Firepit Types

Do you love spending time outside? I can’t relate. However, if I must be outside, I must
be comfortable, and nothing quite says outside comfort like a firepit. Especially, if you
must be outside in the winter, when it’s cold outside there’s nothing quite like sitting in
front of a firepit. So, if your thinking about building a firepit here’s a couple of styles you
could get.

Naturalistic Firepits

Rock Firepit: It’s traditional and pretty simple to DIY. You know what I’m talking about.
It’s the circle of rocks that you place the wood in middle and voila, fire pit. If you live
somewhere where you can get decent sized rocks it would be easy to forage them for
yourself and you can, in fact, buy rocks and Home Depot or something like that.

Pond Firepit: Did your property come with a nice, quant little water feature that you’re
completely unwilling to upkeep? Fish are a lot of work for living decoration. Turn that
pre-existing, rock-lined, hole in the ground to a firepit.

Salvaged pit: This kind of pit uses things you find in your own yard. Rocks, stepping
stones from a path you didn’t really want, leftover bricks and stuff from a build or the
construction of the house if you’ve just built. You can use salvaged wood to build
benches or other features.

Constructed Firepits

Tree Ring Firepit: Simple DIY build. If you don’t know, cause I didn’t, there are these
curved brick like fence… thingies that go around trees. They’re super good and
convenient material for building a quick firepit in about an hour. Make two circles, one
inside the other, Use the scalloped ones so they’re easy to stack, bottom facing up,
top facing down. You can use a small grill in the middle if you're super lazy.

Outside space: If you’re really going for it than go for it. Select a good amount of space in your yard, and section it off. At this point, if you’re really going for it, look at google images and Pinterest and get inspiration. Really build out the entire area. Stone floor, brick pit, built-in seating, etc. REALLY GO FOR IT.

See, mostly simple and can kind of be done on a whim. If you’re going to be outside, be warm and comfortable outside. Gathering around a firepit can also be great for parties with friends. If you get no other pleasure from a fire pit at least think about the s’more possibilities, you’ll gain. There’s nothing like a good excuse to make s’mores. Your taste buds and probably your friends will thank you.

Saving Money on Firepits

Do you like firepits? I do… I mean I don’t like being outside but if I’m already out there I might as well be
comfortable and sitting at a firepit. One thing about firepits though, they can be a great big time and
money hole. Seriously while you’re working on the firepit you might as well set your money on fire
while you’re at it. So, how can you get that beautiful firepit without it turning into a money pit?

First, if you’re trying to save money you should probably DIY the entire project. This isn’t the type of
project where at the end you’ll look at your bank account and find out you spent more money than
the quote you got to get it built out for you. Getting a firepit built will almost definitely cost more than
doing it yourself. You can even get firepit kits for around 200 dollars. Go ahead and build out a patio
while you're at it, it’s just an outside floor. I believe in you, watch a YouTube video, you can figure
\ it out.

Second tip, make a wood burning pit and not a gas burning pit. You’ll a thousand percent have to
hire several people to make a gas burning pit work safely (please, don’t burn down your
neighborhood). Also, a gas pit will add on to your utility bills… and why would you want that? If you
must have a gas burning pit make it close to your house. This will cut down on the plumbing bill
of running a gas line to your designated location. The further you get from the house, the more it
will cost.

Finally, keep the customizations down to a minimum. Built in seating will cost you and they cost a lot.
If you don’t mind using chairs then you’re solid. Besides, a lot of built-in seating is
uncomfortable. Also, unless you’re an artist and are making all of your own tiles (which is still
expensive) try to keep the unnecessary customizations down to a minimum. Getting super fancy
with a firepit could very quickly cost you upwards of thousands of dollars.

You’ve been sufficiently warned. Go build a firepit. Go outside (if you must). Have fun.

Pool maintenece

Summer is coming quickly to a close for those of us who live in the south. It’s too late for most of y'all who
live any further north than North Carolina, but it’s still 70 degrees in Georgia! Which means we have one
last chance to enjoy summer activities. Yes, it’s time to take our final trips out to the pool. However, after
a long season swimming and frolicking in our respective pools, it’s far past time to wonder, what kind of
shape are they in?

I’m hoping that you’ve been maintaining a fairly regular pool maintenance schedule. If not… ew, but it’s
not too late to start. Pools actually don’t require a lot of care, if you have been keeping a schedule. If not
well… it’s a royal pain in the butt and most of your equipment is probably in tatters and needs to be
replaced. So, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to write out a schedule for you and you can decide
if or when you’re going to follow it or not. Making you do maintenance for your pool isn’t my job, but
I can eliminate the planning step for you.

Every to Every other Day

Spot clean: Get your weird fish butterfly net thing with the long handle and remove the random junk from
your pool. I suggest doing a quick sweep every day to keep it from building up or every other day if your
yard and pool doesn’t collect much debris.

Check Water Level: Your pool is outside and it contains water. Water evaporates and it rains. Just do a
quick check to make sure that the water level isn’t too low or too high for your equipment to run properly.

Clean out the basket. The basket is like a filter it doesn’t necessarily need to be changed but it does need
to be cleaned. This can also be done a little less than every other day as well depending on how much debris
regularly ends up in your yard or pool. So, if you don’t have any trees you may be lucky (if you’re not
bothered by the lack of shade).

Weekly: If you already have a regular once a week cleaning day then just add these to your list of chores.

Clean the perimeter:  All the dirt collecting outside your pool will eventually migrate into your pool.
Again, ew. Do you know how much of that water ends up in your mouth? Let’s just avoid as much of that
as possible.

Vacuum the pool bottom. Get all the stuff you weren’t fast enough to get during the week and has now
ended up in the depths of your pool. Pay special attention to the corners to collect all the build-up, ‘cause
ew. Then collect all the stragglers at the bottom and your done.

