Welcome to the 2009 father’s day gift giving guide!  We’ve assembled a list of great products to buy dad that he’ll actually use - unlike that tie you gave him two years ago (you know the one I’m talking about).

If you’re looking to be “the favorite” this Father’s Day, don’t mess around with sentimental greeting cards, making a nice, light lunch or even offering to do some chores around the house.  Rather, drop some coin on this Makita 18-Volt Compact Lithium-Ion Cordless 3-Piece Combo Kit, wrap it up and give it to dad.

Why?

Because your father deserves the best. And this Makita 3-piece kit is flat-out awesome.

The kit contains everything you need to assume favorite child status:

• 1/2-Inch Drill-Driver
• Impact Driver
• Flashlight
• 2 18v compact batteries
• Rapid charger
• Contractor bag

The Makita 18-Volt Compact Lithium-Ion Cordless 3-Piece Combo Kit is designed with power in mind.  Your father will blow through most home improvement projects with horsepower to spare.  There’s a ton of power in the little Impact Driver, and that alone is enough to warrant purchasing this kit.  Throw in Drill/Driver, Flashlight, 2 batteries, charger and contractor bag and you’ve got one great bargain that’s sure to make your ‘ol man happy.

What sets this Makita set apart from the other combo kits you’ll see at your local chain megahardwarestores is the best-in-class cordless solution: the battery just kicks all sorts of butt.  For starters, you can use the tools after as little as 15 minutes on the charger, the batteries have 2.5x more cycles than a Ni-Cad battery and they charge much faster than other sets.

So if you’re gunning to be the favorite child this father’s day, you can leapfrog your siblings by purchasing this kit!

Welcome to the 2009 father’s day gift giving guide!  We’ve assembled a list of great products to buy dad that he’ll actually use - unlike that tie you gave him two years ago (you know the one I’m talking about).

We start with the Porter-Cable 2 1/2″ by 14″ Compact Belt Sander kit.  You may be asking yourself why you’d need to get your husband/father/grandfather/babydaddy a compact belt sander. That’s understandable.

Sure, the Porter-Cable Compact Belt Sander kit has a lightweight frame, but don’t let that fool ya - this belt sander has a lot under the hood.  In fact, I’m confident enough to say that it has more power than you’ll actually need, but it’s awfully nice knowing it’s there - just in case.

If you’re concerned about ergonomics, it has a very easy to handle rubber grip on the surface, allowing for precise control.  Dad will appreciate the cushioned grip, as it cuts down on a lot of the vibration that is always present with sanders.

Let’s go over some quick points:

• The Porter-Cable name is trusted. They make some really high-quality tools.
• The Porter-Cable Compact Belt Sander kit won the Handy Magazine Innovation Award in 2006 for all of it’s awesome features.
• The 120-volt, 5 amp motor is crazy powerful for a compact belt sander.
• The flush side and compact belt size (2 1/2″ x 14″) makes 90 degree angles a piece of cake.

Trust me - this is one item that Dad would love to open on June 21!

“Honey, can you help me paint the <insert room here>” is quite possibly hardest question to answer. Sure, I want to say “uh, no!“, but know that if I do say that, I’ll be sleeping on the couch until I’m needed to paint something and answer correctly.

I can paint edges freehand pretty well, but to be honest, I’m more of a roller guy.  If I have an angled brush, damp rag, painter’s tape, and a drop cloth, I am very good.  But even when I have all those things, it is still a laborious process.  I have to be in a certain position to get the brush angle right.  Most of the time I’m either on a ladder with my nose at the ceiling or kneeling on the floor.

When we tackled our dining room I put aside my painterly pride and got the Shur-Line Edger.  There were just too many doors, windows, and well, edges to do on my own.  It takes a couple tries to get the hang of the edger, I recommend practicing on a piece of cardboard first.  Once you know how much paint you need on the pad, it is so easy to use the edger.  There are two rollers on one side that go up against the trim, ceiling, or floor.  These can get some paint on them if you oversaturate the pad, so you may want to use tape, but you don’t have to be precise with it.  The pads are washable and reusable, which makes clean up no different than using a brush.

The best part? It’s under $3.00.  Go on, try it.  You’ll be glad you did!

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

I have never been a fan of the bulky leather gardening gloves that most home improvement stores sell.  They grip well, when you can find something big enough to grab.  But you can forget about pulling tiny weeds or planting delicate seeds and seedlings.

Since I tend to be somewhat unorganized when gardening – jumping from weeding to raking to pruning, etc. – I need gloves that can run the gamut.  I decided to try the Bionic X-Wear Gardening/Work Gloves.  I believe they were originally designed for gardeners with arthritis, so they have silicone padding in the fingers and thumbs.  Even with the padding, you do not lose any dexterity or “feel.” The wrists fasten securely to keep dirt out (a big problem with traditional garden gloves, I found).

Casual gardeners who do not want to wait for the leather to stretch should order a size larger than you normally would, as these gloves run small.  Even with the snug fit, or perhaps because of it, my hands do not tire out as easily as they did with other gloves.  And I had no problem using an old, wood handled de-thatching rake, something that would have given me terrible blisters in plain leather gloves.

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.

A cautionary word of advice: if you haven’t already made your new year’s resolution, please pledge to do something: take photographs of everything in your house and upload them to an online photo site like Flickr or Picasa.  Write down serial numbers of all of your electronics and valuables and store that on a thumb drive or an online document management site like Google Docs.

