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How not to sell a house!

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Last week our neighbors house, which is for sale (remember the bad renter neighbor stories?) had an open house. Just for the heck of it my husband and I decided to take a peek at the house.

I know the house hasn’t had any renovations … possibly since it was built in 1927 … but we were still curious to see if our neighbors family had decorated the house to prepare it for sale … Uh … the answer is NO. A big no!

The house is mostly empty … which is fine. I don’t think a house necessarily has to be dressed up when it goes up for sale … an empty house can allow prospective buyers to picture their own furnishings in the home.

However I don’t agree with what our neighbors family did. As I said they left most of the house empty, but they put what appears to be office furniture in the living room and dining room.

It just looks … odd.

They also took out all of the appliances! Why? I’m fairly certain that if you’re trying to sell a house for a good price you’re probably more likely to make a sale and get your asking price or higher if you have all the appliances (washer, dryer, fridge, stove etc) in place.

This is definitely an example of how not to sell a house! LOL

I guess it will be a while before we have new neighbors!

Time to use the steam cleaner in the bathroom

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In early January I bought a general purpose steam cleaner. It’s a Shark model. I’ve only had a chance to use it once so far and the results weren’t quite as good as I was expecting.

One my first attempt using the steam cleaner I went after the backsplash tiles in the kitchen, the stove and the fridge. The cleaner worked great on the stove and the fridge. It really got the grime out of the corners and crevices on both appliances.

The backsplash tiles in the kitchen were another matter. I used the scrubbing attachment on the steamer to try to clean the grout area between the tiles and while the grout did look cleaner where I worked at it they didn’t look anywhere near as clean as I’d hoped.

I guess I was hoping that using the steamer once on the tiles would remove years of grime that had built up on the grout. I guess I’m going to have to get some kind of grout cleaner to clean the grout between the backsplash tiles and then I can use the Shark Steamer to maintain the clean look.

One my next attempt to use the Shark steamer I’m going to tackle the bathroom. The grout in the bathroom isn’t that bad, but it could use a good cleaning. What I really want to clean in there is the silicone seal between the tub and the shower wall tiles. It looks like it has mildew in some areas and the steamer should at least help kill the mildew … and hopefully remove it too.

Actually almost all of our upstairs bathroom is tile of some kind or another. The tub/shower area is tiles up to the ceiling and then the walls have tile that goes from the ground up to about 4.5 feet in height. (our Kitchen is like that too .. I guess the former home owners really liked tile?). The bathroom floor has those tiny square floor tiles and yes, the grout between those tiles could use a very good cleaning too.

Hopefully I’ll find the time this weekend to get the steam cleaner out and try it out in the bathroom. It’s a shame that I’ve only used it once since I bought it.

Do you have a general purpose steamer that you use to clean the bathroom, tiles, appliance and perhaps even the floor? If so, what kind do you have and are you happy with it’s performance?

Trying to decide if we should hook up an iPod to our home theater system

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My husband and I decided to buy a new TV … oh about three weeks ago. Since that time we’ve been waiting for our new Plasma to come into the store. Sad that you have to wait so long for a new TV these days isn’t it?

We bought a new TV because our 2004 DLP TV seems to be dying. We think there might be something wrong with the DMD board as the picture just freezes and goes black and white every now and then (about once a week). We know our DLP’s days are numbered!

We decided to replace the DLP rather than repair it because in the 6 years that we’ve owned it we’ve had to replace the light bulbs two or three times, had to replace the color wheel – at a total cost for all of these items of about one thousand dollars! Fixing the DMD board would cost approximate 800 to 1000 dollars … we just can’t see pouring more money into this TV. So we’ll put it in the basement and use it occasionally until it finally dies.

So … while we’re waiting for our new TV to come in (the store says it will be in on Friday!) we bought and hooked up a new home theater system. Lets just say that hooking up the new home theater system to the DLP wasn’t a piece of cake! It took hours and hours! Tested our marriage a bit too. LOL

Anyway …now the system is working and when we get the new TV we should only have to move a few wires (components) from one TV to the other and hopefully everything will work just fine.

One nice thing about the new home theater receiver is that we can hook up a special iPod dock to it and play music from the iPod through the receiver. We do have a 200 disk carousel CD player hooked up to the receiver but it’s old and I’m sure we’d get better sound if we used an iPod … or rather my husband is sure of that.

