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Upgrading your home?

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Winter’s not anywhere close to being over yet, especially tonight with the ice storm that’s currently raging outside, however you’d never know it when you walk around the neighborhood. It seems that at least one house in 10 in undergoing major renovations. In fact, my elderly neighbors home just started being renovated last week.

I don’t where my neighbors or their contractors are getting their products, but if you happen to be upgrading, renovating or having a new home built you might want to take a look at the products at Builders Electronics.

Builders Electronics has been in business since 1955 and they specialize in high quality home products. For example you’ll find Broan/NuTone, Denon, Aiphone, Beam, NEC, Panasonic, Sonance, Pioneer, Music & Sound and M&S Systems in their line of quality brand name products.

If you’re interested in renovating your kitchen and want to have quality products in your new kitchen you might take a look at their line of Broan Range Hoods. Likewise if you’re upgrading your bathroom – take a look at their Nutone Bath Fan Upgrade. They even have bath fans with light light fixtures. You’d never know it was a fan at all.

Builders Electronics also carries several types of Central Vacuum Systems, door chimes, Fans and heaters, Intercoms, Ironing Centers, Kitchen Centers, Medicine cabinets and several other items for the home.

As well as offering quality products they also specialize in custom installations and services such as security/burglar/fire and Access Entry systems, surround sound home theater systems, intercom systems, telephone systems and even surveillance systems.

Just visit their website to view their line of products and look over the services they offer.






Healthy drinks with a new juicer

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I’m sure that many of you made New Years Resolutions that began on January first. If you did make a resolution have you managed to stick to it?

I kept saying that I didn’t make any resolutions this year, but now that I think about it I believe that I did. The only reason I didn’t realize it is because I made my resolution way back in November. Remember when we got our Lab puppy? Well we got her for a few reasons, the main one being that I wanted a companion at home, but the other big reason was that I knew having a dog would force me to get outside several times a day for a walk.

As many of you know I’ve got Crohn’s disease and it’s been real bad for the last few years, so I’ve basically been living in chronic pain day in and day out. Remember last year I had long gaps where I’d say I hadn’t even been in my garden? That’s so unlike me! My lack of gardening and garden related visits last year was purely related to how bad I was feeling.

Getting a puppy, especially an active one like a Labrador Retriever, that needs to be exercised several times daily would surely force me to get outside and get active no matter how I was feeling right? Well it worked. Plus, getting outside and walking around sort of makes me feel better. It doesn’t help the pain I’m in much, but it takes my mind off of it.

I’ve also lost a little bit of the weight I’d gained last year due to my increasing activity.

Now I’m wondering what else can I do to improve my health? I have trouble eating a lot of foods because I don’t digest food well or some foods just don’t agree with my system, but I’ve been considering getting a juicer again. I was looking at the juicers at Wize.com and I’m pretty sure we’ll get one before the month is over.

We used to have a juicer, but we gave it away to one of my husbands aunts a few years ago as we weren’t using it. However now I’m thinking about all the fresh juices that I can make with a juicer and it sounds good to me. I can also juice carrots and other veggies, some of which are hard for me to eat raw or cooked because of the crohns. I’m sure that my body would appreciate the juiced form!

If you’ve been thinking of looking at juicers visit Wize.com. They have five pages of juicers on their site and each one is rated by consumers. The juicers, and other products on the site, are listed by highest rating. The ratings are made by those who have used the various products so it’s a consumer satisfaction rating.

You can read consumer reviews of each juicer (or other products) in order to see what features other people liked best, view product details and see the price range for each juicer as well as a listing of several online stores where you might purchase the juicer of your choosing.

Take a look at the whole site to find other products that you’ve been thinking about buying and read reviews before you buy.

As for me? I think I’ll take a look at their juicer listings and try to find one that’s been well rated and that fits my budget. I’m really going to work on getting healthy this year and I think a juicer will help as much as those walks with our dog will!

Durable outdoor teak furniture to spruce up your patio

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Sometimes during the cool winter months when I can’t garden I spend time planning for the following growing season. I think about what plants might do better if I were to move them to another spot in the garden, or what plants I might purchase via mail order to plant in the spring. Do you make plans for your garden or backyard in the off season too?

When I’m not making plans for the growing season I sometimes try to think of other things that I can do or purchase for my backyard to make it all the more enjoyable. I mean, you can only work in the garden for so long right? You’ve got to sit back and relax and take in all that beauty at some point!

During the summer we often have friends drop by several times each week and we spend our time sitting in the backyard enjoying the view while we talk. Other times I have backyard BBQ’s and dinner parties.

We have a nice high glass patio table right now. I like it, but since we often have several people over for get togethers I find that the patio table is too small to accommodate our guests. The table is meant to sit four people, but we purchased two high stools so we can sit six. It’s a tight fit at times!

I’m seriously thinking about getting a larger patio table and perhaps some other patio furniture. I took a look at the outdoor patio furniture at BeFurnished.com and I really like their selection of teak outdoor furniture.

Teak is a fantastic wood to use for outdoor furniture because it’s so durable. It holds up well outdoors and I believe that the wood is resistant to pests like termites so it doesn’t get damaged the way other wood furniture does.

Another reason that I’ve thought of replacing my patio furniture with teak is because it’s so windy here in Toronto. We have a lot of wind here and we also have some major thunder storms. I always worry that the wind will blow our glass patio table over. Of course if that were to happen the glass insert would likely break and it would be quite expensive to replace. A teak table would be much less likely to be blown over in the wind.

BeFurnished.com is a US based company but they will ship anywhere in the world. That’s another reason why I like this company. Not only that, they offer free shipping within the continental US. Since I’m in Canada I always check an online stores shipping policies before I start browsing and adding items to my shopping cart. I’m always pleased when a company with products I like ships to Canada.

If you’ve been thinking about getting new patio furniture be sure to take a look at the selection at BeFurnished.com. They have teak sets, teak tables, teak chairs and benches, Adirondack Chairs, loungers and steamers, teak bars, cushions and accessories such as patio umbrellas. They also have a selection of outdoor furniture that they call “Deep Seating”. This is a selection of outdoor chairs, sofas, benches and even an ottoman that has extra deep seating for added comfort. There’s garden accessories too. Storage boxes, lazy susans and mini teak planters just to name a few.

I really like their selection of teak patio tables. They have teak extension table sets, round tables, benches sets and deep seating sets that look like outdoor living room furniture. I love it.

We have a fairly small patio so I can’t get really large patio furniture, but I do like the idea of getting an extension table. We keep it at it’s smaller non extended size most of the time, but we could make it larger to accommodate more guests when needed. I love that idea.

As most of my readers know my backyard is fairly small. It’s long and narrow and I have raised garden beds running along all of the sides of the yard, with one oval bed extending into the yard to divide the patio area, which is near the house, from the rest of the garden. The back half of the garden has a grass covered area where we sometimes pull out folding chairs when we have an outdoor gathering.

deepseating.jpg Looking at the deep seating loveseats and sofas at BeFurnished.com I thought how nice it might be to perhaps have a deep seating set for that area. I’ll have to get my husband to have a look at the outdoor furniture and see what he thinks.

I’m sure he’ll like it.

Visit BeFurnished.com to see their selection for yourself. I’d love to know if you like their teak outdoor patio furniture as much as I do.

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