If you’re building a house or looking to buy a house, ensure that the patio is not directly below a sloping roof, especially in an area that receives more than a couple of inches of snowfall each year.
Archive for the ‘House Matters’ Category
Where The Patio Goes
Posted in House Matters, tagged Architecture, Building, Contractor, House, Patio, Real Estate, Snow, Winter on 2012/03/09 | Leave a Comment »
A Step To Ensure Your Mail Keeps Up With You
Posted in House Matters, tagged Business, Change of Address, Mail, Mail forwarding, Moving, Post Office, USPS on 2011/11/22 | 1 Comment »
People and companies make mistakes. Periodically renewing a change of address after a move might help ensure you receive important mail.
Lessons From A Natural Disaster: Be Prepared
Posted in House Matters, Travel, tagged Emergency, Employment, Natural Disaster, Nor'easter, Snow Storm, Work on 2011/11/10 | Leave a Comment »
Always keep an extra set of clothes and small toiletries with you. One never knows what might happen. For example, you might get stuck at the office during a natural disaster.
Lessons From A Natural Disaster: Shop Creatively
Posted in House Matters, Psychology, tagged Camping, Drinking Water, Emergency, Merchandise, Natural Disaster, Power Outage, Shopping, Supplies on 2011/10/30 | Leave a Comment »
In natural disasters, people tend to run to hardware and general merchandisers for survival products. As such, these stores can be wiped out of survival products quickly. If you’re ever in such an emergency and unable to find supplies at these big box stores, try a retailer that sells camping or sports equipment, instead. Often, [...]
Lessons From A Natural Disaster: Investigate The Local Infrastructure
Posted in House Matters, Psychology, tagged Drinking Water, Electricity, Natural Disaster, New England, Nor’easter, Power Outage, Snow Storm, Water Pollution on 2011/10/29 | Leave a Comment »
Before committing to moving somewhere new, look into the community’s infrastructure. For example, how old is the infrastructure? How often do they experience electrical shortages? How quickly are electrical shortages resolved? How often do they have water contamination issues? How are water contamination issues resolved and how quickly?
If It Saves You Future Money, Your Time Now Is An Investment
Posted in Finances, House Matters, tagged Finances, Investment, Money on 2011/09/24 | Leave a Comment »
If something will cost you considerably more money to replace or fix in the future than it costs to remedy now, take care of the item. Because you’re reducing future costs, the time you take to maintain items, such as sealing a deck or reseeding a lawn, is, in a way, a financial investment.
Why Invite Injury?
Posted in Beauty, Business, Finances, Getting Ahead, House Matters, Things Better Off Said, tagged Children & Family, Faith, Friends, Generosity, Trust on 2011/09/05 | Leave a Comment »
Don’t give someone the opportunity to hurt you unless it’s absolutely necessary. When it comes to your and your family’s long term wellbeing, concern for the feelings of others should be set aside. If you don’t trust a person to do a satisfactory job, don’t let him do something for or to you and your family, such as [...]
Posted in House Matters, Natural Remedies, Pets & Animals, tagged Annual, Crop, Flower, Garden, Gardening, Grow, Growth, Health, Natural Remedies, Nourish, Nutrients, Perennial, Pets & Animals, Plant, Planting on 2011/06/10 | Leave a Comment »
Nourish your plants while conserving water by pouring water leftover in your pet’s dish onto the plant’s soil, rather than down the drain.
Lessons In A Crisis: Keep Your Cool
Posted in House Matters, Personal Enrichment, Psychology, tagged Behavior, Crisis, Daiichi, Disaster, Do the Right Thing, Earthquake, Fukushima, Health, Japan, Nippon, Nuclear, Nuclear Disaster, Nuclear Power, Psychology, Spike Lee, Tsunami on 2011/03/19 | Leave a Comment »
A lesson from the crisis in Japan is not to lose your cool in a disaster. If a person loses his head, he reduces his ability to help himself for several reasons. First, the person can be viewing the situation through blinders obscuring potential solutions. Second, people are generally less responsive to a person acting [...]
Contractors: Don’t Dissemble If You Want To Prosper
Posted in Getting Ahead, House Matters, tagged Builders, Communication, Contractors, Ethics, Home Repair, References, Referrals, Renovation, Reputation, Review on 2011/01/09 | Leave a Comment »
Home Contractors: If you want to build a good reputation, don’t try to excuse your inability to fix something by claiming you’ve never seen the item – such as a leaking tub faucet - work properly in other homes. It reflects poorly on your abilities and presumes the person never lived in a home before. Further, by [...]
Keep A Record
Posted in Finances, House Matters, Personal Enrichment, tagged Behavior, Colleagues, Contributions, Donations, Friends, Gifts, Going Crazy, Habits, Happiness, Loans, Memory, Problem Solving, Relationship, Self Improvement, Tips on 2010/12/20 | Leave a Comment »
If you’re like us, you’ll occasionally forget where you placed an item. The habit two TPLL contributors plan to adopt may reduce the frequency of such occurrences experienced in the future. Recently, the two contributors were unable to locate a valuable collectible they planned to donate. The couple could not remember if they had loaned it to [...]
Friend Thy Neighbor
Posted in House Matters, Improving Relationships, tagged Bullies, Friendship, Happiness, Home, House, Life, Neighborhood, Neighbors on 2010/10/24 | Leave a Comment »
Neighbors can do dumb things. We can do dumb things. But, since you can’t control your neighbor, it is best to find a way to overcome any animosity or conflict stirred up with your neighbor. There’s no telling how far and badly conflict with your neighbor will spiral and not only might you have to live [...]
Tool For Making Consequential Decisions
Posted in Business, Dating, Family Enrichment, Finances, Getting Ahead, House Matters, Improving Relationships, Job Search, Lessons From Divorce, Manage Successfully, Personal Enrichment, Resignation Tips, tagged Decision Making, Decisions, Goals, Guidance, Life, Making Decisions, Priorities, Problem Solving, Resign, Resignation, Successful Management, What to do? on 2010/09/24 | Leave a Comment »
Trying to make a big decision, such as leaving a job or buying a house? The following steps might aid in making the decision. Identify your goals and priorities. To the extent possible, establish measurements for these two items. Identify why you want to make the decision. What are the differences achieved by the decision? [...]
Protecting Your Property During Moves
Posted in House Matters, Travel, tagged Building, Contractors, Property on 2010/08/31 | Leave a Comment »
If using movers to relocate, especially across state lines, put your name, destination address and contact phone number in large, bold, clear script on every package. On sealed items, print the information across the seal. Number each package and create a chart summarizing the contents of the box and condition of the box before loaded onto the [...]
References That Don’t Work: Building Contractors
Posted in Finances, House Matters, tagged Building, Contractors, House, Reconstruction on 2010/08/21 | Leave a Comment »
Requesting references for building contracts can be ineffective - unless you or someone you trust knows a contractor’s references, you’ll have to perform due diligence to confirm that the contractor completed the work, to code, for which it is giving references.
