Posts from — October 2009

Most of us think that because hardwood floors are a rather sensitive and expensive material, we should always seek the help of professionals to get them installed.

Thus, it is comforting to know that with the right tools and the right kind hardwood, it is pretty much a do it yourself endeavor. And because prefinished hardwood floor planks are already available in hardware stores and instructional manuals everywhere, then you really have nothing to worry about.

How do you install hardwood flooring? First, decide whether you want to use oak, maple or cherry, or rustic ash. Oak is the most expensive kind of hardwood material, but it is reputably the best and the sturdiest. If you’re working under a particular budget, maple or rustic ash are also okay and will last as long as oak with proper care and maintenance.

Next, prepare the following materials: the hardwood planks, a vapor barrier paper, a pry bar, a hammer, a speed drill and drill bits, a pneumatic flooring pack (which consists of a nail gun, staples, a mallet, a hose, and an air compressor), a staple gun, a tape measure, a chalk line, and, of course, your how-to manual.

It would be wise to study the manual before you go about hammering away so you don’t waste time. Some hardware stores already have prepackaged hardwood installation necessities so you can avoid the hassle of looking for each piece. Of course, you shouldn’t forget your safety goggles and gloves, as all the drilling and hammering could produce wood dust and can be harmful when inhaled.

Before buying hardwood floor planks, measure the surface where you are going to install them. Order planks that are around 10 to 15 inches bigger to allow room for errors. Expect that your initial attempt will be very challenging, but once you get that first plank in place, the rest should be a breeze.

Get rid of squeaks by tightly nailing the hardwood plank into the subfloor. When cutting, always provide extra space. When you’re dealing with hardwood floors, it’s best to go over and make the necessary adjustments than be left with a space that would look awkward to fill.

If you got a prefinished hardwood floor, then the job is done after you’ve installed the planks in place. But if you bought wood in its purest form, you should also pre-equip yourself with sanding and finishing tools and prepare for another challenging task ahead.

Fast food is a big part of modern life these days, making it very hard to teach a child how he or she should eat healthy.  The cheapest and easiest foods are those that are normally the least healthy.  If  you give your child the choice between healthy food and junk food, you normally won’t like the results.

Even though it isn’t possible to get a child to like all healthy foods, there are some ways to get your child to try and hopefully like at least a few of them.  You can be as creative as you like, as getting  kids to eat healthy foods can be a little harder than you may think.

-  Sneak the healthy food in.  Even though it would be great if your kid understood the importance of  fruits and vegetables, this isn’t always possible. If you can’t get them to eat good food willingly,  there are ways to sneak them in, such as making  muffins out of bananas or apples, or pizza with spinach on it.

-  Call fruits and vegetables by funny names.  You can refer to broccoli as “trees”, making them  more fun to eat.  There are many different names you can call fruits and vegetables, even making up your own if you prefer.  Most kids prefer to eat foods that sound fun.

-  Make the foods taste better. Ranch dressing is great for broccoli, while peanut butter is a great topping for celery.  There are several combinations for vegetables that can make them taste much better.  You can let your child pick a topping for a vegetable, even if it’s something you wouldn’t normally like yourself.

-  Dress the vegetables up.  Just as much as calling them names help kids eat healthy foods, making them look funny also helps.  You can do this by making funny designs on the plate, or setting them up to look like people.  Although some parents don’t like their kids playing with their food, sometimes it helps to get them to eat healthier.

There are several ways to make your kids eat healthier, but to make them enjoy it also has to be fun as well.  This isn’t always an easy task,  because kids normally don’t like foods that are good for them.  It can however, be done with a bit
of creativity.  Hopefully, doing this will help your child develop a love of healthy foods for the rest of their lives.

In buildings with steam heat, radiators are standard fixtures, and they’re usually ugly. Fortunately, the cure is simple: paint.
Tools: bucket and sponge, medium and small paintbrushes, wire brush, radiator brush, whisk broom, dustpan, vacuum cleaner. Materials : plastic dropcloth, strong household detergent, oil-base interior gloss or semigloss enamel, mineral spirits, rags, masking tape, cloth mending tape. Time: about 2 to 3 hours per radiator.

Sometimes radiators are disguised with perforated metal covers, massive boxes with solid tray tops. If they’re in good shape, these covers can be easily painted with oil-base interior enamel-use semigloss to match the wall paint, semigloss or gloss for accent colors.

Turn off the radiator at the shutoff knob on the side, and spread a plastic dropcloth to protect the floor. Wash the radiator cover with a strong household detergent; rinse thoroughly and wipe with a clean rag. Let dry completely. Paint the cover carefully with a medium-size brush, stroking the paint evenly in one direction to avoid brush marks. If the air vent or steam valve is visible outside the cover, do not paint it. Leave the radiator turned off.

Let the cover dry completely, as recommended by the manufacturer, and apply a second coat of paint, brushing it on carefully to cover thin spots and lap marks. Let dry thoroughly before turning the radiator on. Clean up with mineral spirits and rags.