Shock the pool. Your pool is standing water, think about that. Standing water readily collects and grows all
sorts of thing like algae, mold, bacteria, etc. Raise the chlorine level to 5 or 10 ppm just to kill off anything
nasty multiplying in your water and on the water’s surface.  A DPD test kit can help detect levels of
combined chlorine, you can break it up by shocking the water to a level 10 times the tested level when
combined chlorine exceeds 0.3 ppm.

Check pool chemistries. There’s a lot going on in your pool on a mineral and chemical level. At least once
a week you need to go out and test the chemistries in your pool. You can even leave the tests to do their thing
as you get other chores done. Just once a week, make sure your pH, total chlorine, alkalinity, calcium,
cyanuric acid, and saturation index are on point.

Clean your filter/Check the Pressure. Check your pressure gauge. I say to do this weekly because the times
you may actually need to clean the filter could fluctuate. Just check the pressure and if it’s between 5 to 10 psi
higher than normal, it’s time to actually clean the filter

Monthly:

Look for tears in the liner. A torn liner means leaking water and unstable water levels and other various
problems. If you don’t get it fixed fast enough the problem can exacerbate itself. When you commit to a vinyl
liner you commit to patching up any holes it may collect in it.

Clean the pump room. Yeah, do that. Dust off the mechanics and their surrounding areas and keep
everything running properly.  

Clean your skimmer. Using a scrubbing sponge and soap, clean the scum and dirt out of the skimmer’s throat
and well.

Check all pump seals and safety equipment. You actively need all of these things to be working for safety reasons. Tighten all the bolts and such. Just a once around to make sure everything is in working order.

Exterior Painting Tips!

One of the most unfortunate parts of exterior maintenance of a house is keeping the paint looking nice. NOBODY wants to pay someone to repaint or have to repaint the outside of their house themselves. Paying for it would be expensive while doing it yourself would be difficult and time consuming. Besides, how do you know it’s going to last if you do it yourself, how do you know you’re doing it right. Well here are some tips on how to make the process a little easier and make sure your not doing it again next summer.

Choose when you paint and what side of the house your painting on! Summer is coming to a distinct end here in the south, it’s already over in more northern states. So, your going to want to get this done before the cold really sets in. If it’s still warm where you are there could be nothing more heinous than doing hard work in direct sunlight. Paint on the dark side of the house. Wait until shadow is cast on the side of the house you need to work on and do your best to keep up with the shade. If it’s already getting chilly where you are you might want to follow the warmth and paint on the bright side of the house. Put on some sunscreen because direct sunlight for extended periods of time isn’t good for anybody’s skin but staying in the sun will keep you from getting chilled.

Do your prep! Prep work is an essential part of painting if you want it to last. You may want to pick a completely separate day for this in order to break up some of the work and jump right into the painting process when your ready.

First, strip off chipping paint. Get something with a sharp edge, something like a putty knife. If you’ve gone through the painting process before and there are several layers of paint already on the house, you can also pressure wash flaking paint off. If you’re dealing with something that’s more delicate than paint thinner on a rage will do the job getting the old paint off.

Next, remove and replace anything old and rotting. A new layer of paint won’t fix things that are fundamentally unsound. Replace window sills, slats on the shutters, siding, etc.

Finally, primer, Primer, PRIMER! The step everyone wants to skip. You may want to take another day just to do this. You could get a two-in-one paint and see how that works out for you (I’m not a paint expert you tell me). Either way primer is a must if you’re looking for longevity and it’s just a step that makes the whole thing look nicer.

Turning Up Your Curb Appeal

Your home has served you well in the times you have occupied its walls and dwelled under its roof… or maybe it hasn’t and your happy to leave dust trails on your way out. Either way you’re moving out but before you can leave, at least if you don’t want to be paying two mortgages, you need to sell your house. Which means you need to prepare your house to be sold. No matter how fabulous the inside of your home maybe it won’t get sold unless you can get prospective buyers through the front door, and you definitely won’t get the best deal possible unless you get as many people as possible through the front door. Which means it’s time to work on your curb appeal.

Let’s start with the obvious. Get rid of the trash! I’m not saying you have actual trash in your yard. I mean no shade if you do (a little shade if you do) but there’s going to be some stuff that you don’t want visually cluttering up the lawn and thus the presentation of your home. This could mean fallen leaves and branches of trees to larger things like old yard equipment, old broken things you never got around to getting rid of.  At least get it out of the front yard so that the inside has time to speak for itself before people see the disaster area in the back.

Make some fixes! People like things to feel new, especially when they are buying it. There’s a certain charm about old or antique things however that charm dissipates when it looks like it may fall apart. So, the next step is to fix up anything that looks broken or raggedy overly worn on the front of the house. Loose gutters, beat up shutters, noticeably messed up blinds in the windows, anything noticeably broken and obviously not cute. Go across the street and really look at the house, try not to creep out your neighbors.

Spruce it up! A new coat of paint makes a world of difference. Things can be in perfectly good shape but still look old and dilapidated. Time and wear can make things look gross and dirty. All of that can be easily fixed with fresh paint, helping buyers see past the worn color and bring out the quality.

Pay attention to details. You want the property to look cared for. When something looks properly cared for it’s a signal that it’s in good shape and worth spending money on. That well maintained look we’re going for is achieved by looking at the details. Trim your hedges, maintain your garden, if you don’t have those maybe you should put in some hedges and throw in a plot of flowers. Tamed foliage in your yard says to people looking at it that you care. Fix cracks in your driveway and walkway, clean the windows, power wash the façade and front porch. Make people want to approach the house.