Drying clothes and storing coat hangers
in a garage can be practical.
Hang plastic towel bars from joists or where possible.
To hang clothes up high use a tool like the one shown below.
It is a hook screwed perpendicularly to a long pole.
The one shown has its hook anchored between 2 plumbing washers and held by crazy glue.
Author: Flash
Rubbing Alcohol
- Rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle is a wonderful kitchen companion. It cleans, disinfects and evaporates rapidly.
- Counter tops, especially where tiles and grout are present, love it and so do stove tops and microwaves where spills (scrape with a thin “credit” type card) and grease need to be removed.
- Rubbing alcohol is also a mighty fine stainless steel sink cleaner and leaves uniformity without smudges.
- Spraying rubbing alcohol is also extremely successful in bathrooms. It gets rid of soap scum unlike, in my view, some of the store brands. Spray the rubbing alcohol over the shower tiles and with minimum effort watch the soap scum disappear and the tiles dry on the fly.
It cleans chrome fixtures nicely but has trouble with hard water spots. - A dab of rubbing alcohol can be helpful in removing sap from the car as well as a dab of paint thinner could. Thorough rinsing of water is highly recommended and in my experience it has been totally fine.
- Rubbing alcohol is a great ally in combating sticky odorous hands and surfaces and it is also a wonderful neutralizer of mosquito bites.
- Last but not least you can spray and disable flying nuisance creatures such as flies, mosquitoes, gnats and moths prior to the coup de grace.
Bamboo Hamper Light
Bamboo hampers that we often use for soiled laundry provide wonderful mood lighting with a light bulb inside. Limit the wattage for fire prevention and of course a fluorescent bulb might be safer, less expensive to burn and offer a different lighting atmosphere. Use Christmas lights for color.
For fire prevention purposes stabilize the light bulb inside the hamper so that it does not touch any of the basket’s surfaces.
For a cord use the ones like for the Christmas tree that have a foot button. Hampers can be dyed with Rit Dye if desired.
Razo Dazzle
After using the Dry Cleaner’s Secret to dry clean at home, these tough cleaning cloths can assume a different secret life prior to recycling.
They fit perfectly at the end of a Swiffer and help dramatically in gathering the bulk prior to vacuuming non carpeted floors. On a slightly soiled floor they will make vacuuming obsolete.
Dirt on floors seems to magnetically cling to the cleaning cloth of this razing push/swing broom like device as it hardly produces dust not being lifted off the floor.
Like the micro fiber, this cloth also works to pick up dust on furniture or a car’s dashboard.
Whimsical Toad
Problem:
A 6” hole in the exterior garage wall due to a clothes dryer vent that was relocated.
Solution:
Behind the stucco there was wood.
A 1x wood board large enough to cover the hole was glued and screwed to the existing 1x from the garage side.
This left a depth of about 1.5” to the edge of the stucco finish on the exterior.
A hollow garden toad this time proved handy. Part of the toad’s back was sawed off with a hack saw. Various tests occurred to see how the toad sat in the hole and then later with an anchor.
A coat hanger was doubled, bent to 90 degrees +- and cut making a 3”x3” +- anchor. A long sheet rock screw was inserted through the hole opening into the wood. This held the anchor.
Some concrete (cement is OK) was placed in the hole followed by a small piece of wire mesh.
More concrete was applied over the mesh as well as inside the toad.
The toad was pushed against the anchor sticking out of the wall and pushed into its seat.
It was an orchestration of movements but it all worked.
The balance of the hole around the toad was filled, smoothed and a light texture applied. At this point a long board, held by a garbage can, was placed against the toad to insure it would not fall.
Later after the toad had cured, Concrete Fix All over the moistened concrete patch helped achieve a finished texture look.
Chinese bristle brushes or a spray water bottle work well to moisten.
The hooked toad was caulked and primed.
The job took about an hour and a half and at the time, the cost of the toad itself was about $3.00.