We’re in the middle of a prolonged tiff with our insurance company over ownership of some of the stolen items, and having pictures and serial numbers would have been a tremendous help.

Your photographs don’t have to be high-quality, but just having them on hand is a big help.  If you have a video camera, even better.  Narrate while you shoot video of everything you own that you know you’d need in case it was stolen.

We were fortunate enough to have original boxes for some of our items and all of my power tools, but for the jewelry, electronics and computer stuff that was stolen that we had no records of, well, the fight continues.

So please, take an inventory of your items and catalog them in a secure location.  You’ll be glad you did if you ever have to deal with an insurance company’s claims department.

I hate to kick off the new year with a post like this, but this past Monday, my wife and I had our home broken into and our valuables taken.  The thief managed to strike during the light of day while the two of us were at work and had ample time to rifle through our belongings and make a safe exit.  Naturally, the break-in shook us up.  In fact, as I’m writing this, I have an installer out putting in a new home security system.

So, what can you do to make your home safer?  Here’s a quick - but certainly not complete - list of things to help ward off burglars.

• Consider buying some window alarms.  These little guys are cheap, run on batteries and can get quite loud.  For as crafty as thieves are, they sure can be dumb… so when they hear a loud alarm, they’ll likely bolt.  The downside to the window alarms is that they only go off when the window is raised, so would-be thieves could still break your window, just not unlatch and raise it to gain entry.
• Put some of your household lights on a timer.  Since I get up every morning at 5:30am for work, I typically go to bed around 10pm.  My wife and I usually keep our timers stashed away until we’re about to go on a vacation, but now we’ve got them turning on lights before we get home from work and after we go to bed.  We like to use the multi-setting timers so we can vary the on/off times and make it look more natural.

In closing, I hope a home invasion is something you never have to go through.  Just dealing with the insurance company alone makes me wish I caught the guy in the act so I could just write him a check and be on my way, rather than dealing with the hassles it brought on.

With all the other cool stuff picked out for the cleaning your gutters the quick and easy way series, I begrudgingly come to the last item on the list: the waste bucket.

Now, I know what you’re thinking - why - oh why? - am I reading a review of a bucket tote?  I know it sounds stupid (especially on a blog that has two reviews of Stanley FatMax Xtreme FuBar pry/demo bars).  Trust me, I know.  But all kidding aside, the 47 pocket Bucket Tote is worth every bit of the price.

My wife likes it because it can hold just about all of her garden tools.  I like it because it can hold a lot of gutter cleaning tools.  And when I’m out landscaping, it’s got tons of places for me to put rock-breaking chisels, hammers, trowels, et cetera.  In fact, the Bucket Tote has 47 total pockets (30 exterior, 17 interior, hammer holster, tape chain) — so you can fill it with whatever you fancy.

I’m not sure what else to say… after all, it’s a bucket accessory.  Well, here’s something — I’ve found that it fits Home Depot contractor buckets really well with the tote.

Much like cleaning your gutters, hauling around a bucket tote can be a little bit, uh, emasculating.  But just like cleaning your gutters, an ounce of prevention (in this case, hauling all of your tools up the ladder with you) can save a lot of time in the long run.  Just think about how dry your basement will be when you don’t have water spilling out on your foundation!

In our last post in the how to clean gutters the quick and easy way series, we discussed a really durable fiberglass 6 Ft. ladder.  While that was perfect for smaller homes, where should you turn for a one and a half story home or more?  Well, if you’re like me, you turn right to the Werner D1516-2 16-Foot 300-Pound Duty Rating Aluminum Flat D-Rung Extension Ladder.

Sure, that sounds like a handful, but the ladder is actually quite easy to set up and use.  It’s a 16 foot ladder with a 300 pound capacity, which is more than enough for most home improvement jobs.  It has a 13 inch base with sip-resistant traction rungs for added durability and safety.  How can you not like those features?

For my money, it doesn’t get any better than the the Werner 16 foot, 300 pound extension ladder.  Not just limited to cleaning gutters, this ladder is perfect for quick, easy access to the roofline.  With Werner’s rugged spring loaded locking system, you can be assured that the ladder will be as locked in as you are.

In our last posts in the how to clean gutters the quick and easy way series, we managed to sissify the FixItUp blog with reviews of a garden hose and spray nozzle.  No more.  Now we’re into manly stuff… like ladders.

Shhhh!  Don’t tell anyone, but when we moved into our house, the contractors who were fixing things up left a nice fiberglass A-frame ladder behind.  Sure, I could have told them, but why?  I was using an old, heavy wooden ladder that my dad gave me.

We found the Husky 6 Ft. Fiberglass Ladder in a nook in the basement.  A nook that would require more than a quick once-over to locate; ergo, a free ladder. Score!

It only took one painting job before I was ready to throw that wooden monstrosity away.  Since then, I’ve never looked back.  Not only is the Husky 6 Ft. Fiberglass Ladder great for general housekeeping tasks, like painting ceilings, cleaning fan blades, cleaning ductwork, et cetera, but it’s non-conductive fiberglass side rails are perfect for working around electricity.  With slip resistant feet and steps, your rest is assured that you won’t end up sliding all over the place.

In the context of cleaning gutters, this ladder is fine for a one-story home.  For a one and a half story home or larger, you’ll need to call in the D-Rung extension ladder.