If there is no radiator cover, or if you don’t like the cover, paint the radiator itself. Remove the cover, if any, by lifting it up and over the radiator. Turn the radiator off and let it cool completely before you start to work on it.

Spread a plastic dropcloth to protect the floor. Remove loose or scaling paint from the radiator with a wire brush, scouring firmly to produce as even a surface as possible on all surfaces you can get at. Be careful not to hit the air vent, if the radiator has one. Brush the radiator coils periodically with a soft radiator brush to remove scaled-off paint chips, and wire-brush until no further debris is removed. Sweep up the debris and then vacuum the radiator and the area around it thoroughly, using the brush attachment to remove as much dust as possible.

Paint the radiator any color you like, from wall color to intense bright. Black paint is ideal for heat distribution. If you like, paint each coil of the radiator a different color, in shades of one color or in a spectrum. Semigloss enamel will tend to hide surface chips and flaws; gloss enamel will make chips more noticeable. Don’t use aluminum paint or latex paint, and don’t paint the air vent or steam valve.

Apply oil-base interior enamel to the radiator coils carefully, brushing evenly up and down along the coils. Use a small brush to reach tight spots. If you’re painting the coils different colors, use masking tape to make a clean edge for each color, and work on one color at a time.

Let the paint dry as recommended by the manufacturer and apply a second coat of paint, brushing it on carefully to cover flaws in the first coat. Let dry thoroughly before turning the radiator on. Clean up with mineral spirits and rags.

If radiator pipes are exposed, paint them when you paint the radiator, using wall-color paint to make them less obvious or accent colors to match the radiator. If the pipes are covered with insulation, don’t remove the insulation. Wrap the pipes firmly with cloth-not plastic-mending tape, in a color to blend or contrast with the walls.

Everywhere you look, there is a lot of emphasis on cutting the fat out of our daily diets, but who wants to cut out the fat if it means cutting out the flavor? When it comes to baking, there is a way to cut down on your fat intake without changing the ingredients in your favorite recipes. If you switch to nonstick silicone bakeware, you can cut down on your fat intake with minimal effort. Because the bakeware is nonstick, you never have to use butter, shortening, or grease on your pans or sheets to ensure easy food removal.

The first silicone items made exclusively for baking were small silicone mats that fit nicely on your cookie sheet and allowed you to bake cookies with out greasing the cookie sheet or worrying about the bottoms getting burned. These little mats were a huge success and stores were hard pressed to keep them in stock.

As the popularity of these mats grew, manufacturers decide to explore the idea of making more bakeware from silicone.

They began making spoons, spatulas, and whisks that could withstand high heats and could be used with nonstick cookware with no fear of ruining the coating. Silicone utensils were the perfect choice for candy making or any other project that required a boiling and sticky liquid to be stirred.

Kitchen supply manufacturers also introduced silicone potholders and oven gloves. Because they can withstand heats up to 500 degrees, they are the perfect insurance that you won’t get burned when you pull a hot dish from your oven. They don’t conduct heat the way that a cloth potholder does and they are much sturdier and easy to keep clean than traditional potholders.

Home canners fell in love with silicone baker’s mitts because they could actually reach into a pot of boiling water to remove a hot jar of food once it was done processing. As an added bonus these durable potholders do double duty as lid grippers making opening jars a snap.

Once silicone hit kitchens in the form of baking mats, utensils, and pot holders, kitchen experts began to see the potential of this material in everyday baking. Suddenly almost any type of bakeware that could traditionally be found in stainless steel, aluminum, glass, or stoneware was being offered in brightly colored silicone. Stores began selling muffin tins, bread loaf pans, cake pans, and pie pans. The most popular pieces tend to be the specialty designed cake pans that allow you to make cakes shaped like everything from roses to pumpkins.

They even have mini cake pans that make individual, fancy shaped cakes.

The popularity of silicone bakeware skyrocketed as cooks began to see the benefits of using this material in their kitchens. Foods pop out of silicone pans with amazing ease. You never need to grease, flour, or even use cooking spray on a silicone pan and that adds up to lots of calories and fat grams saved with each meal. Because silicone is very flexible, it is easy to bend and twist it so that cakes and breads pop out easily. You never have to force baked goods out of the pan, so they retain there shape and you don’t see a lot of split and broken cakes.

Silicone is a bakers dream when it comes to making evenly cooked delicacies. The material distributes heat evenly, so you never end up with a cake that is burned around the edges and still not cooked in the middle.

It also cools down quickly ensuring that you foods will not continue cooking and possibly drying out once you remove them from the oven.

Because silicone is nonstick, cleanup is a breeze. A little soap and water and any crumb left on your bakeware disappears. It is nonporous, so it never retains any odors from the foods you cook. Completely versatile it goes from oven to table to freezer and can even be thrown in the dishwasher. Once you are done cleaning it, storage is a snap. With its flexibility, you can twist it, bend it, fold it or mash it up so it can fit in the smallest of drawers or cupboards.

If you haven’t tried silicone bakeware, add a piece or two to your kitchen. You will be surprised at its quality and flexibility.