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Save money – learn how to do that home project yourself

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As many of you who read this blog already know, my husband and I are true Do it Yourself people. We’ve yet to hire anyone to do any of the renovations in our home. Instead we’ve done all the work ourselves.

We’ve torn down walls, sanded and refinished floors, painted every room in the house, venetian plastered the living room dining room and our master bedroom, installed a skylight on the roof of our enclosed front porch and we’re currently working on adding a tin ceiling to our living room dining room.

I forgot the biggest and possibly the most satisfying project of all – we landscaped our garden and put in raised beds using interlocking easy stones.

Now I know that not everyone is a do it yourself kind of person, but I also realize that some don’t do things on their own that they could simply because they don’t know how.

Well, I’ve come across a site for those of you who like Do it yourself projects or for people who want to explore and see if they can do a project on their own. It’s the doityourself.com website.

There are thousands of articles on the site with do it yourself projects ranging from learning how to hang wallpaper to restoring a vintage car! You should be able to find just about any kind of Do it yourself project on the site. There are categories for interior and exterior home improvement projects, decorating, painting, electrical, gardening, plumbing, vehicles, crafts and more.

Many of the project articles come complete with photos and even video clips. In fact, if you are more of a visual person you might do well by buying one of the Do it yourself knowledge is power DVDs as they show you how to do each project in an easy to understand step by step way.

There are also over 100 do it yourself forums on the site that cover a range of topics. You can talk to other DIYer’s as your project progresses, compare ideas and possibly get some help if you get stuck in some way.

I really like this site. I’m pretty sure it will come in handy when we begin to renovate both our kitchen and basement! Check it out for yourself.






Tidying up the garden on a nice fall day

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Do you ever just go in your garden and start chopping away at the plants?

Of course you do, most of you are gardeners. Naturally by chopping away I simply mean you see a dead branch on a rose bush or shrub, some dead leaves here and there on other plants, flowers that need to be dead headed and so on.

Sunday was on of those days for me.

I went into the garden in the early evening and it was 10 pm by the time I came back inside! It’s a good thing we have one of those big security lights at the back of the house to light up the yard!

Several of our roses were overgrown and needed pruning. That’s what got me started. As I made my way through the garden beds I found many flowers that had started to go to seed so I got some of the small jewelry bags that I keep on hand and collected the seeds.

I’m keep the little bags of seeds that I collected open slightly so all of the moisture can leave the bag. I’ve also got to remember to put a few grains of rice in the bag to absorb moisture as well. There’s nothing worse than collecting seeds, sealing them up and then having them go moldy because you didn’t store them properly or because they weren’t fully dry when stored.

When the seed baggies are totally dry I’ll take them and store them in a nice cool place. Usually that ends up being the coolest corner of my basement.

Have you been pruning any of your plants? Collecting seeds for next year?

Oh … I overworked myself. I’ve got an aching back. One of the woes of gardening!

Have you ever thought of using a professional landscaper?

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I know that many of you who read this blog have lovely gardens that you’ve worked on for years. Others are just starting out and some of you would eventually love to have a beautiful yard, but you’re still trying to figure out how you’d like your landscaping to look.

Have you ever thought of contacting a professional landscaping company? The company that I’m writing about today is called Leisure Landscapes and they service the Triangle area of North Carolina.

I’ve written about landscaping in past articles. Some people contact a landscaper and are provided with landscape design ideas that they can then either approve and have the landscaping company begin work on their yard, other people pay to have a landscape designer come to their home, provide design ideas that would work with their layout and their gardening zone and then begin the design projects themselves. In the last case they’ve just payed the landscape company for an opinion and design ideas.

Most landscaping companies provide a variety of services such as the installation of patios, walks and walls, landscape lighting, gardens, fountains, decks and arbors. Many will also install fences, lawns, irrigation systems, ponds and even plant small to large trees on your properties. I believe most landscaping companies also offer a maintenance service to keep your newly landscaped yard looking lovely. Certainly Leisure Landscapes provides all of these services and more.

Do think about contacting a landscaping company if you want to revamp your property and create something special.

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