There’s no doubt about it. Paint is one of the quickest and least expensive ways to punch up your home’s curb appeal. A fresh coat of paint transforms shutters from drab to fab, and if you want to give your house a totally new look, painting the outside a different color costs far less than removing and replacing siding or other exterior materials.
Since the Sherwin-Williams and Glidden® companies are leading paint producers, we asked their experts about using paint to make your home the belle of the block. Here are six of their top tips:
You only have one chance to make a good first impression. That old saying is true for you and for your home too. All too often, however, homeowners dwell on how a house looks and feels on the inside and neglect the outside. A new granite countertop may add sparkle to your kitchen, but maintaining your home’s exterior appearance — or curb appeal — also is important to your enjoyment of the place where you spend most of your time and have invested much of your money.
Make your landscape lovelier with these eight great gardening tips from Ginna Phillips of Quailcrest Farm:
1. Everybody should have a little herb garden close to the kitchen door. The easier it is to get to your herbs, the more you’ll use them.
2. Mulching is key to less maintenance. Eliminate a lot of weeding by using a good hardwood mulch around plants.
3. Deadheading and pinching keep plants looking good. When herbs and flowers seem past their prime, cut them back so they’ll send out new foliage.
Intending to follow in his pharmacist father’s professional footsteps, Jack Nicklaus enrolled in the Ohio State University’s pre-pharmacy program, but he never finished his undergraduate degree. After twice winning the U.S. Amateur during his college days, Nicklaus left Ohio State in 1961 and turned professional in order to support his young family. Nicklaus promptly usurped golf’s reigning king, Arnold Palmer, the following spring in the U.S. Open, and the rest, as they say, is history — for sports and his “almost” alma mater.
It’s not every day that a family is thankful for being forced to leave home, especially during sub-zero temperatures.
But that was the case when Pioneer Electric Cooperative lineworkers had to disconnect power to the Anna, Ohio, home of James and Tiffahanie Seger and their toddler on a recent frigid evening when they detected an electrical problem that could have resulted in catastrophe.
The invaders arrived deliberately or inadvertently. Either way, invasive plant species have wreaked havoc on our ecosystem. Just what is an invasive species? Essentially, an invasive species is one that is not native and whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic, environmental, or physical harm to an ecosystem.
Gardening is like any endeavor. The more you know, the more success you’re likely to have. Every setback can serve as a learning experience and evidence for the saying that “Everything I learned about gardening can be found in my compost pile.” One way to speed up the learning process is by taking advantage of the knowledge of those who have killed their petunias and dogwood trees before you.
Here are seven of the most important woes that our “foregardeners” would warn you about:
Sometimes it’s not easy making a yard look good even in one season, much less all four. Yet high on many a landscaping wish list lately is the goal of creating a yard that changes with the seasons and looks good in all of them.
The job is a little easier in spring to early summer when the majority of plants bloom and in moderate climates where seasonal differences aren’t as harsh. It gets much harder where seasons bring major changes, and it’s hardest of all in cold-winter climates where the landscape can be buried under snow for months at a time.
