Look at this cool thing we Found!
While Stefan was working on the siding on the back deck, he found some cool stuff. This is right outside of the kitchen door:
We’ll post an update on the status of that siding at some point, but for today: the cool stuff we found.
First is an image of the branding of the house paper. This is the paper that goes behind siding.
A google search reveals more information about the company:
and you can buy this ad from the company on ebay. It gives you the full engraving of the girl with the waterproof building paper.
The second thing we found was this cool note on the building paper.
It’s a bit tough to read but it says Shattuck Arlington which is the local hardware store. Shattuck has been in Arlington since 1857. It is just so cool that someone wrote this on the building paper 100 years ago!
Sarah
New Vacuum: The Eureka Boss 4870MZ
My old vacuum bit the dust a while ago. I should have upgraded sooner. I don’t know what took me so long. I kept cleaning the old one hoping it would re-gain suction but no luck. Eventually, I did some research and found a new one.
If you’ve never been over to theWirecutter.com I highly recommend it. It’s a review website with independent reviews of all sorts of things. It talks a lot about TVs and other A/V electronics but they have reviews of everything from kitchen shears to vacuum cleaners.
I went for the “best cheap Vacuum” reviews and picked one of the top three.
This vacuum was just $140 and arrived in 2 days. I LOVE Amazon Prime
Once I received the vacuum, I went ahead and gave it a try on the dining room rug, my mother recommended me to hire Carpet Cleaning Austin if I didn’t want to clean u myself.
I have been sewing in that room and the vacuum managed to get all the little threads up and out when doing the carpet cleaning. It had great suction and the carpet bristle roller seemed to really grab the fibers of the rug and work them clean.
The first thing I didn’t like was the pedal for locking and unlocking the vacuum into the upright position.
It was hard to engage the pedal and I really had to stand on it and try a bunch of angles before it would release. I’m hoping with some use it will loosen up a bit.
The controls were easy to use once you figured out how they worked. There are 2 levers which is odd but one acts as a lock to really keep the bristle roller up when you’re on hardwood.
The labels are confusing on the dial. It goes from high carpet to low carpet with some in-between being labeled as bare floor. How does that make sense?
Another unusual feature of this vacuum is this knob.
Instead of the suction tube coming up so that it can disconnect to be used as a want, there are two separate suction routes. I suspect this is what makes this a great vacuum. The flexy tube can’t be optimal for suction and by having a dedicated tube for the floor vacuum, you can increase the suction in the standard operating mode.
The on/off switch is on the front which is not unusual but I’m accustomed to the foot pedal switch. I think I prefer a front switch since I can never find the foot switch without looking for it. I suppose that’s probably because I never vacuumed enough.
The final issue to note is the power cord. I prefer manual cord stowage to any automated nonsense: more fool-proof. But, I do like it when the clip at the plug-end actually fits on the cord. I ended up having to use a cord tie to tidy up the cord on the vacuum.
These are all minor issues and it’s those minor issues that keep this from being an expensive, high-end vacuum, unlike those of iRobot roomba 980 robot.
With some UX (User Experience) or UI (User Interface) Design work, this could be one awesome vacuum. The suction really was incredible. For $140, some odd interface choices are well-worth the trade-off.
Sarah
New TV and Mount
Stefan talked me into getting a 50″ Plasma TV for the den. It fits just to the right of the door to the den closet. (The den used to be two bedrooms so there are 2 closet doors.)
Believe it or not, there is still room to the right of the TV for the built-ins we are planning for that far wall.
To mount the TV, we went with this giant TV mount:
Installation was fairly straightforward though it is absolutely a two-person job. One nice thing about this mount is the plate that goes against the wall has a wide range of hole patterns so even non-standard beam spacing is ok. In addition, you have some give in where on the mount the TV is placed. The center of the mount is located about 4 inches left of the center of the TV.
The mount moves surprisingly well and all-in-all looks pretty good.
You can see we haven’t quite finished our wiring but we are close to getting this project buttoned up and looking good.
Stay tuned for reviews of all the “toys” Stefan convinced me to buy and further speaker mounting plans.
Sarah
Cool Thing: 409 Kitchen Cleaner
I love this stuff. It doesn’t smell awful and it doesn’t smell too-much. Too many cleaners are just so over-scented that they make me sick. 409 is great. It cuts through grease and I even manage to clean my stove without getting overly frustrated. I am not a cleaner – AT ALL – but the 409 is good stuff. I highly recommend, those who know me know home much I hate greasy things, I can’t even go without grease trap maintenance for one month, yes, I’m that type of person.
I normally wait so long to clean my stove that it is covered in baked on sauce of all varieties. If you’re the type to clean your stove after you spill anything on it, than I’m sure you have other products but the 409 gets all the black burnt stuff off pretty easily.
Look at that stove!
I have the lemon scented one but since it is so mild, I may try the regular one next time. It also comes in a good spray bottle which is important. I can’t stand cheap sprayers. I’ll probably re-use this bottle once I’m done with it. I wonder if Round-up would melt it? I need a new sprayer for that stuff.
Sarah
anika123456
3/18/2017 | 8:42 am Permalink
TV Mount brackets for easy pull down TV Wall Mount above fireplace Mantel or high up on the wall for comfortable viewing