Unplggd Surprize
It's funny what you find when you check your web stats. Thanks, Unplgged, for the feature.
Uncategorized
July 2011
This Modern Life
Man Make Fire
We don't do a lot of product pimping here, but given how smitten I am (and how short the sale is), I thought I'd share.
Our old, crappy grill gave out and I stopped by BBQs Galore today on a whim to see what they had. I'd been thinking about a larger grill anyway (and glad I didn't buy one from the folks that made our old grill), so perhaps it was kismet — I found the T-grill.
The old grill was infrared and we liked that — it heated up fast and was nice to cook on. Who knew that they made an infrared grill so cool… and one that was under $500 (actually less than our old one). However, the sale (on the older "blue" model) is only on the the next few days… I think it ends the 31st.
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Uncategorized
Sun on a Hot White Roof
Good magazine details why white roofs are good.
You don't have to remind us — we've been enjoying one for four years now and it's helped keep inside temps 10-15 degrees cooler than outside. This is quite a difference from Summer 2007 when it was 110 outside and 120 inside thanks to our old black tar roof. Whew.
Some great information available at The White Roof Project.
Renovation // Transformation
Diane and Greg’s Bathroom
(Before: Note the brackets holding up the sink.)
We posted a sneak peak a few weeks ago on this one. Since then, I was able to install the window and finish off the details — and be able call it a completed project. Again, redneckmodern did all of the work… from demo to hanging the shower curtain (and everything in between) and the entire project came in well under the $5K mark.
Lots more pictures after the jump (make sure to click them for larger, more clear versions) — and make sure to check out the previous post for the details.
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Uncategorized
What’s it Worth?
I was about to chime in on a post over at the Eichler Network, but it started to get a bit long and it seemed here might be a better place for links, etc.
In the past four years, we've met a lot of Eichler homeowners — often while buying/selling/trading/rescuing house parts. One of the biggest questions is: "Will anyone want this?" (and) "Is it valuable?" Well, something is worth as much as what someone is willing to pay for it, but we've found that only a few things are actually "sell-able" (for a few good reasons, really) while others indeed have "handy-to-have" value.
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Uncategorized
Ghetto Blasters
Today, the heat will remind much of the Bay Area what summer really feels like — it'll hit near 100 today in Concord… so this post seems appropriate.
I spent the morning talking to neighbors about various options for this-and-that and one of them was air conditioning. Matt's comment was: "Well, we can't really afford air conditioning, so we're thinking about getting a swamp cooler".
I said: "Wait, maybe you can have AC and not spend a bundle…" and I told him of how we added two units to the back of our own house (14K-BTU total) for under $1000… and that — thinking a bit larger — it'd not be impossible to add 24K-BTU to their main living space for about the same cost.
Here's how: window units… plumbed into the wall (or through the wall units). You could even use a casement model and not have to do as much re-framing.
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Renovation // Transformation, This Modern Life
Review: JMT Mechanical
Unfortunately, we've recently had some poor experiences with the folks that installed our LG Art Cool AC system, so we decided to try a different contractor (JMT) and so far, I'm glad we did.
Interestingly enough, JMT was one of the two folks we considered for the initial install and they're who we called for the tune-up this time. Both times they've been to the house, they've been on-time (which should have been an initial positive indicator), so we hope we're in a good situation now with a responsible contractor.
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