Of course … we don’t have an iPod (or the accessory docking station) so I spent a little bit of time earlier today looking at the various versions of ipods. I think if we’re going to buy one I’d get a classic iPod that has 160 GB of storage. We have a LOT of music on the computer and on CD’s – enough that we’d probably come close to filling up a classic iPod.

So before we go out and spend another $350 to $400 getting an iPod and the special docking station that works with our Yamaha receiver let me ask you a question – Have any of you run your iPod through your Home theater system? If you have, how is the sound?

The reason I’m asking is, if it’s not going to make a huge sound difference we might as well keep using our 200 disk CD carousel until it dies on us too. However, if there’s a major sound improvement (like full true 5.1 sound) we might go ahead and splurge to make our sound system complete.

Could One Of Breville Juicers Be For You?

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There is a big number of people who start to take their health a bit more seriously. A very effective and simple method for nutrition intake is to use a juice extractor. You’ll be able to find some good juicers for your home. Juicers by Breville are some of the most respectable appliances.


You will realise that Breville juicers have features other manufacturers do not offer, when you compare Juice Fountain with Jack Lalanne juicer or Juiceman extractors for example. I think you will be happy to hear that this juicer costs about $30 less then some models from competition, like Juiceman juicers or famous Jack Lalanne’s Power Juicer we hear so much about.

There is a big 3 horsepower motor installed in a Breville juicer. This motor is 600 watts and has a maximum speed of 14,500 rpm’s. The fact that Breville won’t get stuck on some kind of fruit or vegetable is very useful, and this is because it has a powerful motor that is very important with juice extractors. Some people would say that the motor is a bit noisy, but it’s a trade-off for power and ease of juicing.

Using a Breville juice extractor is quite easy. First you just turn the unit on, take the fruit or veggies you want to juice and insert them into the shoot then take the plunger and push them down. And you have a fresh juice ready that you can store in fridge or drink right away. When you purchase any Breville juicer, it will come with some interesting recipes for you to try.

One the work is over, you can clean up your juicer with ease. They have used such an easy, common sense design that you probably won’t need to read the instruction manual to take it apart. Cleaning up the pulp is very quick and easy because a specially made brush is included with the Breville juicer. You should reassemble this juicer so you can store it with ease.

Reviewing Cuisinart’s 14-Cup Food Processors

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Whether you have a small army to sustain  or you just like to save time, you can benefit from the Cuisinart food processor 14 cup appliance.  the Cuisinart 14 Cup is a generously proportioned food processor that is meant to contain a large amount of vegetables, fruits, or anything else you would like to process. There are so many uses for this super sized food processor.  One of them is that you can cook your family nutrition-packed meals while watching your budget.

When you bring home fresh vegetables and add them to your dishes, you are offering  your family good quality food.  When you purchase bagged or canned vegetables from a supermarket, they often  contain sodium and preservatives.  Packaged vegetables are not as good for you as fresh vegetables.  But not many of us can take time to cut up fresh vegetables for each meal. 

One way to work around this is to cut up your vegetables for your next week’s menus with help from the Cuisinart 14-cups food processor unit.  It gives you quite a bit of capacity for seven or eight meal’s worth of vegetables, which you could put in freezer containers and thaw and use during the week.  This can save you time after a busy day and you can then include your fresh frozen vegetables in your recipes. Unlike commercially frozen vegetables, these will not contain preservatives.

Yet another task that can be done using the Cuisinart food processor 14 cup unit is preparing entire meals. You could use it in order to stir together sauces or gravy and while you’re at it, grind meat directly into the mix.  If you want to make homemade spaghetti sauce and want to blend everything together, you can do so by inserting fresh tomatoes and meat into your Cuisinart.  After that, you transfer it to a saucepan and simmer it, then freeze the leftovers for later use. 

Shredded and grated cheese is more expensive than a cheese wheel or wedge. You can save plenty of money by making fresh shredded and grated cheeses which require just moments in the Cuisinart food processor 14 cup unit. Shredding cheese by hand is neither quick nor easy, but when you shred cheese with the food processor, it takes a minute. 

Are you a salad lover? You can create a meal-sized salad by shredding lettuce tomatoes and more straight into the Cuisinart 14-cup food processor.  A salad that is undressed will stay fresh in an air tight container for a week. You can incorporate this into your meals for the week and serve the whole family their daily recommended allowance of vegetables. 

Whether you cook in large batches or just want to save time so that you can have more fresh food to eat, you can do so by using the Cuisinart food processor 14 cup unit. When you are finished saving time and money and enjoying great food, you can place nearly all the pieces into the dishwasher for easy cleaning.

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