Make Yourself at Home

Why Didn't You Think of That?

Putting It Together

Design for Living

Out and About:

My friend Julie is having her home redone and she had just had the kitchen completely gutted, so I came by to get some tips from her contractor Oengus Timpson about keeping construction dust and debris separate from the finished areas of the home and to help him set up a temporary kitchen on her enclosed front porch. Here's what we did:

Doorways between the construction zone and the rest of the house can be sealed off with plastic sheeting taped over the entire doorway - including the floor. Entrance and egress can be achieved through a zipper that tapes onto the front of the plastic from the top of the opening to the bottom. Then unzip to pass through, and zip it back up when you're on the other side (Fig. 1 & 2). How ingenious is that?

Of course doorways with doors should always remain closed. Draft dodgers - long tubes of fabric filled with sand or rice, sometimes adorned with ears, nose eyes and tail to resemble a dachshund - should be kept at the base of the door to keep plaster dust from being carried through on air currents.

Once you're on the clean side you'll need something to keep the dust you track with you from following you through the house. In front of the threshold place the lid of a plastic bin onto which you've put several layers of shop cloths. Keep the shop cloths moistened with a spray bottle so when you step on the top cloth the dust will stick to it (Fig. 3). Just discard the top cloth and the set up is ready for the next person passing through.

Now, for making that temporary kitchen, the most important thing is to keep your fridge from your old kitchen. You'll need a way to keep food cold and those mini fridges aren't big enough for the 2 to 4 months it can take to completely rebuild a kitchen.

Allow room for countertop appliances. We created some space for that by salvaging an old dresser from her basement. It was the perfect size for a toaster oven, microwave and something called the Mini Kitchen - a convection oven with two burners on top of it. We connected these to a power strip. It's important to make sure that appliances that draw a lot of current are not on the same circuit as other high draw appliances. We also provided her with a small fire extinguisher.

We put in a counter top for Julie by mounting a hollow core door on top of an old radiator cover. We covered the door with peel and stick cork and tiles.

Oengus also had a very creative solution for a sink. An ordinary garbage can with a bar sink set into the lid (Fig. 4) and a hose hooked up through the back (Fig. 5) makes an easy to handle sink that can be taken out and dumped when the can fills up. Be sure to buy one with wheels so it's easy to move when it's full of water.

Anywho:

Renovation shouldn't be limited to your home. My personal trainer joined me to talk about some ways to renovate the one home we keep all our lives - the home of the soul, our body.

The abdominals are one of the muscle groups that contribute most to our outward appearance. They're also one of the hardest muscle groups to give a complete workout. Clarence told me that in order to give them an effective workout you have to isolate them. This can be achieved by doing crunches - a half sit up, or leg raise - it's much more effective then the old fashioned full sit up because it works one part of the muscle group at a time and focuses that much more energy in that area.

The triceps muscle is what gives our arms shape. People talk about the biceps, but those are just the icing on the cake. Well shaped arms originate with the triceps. We worked on them by doing dips - an exercise you can easily do at home. With your feet flat on the floor, sit on the edge of a bench or low table and then lower yourself off of the surface while keeping your hands on it. Raise and lower yourself with your arms. Don't allow yourself to be too far away from the edge or it will put strain on your shoulders.

The hip flexors are another important part of the body to keep in shape. This can be achieved by laying on your side and extending your legs. Bring the top leg up and tap your toe on the floor behind the bottom leg, then over and tap it on the floor in front of your bottom leg. Repeat this as many times as you can.

Keeping in shape is our responsibility to our body; this can be achieved by exercising regularly and watching our diet. If we're good about it, we may not need surgical renovations later!

Random Thoughts:

The "Help Me Brini" segment from this episode was cut for time, but the tip was pretty useful. What do you do when your home renovations make you the pariah of the neighborhood? Renovations can cause all sorts of problems for the neighbors - noise at odd hours, nails in the road, unsightly views from their windows - the effect of these can be minimized by acting neighborly. Stop by the houses on either side of yours and drop off a nice bottle of wine or some other peace offering, apologize to them for any disturbance and you'll not only placate them, you might make a new friend. When it comes down to it, your renovation is in their best interest as well, because it will increase property values, but the duration can be as stressful for them as it is for you. Remember, a little common courtesy goes a long way, couple that with a sense of humor and some generosity and you can move mountains!