Occasionally my wife enjoys to write reviews of products she uses - this is one of those posts. Enjoy!

We all know dirt is heavy.  It is even heavier when it is damp.  It can be a real pain (in the back, knees, shoulders) to move plants from one spot to another, let alone inside or outside.  Aside from the obvious solution of moving to a more temperate climate, I needed something to help move our more tree-ish plants to follow the sun during the year.  I ordered the Panacea Plant Caddy and I no longer have to strain to pick up heavy planters or worry about scratching the floors.

The five casters making moving a breeze and it is not so high off the floor that the center of gravity changes – nothing feels unstable.  Although I bought this to help move plants, it is also helps keep water off the floor.  I am a notorious over water-er (and plain ceramic pots are not exactly water tight).  Not enough to drown the plant, but enough to drain out of the bottom of the pot.  The caddy comes with a hardwood and carpet saving plastic tray with divots to catch any excess water.

The caddy can hold pots up to 16 1/4 inches in diameter.  I find that anything much smaller than 12 inches looks out of place (there is also a 14 inch caddy available).

Our backyard looks out onto an alley.  It is not the worst view, but it is not the prettiest, either.  But the main problem is that people can see into our yard, which can be a tad uncomfortable when we are out there.  We do have a chain link fence on top of a four foot concrete retaining wall, so we bought the Willow Stick Fencing to give us a little more privacy and to add a bit of shade to our south facing backyard.

After trimming to match the height of our chain link (easily done with a circular saw) to avoid catching too much wind, we used easy to hide clear zip ties to secure the willow to our existing fence.  We have a couple short sloping sections we wanted to cover and using the circular saw again we were able to easily match the angles.  After just a couple hours’ work, we had a nice, secluded backyard.

The Willow Stick Fencing should not be used for anything other than a bit of privacy or to conceal the more unattractive parts of your yard.  If installed on its own, sturdy fence posts will need to be placed fairly close together.

Here in the Midwest, we’re not really out of the woods with cold, blustery air until the summer heat bears down on us.  Sure, the calendar says spring, but what it really means is “hey guys, watch your back - Canada can still send y’all some trouble by way of massive cold fronts.”  So if you’re an outdoorsy type, take heed: it can get cold, fast.  One way to plan for the headaches of a 50 degree day that really feels like it’s around 34° is to use a patio heater.

The Soleus Air Indoor/Outdoor Patio Heater is just that device.  It allows you to extend your outdoor enjoyment by getting you outside earlier in the spring and later in the fall.  And trust me, there’s nothing quite like the feeling of shaking cabin fever as early and often as possible.

The best feature of the Soleus Air Indoor/Outdoor Patio Heater is the lack of propane tank. We all know what’s happening in the commodity markets, and it’s not like propane is going to get any cheaper.  The Soleus Air Indoor/Outdoor Patio Heater plugs in to a standard electrical outlet and consumes minimal energy.  You may be wondering how an outdoor heater that runs on the same power requirements as your computer can get - and stay - so warm.  The secret is in the reflective heater technology, that allows the Soleus Air Indoor/Outdoor Patio Heater to warm up without being affected by the wind.

If you want to be outdoors at night in the spring and fall, you need this patio heater.

It’s spring, so odds are, it’s time to overseed your lawn. Or, if you’ve already overseeded your lawn, it’s time to put down some treatment for the spring to control weeds and feed your lawn.  In fact, now would be a good time to lay down some Crabgrass preventer.  You can drop by your local home improvement megawarehouse or hardware store and pick up some turf builder with weed/crabgrass prevention.

I won’t get in to the specifics of the importance of keeping your lawn in tip-top shape - that’s more or less a post for another time.  But what I will tell you is that for medium to large lawns, you can’t get any easier than using a push spreader.

