Down Home Articles

The Aerogarden Pro 100 is a completely automated indoor gardening system which allows you to grow plants without soil.  You can grow all your favorite vegetables and herbs indoors without the mess and hassle of dirt, weeds and pests.  The Pro 100 has all the great features that the Aerogarden Classic has, but has added features and has been upgraded.  It allows you to grow plants five times faster than plants grown in soil and fifty percent faster than the basic Aerogarden system.

The Aerogarden Pro 100 monitors itself, including an alert system which lets you know when it is time to add water and nutrients.  A microprocessor automatically adjusts the light and delivery of nutrients at each stage of growing.  The indoor gardening system comes with Gourmet Herb seed kits, the SuperGrow light cycle, and grow bulbs.

There are several different types of garden lights that you can use to spruce up the look of your home’s outdoors at nighttime. First there is the so-called up light. This works by shining onto things that are well off the ground, such as a tree that flowers 20 or more feet high. The reverse is called the down light which is merely pointed downwards to cast an overshadow over a bush or garden gnome.

It can be spooky or serene depending on how you do it. Flooding garden lights will disperse themselves over a wide range of flowers and shrubbery, but they lack the focus of our next type. That would be the spotlight. All of these are great garden lighting devices which each do their own thing.

photo credit: dichohecho

My favorite type of outdoor fireplace is a chiminea, also called a chimenea. It is a cooking and heating stove from Mexico, that nowadays is used in the backyard as outfoor fireplaces for entertaining. Chimeneas were originally made from clay, but today come in cast iron for a more longlasting heater. They are great because you can position them anywhere in your yard and move them at will( although not once thay are lit!). Chimineas use wood as the fuel, so you have the atmospheric elements of wood burning, the sounds and the scents which all add to the mood. When not in use they are an interesting ornament in the yard,But I think that  the best thing of all is that you can cook on them too, and I mean more than toasted marshmellows! Although you can do that too!

photo credit: RaSeLaSeD

A wonderful choice of blinds for your home – even if you’re not an ancient history buff – is roman blinds.  These mediterranean style blinds were invented thousands of years ago (probably before the Romans after which they are named), and are made of one sheet of fabric attached to a dowel, and folded into pleats.

You can make roman blinds out of pretty much any kind of material, for example cotton, linen or silk.  There are even companies that are beginning to experiment with making them from paper, as temporary blinds.

If you use them in a sunny environment (for example, if you live anywhere south of Canada) you might want to pay a little bit extra to get blinds that are treated on the back to reflect more sunlight, as this will keep your rooms cooler in the long run.

Rocking chairs can add a touch warmth and comfort to any home office.

The most famous home office of them all, the Oval Office, included a rocking chair during several administrations since Theodore Roosevelt was in office. John F. Kennedy used a rocking chair because he had back problems. The image of the young president in an classic wooden rocking chair is a favorite of many people.

Rocking chairs are available in a wide range of styles, materials, and prices. There are very expensive and stylish modern rockers that show little resemblance to the more familiar types like the Windsor, Shaker, or Boston rockers.

If you can afford it a custom made rocker from the workshop of a skilled craftsman, it can add just the finishing touch that most home offices need.

Floating Candle Table Setting

There are many candles and candles in the world, but some the nicest ones are made of glass. A crystal candle holder is beautiful to look at whether or not it has a candle in it. Crystal has long been used for household ornaments and for candle holders in particular. A pair of crystal candelabras add such elegance to a table.  The candle light reflects off the facets of the glass in such a pleasing way, it adds another dimension to the setting.

Crystal can be used for a variety of kinds of candlesticks,

- the candelabra is one and is timeless

- a crystal bowl  for holding floating candles is another,the light from the floating candles in cut glass is lovely

- modern designs of glass candle holders for use with tealights

I have come up with a completely brilliant plan, at least I think it’s brilliant, for organizing my messy garage. I’ll be installing slatwall panels along one wall of the garage.

Slatwall panels are simply those walls you see in department stores with the horizontal grooves in them that are used to stick hooks and hangers so that clothes and other items can be displayed. They work just as well in the garage, allowing you to put as many hooks, storage containers and shelves on the wall. I’ll be able to hang up my gardening tools and store nails and screws in their individual containers.

I won’t know myself, everything will be up out of the way. I’ll even be able to hang my bicycle up on the wall, freeing up even more valuable floor space.

photo credit: Samjhana Moon

If you’re thinking about ‘ordering’ or choosing your Asian bride online, it’s important that you know exactly what you’re getting into.  I lived abroad for many years during my late teen and early twenties, and my brother naturally had plenty of Asian girlfriends.

One thing that is important to realize, though, before you go ahead with something like this is that many of the girls offering themselves up as Asian brides are very desperate women.  Oftentimes they come from poor, low income families and they are desperate to make money, better their social position, or often escape from their current situation.

While they can make wonderful partners, depending on what you’re expecting of them they may not really be able to run your household that well, care for your children and many are not even that well educated.  My advice is that you avoid the whole Asian brides by mail-order situation. If you’re seriously interested in finding an Asian wife go and work in an  Asian country for a year or so, find and make Asian friends, and get to know your potential bride in her own country before you make the often costly and difficult to undo decision to order by email.

My house was a real mess back at the beginning of June.  I had been busy working and sort of let things slide around the property.  I knew that I had a ton of work to do just to dig out from the mess left by Spring.  Here is what I learned.

After spending three consecutive weekends pruning, cutting, digging, planting and generally re-landscaping my property, it looked pretty good.  As long as the sun was out that is.  I was so used to just not paying attention to the appearance of my property,  that once it was cleaned up, I came to realize that it was lit entirely on the outside by one puny sixty watt bulb on my front porch.  I dreaded getting into any type of lighting project because of the cost of running electric.  When I went to buy fixtures though, I learned that I could now easily afford decent solar outdoor lights that actually worked!  They actually look very nice.  I had been expecting the low powered lights my neighbor put in about ten years ago, but the options are much better now.  Take a look!

Have you ever considered what types of mold live in your home? Sure you may know what to look for when it comes to black mold which can be very dangerous, but what about where those molds lurk. They could be practically anywhere – in your refrigerator or worse, under your toilet lid.

It would have never dawned on me that mold could grow under a toilet lid. Not until a friend of mine told me about it. Every time he entered his bathroom he felt sick. He could never figure out why until one day his toilet had a problem and needed to be checked. So, he lifted the lid and was surprised to find a major fungi problem.

His solution was to kill it with bleach and water. I warned him that bleaching doesn’t kill below the surface. So now he’s doing the smart thing and buying a product that will kill it permanently and I’m learning that no matter what types of mold may be in your home, they could be practically anywhere!