Make a good house a GREAT home

Picture it.

You come home from shopping and you have 10 plastic bags filled with groceries.

You unpack your bags, pack away the shopping, BUT, you don’t throw away the plastic shopping bags because you’re supposed to USE them again!

So what do you do with them? Where do you pack the bags? How do you pack them so they are neat and tidy?

I’ll show you how, right here. WITH PHOTOS!

I’m pretty sure you’ll say to yourself: “Self, why didn’t I think of that?!”

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There are a few things in life you only do once (I hope).

And, once done, occasionally you’re too embarrassed to share it with people.

I’m not one of those people though. I like sharing things that may be stupid, but have a little humour in it, even if it’s only for the other person.

So, here are 3 things you should NEVER do with a microwave that you may otherwise be tempted to do, with a couple of videos to prove it!

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So, you have a few bananas that are a little TOO green, or a bowl of avos a little TOO hard… What do you do?

Some fruit and veg science

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My wife made banana bread last night. That fact probably doesn’t interest you (though the banana bread was EXCELLENT. I’ll get the recipe for you if I can), but what is cool is that she used a silicon loaf tin. I’m not sure if you would call it a tin considering it’s made out of silicon, but anyway. She’s also got a silicon cookie tray.

Silicon cookware is amazing stuff. Here are my reasons for loving it (even though I’m not always the one using it):

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Another great looking idea for storing items is Glass Jars. We’re using glass jars from a place called “Consol Glass”, but there are many other Glass Jar suppliers out there.

In my personal opinion, they are a great way of safely storing your rice, sugar, flour etc… AND, if you have open or glass cupboards in your kitchen, you can make these glass storage jars as part of the display. Here’s a list of benefits for using glass jars similar (though probably bigger) to the one in the picture above:

• Can be sealed to prevent moisture
• Thanks to the seal, can prevent bugs getting in
• No more mess trying to close the sugar packet and stuff it back in the cupboard after a refill
• Can make your kitchen storage solution attractive

And, a tip that my wife has used to enhance the appeal of using glass jars to store our sugar: Add some colorful sugar to your plain white sugar, possibly in layers, to take away the blandness of your white sugar. You’ve now made art out of sugar for your kitchen shelves… Any other ideas?

If you have to have your dishwasher or washing machine in the kitchen due to a lack of space, how about concealing them. This obviously doesn’t JUST apply in the kitchen, but it’s a good enough reason to do it.

Anyway, the main way of doing this is to put a cupboard door in front of the dishwasher. As long as it keeps the theme of your kitchen, it might just finish the look off. Some looks that I have seen:

- Barn door effect
- Wood panelling on the dishwasher door (see photo above)
- Curtains

Definitely something of a personal choice.

Of course, you just might have a dishwasher or washing machine that fits in with the look of the kitchen already, like a metallic finish dishwasher. Let me know your ideas.

In my last post on Granite Counter Tops I mentioned that you should phone the Granite company and see if they have any left over granite that you could use to make your counter top. What I didn’t mention is that you should create a template of your needed granite counter, cut to size and shape.

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I recently had a new counter added into my kitchen. Not a big deal, except I’m “lucky” enough to have granite kitchen counter tops. They came standard with the house we bought.

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There are a lot of water filters and water purifiers out there. But I’ve bought a really good product from a company called Stefani. The reason I bought mine is that, as well as managing to clean and filter the water, it looks good.

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You need to think of the little things. Just because a trash can is where your dirt goes, doesn’t mean you can’t have a NICE trash can.

BELIEVE me, from personal experience, you would be amazed at how many people will compliment you on a nice bin.

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