faucets and wrap exposed pipes in pipe insulation and secure with electrical tape. Foam rubber insulation is a cheap way to repeat this process on indoor pipes, such as those under the sink. Outdoor water systems should be completely winterized. If you’re still worried about indoor pipes freezing, as you should be if the temperature gets below freezing, keep the taps barely running at all times (as running water is harder to freeze).

Six Perfect Midsummer Garden Projects

by

Summer is half-gone, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing more to be done in the garden! Take advantage of the time you have left before fall and winter to spend in your beloved garden and work on keeping it up. There’s still so much you can do, even if it is nearly autumn.

Here are six gardening projects perfect for this midsummer season:

planting crops for the fall harvestPlant Fall Crops

Want to get a little more out of your vegetable garden? Go for it! Crops like spinach, broccoli, carrots, members of the onion family, kale, bush peas, and certain varieties of lettuce are all excellent vegetables to harvest in fall when planted right now.

When choosing varieties of any vegetable for a summer garden, be sure to pick a winter-resistant variety that fits in with your climate zone (which you can easily find on the USDA website to check against seed packets or seedling tabs) and add 14 days to the maturity date on the seed packet or seedling information tab to find your planting date.

Keep the soil moist and soil temperature lower than 80 degrees Fahrenheit to keep plants healthy. This can be achieved through the use of drip irrigation bottles buried in the soil, shade netting over the plants themselves, and any natural shade from trees. Then simply harvest in fall for even more fresh vegetables than you’d planned on.

Touch Base and Evaluate for Next Year

Now is a good time to just take a day out in your garden to evaluate it. How did your plants fare this year? What pest problems did you deal with and how are you going to face them next year?

Buy or create a garden journal and take it out with you. Take notes about various plants and diagram your garden. Make notes about what you liked and didn’t like (including color, taste of edibles, etc.) and about the things you’re thinking of trying next year. Writing these ideas down will make sure you don’t forget them between now and late winter when you should be starting your seeds or orderings seeds and seedlings.

Creating A "Defensible" Home In 5 Steps

by

“Defensible” isn’t a word you may hear that much, but it is, in fact, a word—mostly used by urban planners as a way to describe neighborhoods. Essentially, defensible space theory states that if the residents of a neighborhood feel an appropriate amount of territoriality over their living space, they’ll be watchful and try to protect it. So create a home that you take pride in and find sacred. It sounds complicated, but it doesn’t have to be—here are five easy little things you can do to make your home that much more defensible:

1. Create a Defensible Yard 

You don’t have to get ready to be on the cover of Better Homes & Gardens, but your yard should be neat and clean, free of junk and debris—move any old cars or other detritus to the workshop area of the garage, take it to a storage unit or to the dump (if you’re unable to take it to one of these places yourself, get in touch with local freight brokers who’ll set you up with a truck to haul the spare parts away).

Now, you’re left with a blank slate to beautify! Fill your yard with plenty of growing things, but make sure that all walkways are clear to easily walk through and that all your windows give you a clear line of sight to the outside. Keep areas with access to your home—garden gates, garage door, front and back doors, etc.—well-lit at night, perhaps set to turn on with a motion sensor for extra security.

Now plant some bushes, flowers, and vegetables that look nice and are something you can maintain. Does your heart swell with pride as you survey your property from the street? Your yard has made your home more defensible!

2. Be Good Neighbors

Cultivate relationships with your neighbors that allow you to create a unified, defensible community. If community members feel responsibility for the space they share, there is less crime; it follows that if you and your neighbors are friends, you’ll want to watch out for each other. So take cookies or chips and salsa to the new families as they move in and build a sense of community and friendship with the neighbors you already have.

Once you’ve established a sense of trust and friendship with your neighbors, agree to look out for each other. Be aware of each other’s’ movements and routines, ask them to get your mail and papers as well as watch your house while you’re away, and be willing to do the same for them.

5 Ways To Understand Your Style

by

Learn your styleInterior design stresses many people out; the time, the money, and not knowing exactly what you want are just a few things that add to the otherwise unpleasant mix.  So, what if you understood what you wanted? What if you saw the vision of the room you wanted to portray and were able to fully administer that vision into a reality? Understanding your design style will help make your entire interior design process a whole lot easier and fun! Remember that having a good design sense doesn’t mean that everything has to be pristine and cookie cutter, in fact it just needs to represent you.  Understand your design style with these 5 ways:

  1.  1.       Take a Look at Your Wardrobe

It is true that taking a look into someone’s wardrobe is like taking a closer look at their personality because your clothing is a great indication of your personal style.  Let your wardrobe give you an indication of what you are more likely inclined to buying and wearing. If  you traditionally wear more hippie chic based clothes then maybe your interior style should be bohemian chic.

Planning & Maintaining a Kitchen Garden

by

A kitchen garden is one of the best things you can add to any to any home. Not only does it add to the oxygen level and character of a home, but it gives you a hobby and the satisfaction of growing recipe ingredients fresh, with your own two hands (not to mention the added bragging rights that come along with that; who wouldn’t love to say “thank you, it’s from my own garden” when someone compliments your chicken Florentine with its fresh spinach).

It may seem like a daunting task, but with some consideration, you can make your own personal kitchen garden a success.

growing a garden in a nontraditional spaceAssess Your Space

How much yard space and kitchen space do you have, respectively? This will determine how much you can plant. If your yard is large and your kitchen small, then you may wish to put most of your kitchen garden plants out in the yard. However, those living in apartments or other places without access to a yard will have to make their kitchen gardens an actual garden in the kitchen.

Assess Your Place

How’s the weather out there? Do you have a lot of sunlight and warmth? This of course determines what you can plant. Most plants you buy in seed packets or from a nursery will be labeled as to what zones they grow in; then all you need do is find out what zone you’re in.

If you don’t live in a particularly sunny area but you long to grow your own fresh basil, as though you were living in sunny Tuscany rather than, say, Seattle, you can invest in grow lights as part of outfitting your indoor kitchen garden with its pots and soil, in order to give your out-of-zone plant the sunlight it needs.