And, if I may humbly recommend a spreader, I got a lot of mileage out of my Scotts AccuGreen 2000 Drop Push Spreader.  We have a medium-sized lawn with what the locals call a “south city hill” - our front yard is about 4 ft. above the sidewalk and there’s a rather harsh drop from lawn to sidewalk.  Fully knowing that mowing my front yard is kind of tough, I not only wanted the Scotts AccuGreen 20 Drop Push Spreader, I *needed* it in order to save my legs and back.

The hopper has a large capacity - you can hold roughly 75,000 sq. ft. of fertilizers and/or treatments.  And the large, easy-rolling 12 in. wheels provide enough clearance under the hopper to make sure you’re spreading the hopper contents far and wide.

For re-seeding, overseeding or treating, you can’t beat the Scotts AccuGreen 2000 Drop Push Spreader!

The secret to successful grilling is not to overcook your meat.  Unfortunately, I learned that lesson growing up when my mom - who really had the best intentions - horribly overcooked pork, chicken and steaks on the grill. Now, I’m a “red meat” guy, and I love my steaks and chops to be juicy and tender - you don’t get that when you leave the food on the grill too long.

My secret is the RediCheck Remote Cooking Thermometer with Taste Settings. First thing’s first - because it’s a remote thermometer, there’s no need to obsessively open the grill lid and let all of the heat escape while you check to see if your food is done. I won’t preach time savings (because there’s no way to actually quantify what 3 minutes over the lifetime of the batteries means for you, your food, or your personal life), but I will preach convenience - it has some presets that monitor the temperature of your food and alerts you to when your sweet meats are done cookin’.  As a bonus, if you’re in to smoking meats, there’s a 24 hour timer. This is HUGE here in the midwest, where we love to smoke pork.  And other meats.

Finally, for the ultimate in awkward dad-gear, the RediCheck Remote Cooking Thermometer has a belt clip so you can look, uh, “sylish” as you grill.

It’s that time of year — spring cleaning. This year we decided to tackle our basement. In the interest of full disclosure, our basement was a disaster. My tool bench was littered with things that I never put away, full of random sheets of sandpaper from the more-than-you’ll-ever-need job packs, boxes of screws/nails/fasteners and, of course, larger tools that I’d rather keep indoors than out in my garage or shed.

So, as you can imagine, it was a real mess down there.

Enter the Safco Commercial Wire Shelving system.  After doing some searching around on Pricegrabber, we found a great price on this sturdy unit - under $100 for a 4 shelf capacity system.  More impressive than the sleek looks of the wire shelving was the fact that each shelf holds up to 500 evenly distributed pounds, so it passes the 2,000 pound heavy-duty tool test. At 6 ft. tall, this shelf is tall enough to store whatever you can throw at it. At 3 ft. across, it’s wide enough to hold almost all of your indoor tools, and at 1.5 ft. deep, this shelf can handle most plastic storage bins.

I don’t think I can recommend this shelf enough — Safco really hit this one out of the park!

My grill laid dormant until this weekend, when the temperatures were finally warm enough to take off the cover and fire it up for the first time in 2009.  You can imagine my surprise when I realized that I had not exactly cleaned it as thoroughly as I thought when I put it out of commission for the winter.  Sure, I had a grill brush, but apparently didn’t put enough elbow grease in to the cleaning before I sent my propane baby into hibernation.

I did what any self-respecting grillmeister would do - surf the internet and try to find an easier way to clean. After all, you’ve got to work smarter, not harder!

Enter the ultimate grilling companion, the Grill Daddy Pro Grill Brush, which has a bevy of really awesome features to make cleaning tough, charred-on foods and grease a breeze. You can tell the Grill Daddy means business when you pick it up - it weighs in at a hefty 2 pounds and is solidly constructed with stainless-steel bristles.

Perhaps one of the best features of the brush is the long handle, which really helps protect your hands from the heat.  Oh, and the price - at under $25, it’s a no-brainer.  You need this.

Occasionally my wife enjoys to write reviews of products she uses - this is one of those posts. Enjoy!

It is that time again.  It is time to take the plants outside.  Over the winter, our plants live in the south and west facing office.  We do not use the room much, so the plants can get a little scraggly.  I spend a few hours every spring clipping, trimming, and repotting.

In the past, I have lost or ruined so many gardening tools I am afraid to count up the money I have wasted.  This year, I am organizing myself.  I bought the Six-Piece Indoor Garden Tool Set to keep track of everything I need.  I know it says “Indoor,” but it works wonderfully for smaller outdoor plants, hanging baskets, and container gardening.

The canvas tote bag is perfect for throwing my gloves and drink into.  The tools themselves are quite comfortable to hold for a long period of time.  The potting tools have held up great against my abuse and the scissors have stayed sharp.  The mister is the only thing that does not translate to outside use.  But it is best for year-round indoor plants, such as delicate orchids.  This set is perfect for novice or, like me, “challenged” gardener and has plenty of room to expand and stay organized.

In our last post, we talked about how to connect the spray nozzle to the faucet.  Now comes the fun part - attaching the faucet to the supply lines underneath your sink.

As always, the standard disclaimer applies - your mileage may vary. Our house was built in 1952, our kitchen was updated in 1970(ish)… so we’ve got solid plastic supply lines. You, on the other hand, may have something a bit more pliable, which would lend to easier connecting.  Since we’re going to “refresh” our kitchen in the summer, we opted to leave the plastic supply lines for now until we install our dishwasher and reconfigure our sink and cabinet situation.  (You can bet that there will be quite a lengthy series of posts about our kitchen remodel.)

Meanwhile, the faucet! Let’s get that dude installed!

First, double check that your surface is clean. You’ll want to make sure that there isn’t any standing water, bacteria, mold, mildew, dirt or grime hanging around. While it won’t actually make its way into your water supply, you obviously don’t want to take any chances with encouraging contamination.

Next, take your faucet and set it in the three remaining holes in your sink.

Okay, this is the fun part - get under your sink and tighten the nuts to hold the faucet in place. Just like when we removed the old faucet, if you have a decent basin wrench, things could go a lot quicker.  Now run the supply lines to the bottom of the faucet handles and secure tightly.

You’re done.  Almost.

Turn the water to the supply lines back on slowly and test the faucet by turning on the cold water only and monitor for leaks underneath the sink.  Let the water flow for a good minute and use a flashlight - if you see any drips, turn off the water and check the connection between the cold water supply line and the bottom of the faucet handle. Wipe the drips away and run the test again.  If there are no more drips or leaks, repeat this process with the hot water.

Congratulations - you just installed a new faucet!

This is the sixth post in a series about installing a new faucet. If you happened upon this post through a search engine and would like to read from the beginning, please click here.

With the surface area clean, now the fun begins - let’s get that brand-new faucet installed!

Before we go any further, make sure to double check those instructions.  Remember, while all faucets function the same (i.e., dispense water, have on/off handles, et cetera), not all faucets are installed the same way.  Again, the standard disclaimer applies: your mileage may vary!

Ok, with all of the reading, re-reading and checking of instructions out of the way, go grab that faucet and the spray nozzle.  You’ll want to install the spray nozzle first, so take the housing and attach it to the sink according to your instructions.  You’ll then want to feed the hose through the housing and run it up between the supply lines, through where the spigot will reside:

Now you can start attaching the hose from the spray nozzle to the bottom of your faucet, like this:

If you can’t get the connection tight enough with your bare hands, I recommend using a wrench to make sure you have a water-tight connection.  If you’re really paranoid, you can break out some teflon tape, but odds are, you won’t need it.

Cool! With that connected, it’s now time to go into the cabinet and secure the faucet to the underside of the sink and connect the supply lines.  We’re almost finished!

This is the fifth post in a series about installing a new faucet. If you happened upon this post through a search engine and would like to read from the beginning, please click here.