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Have you been putting off painting that kitchen/bathoom/bedroom/ whatever because you know how hard it can be to choose colors? IT CAN MAKE YOU CRAZY!

There have been so many times that I have picked a color (after agonizing over it for a week or so), bought the paint, slapped it on the walls, stepped back to admire my handywork and heard myself say “Yuck! It looks like baby poo/swamp muck/a 60’s flashback!”

Well, now there is help at hand.  Before you go and plop down that $20-$45 for a can of paint you can do search for your perfect color online, and even test them in cyberspace rooms. I realize that many paint manufacturers have small paint sample packets that you can test on your walls, but many times they don’t make sample packets of the colors I like OR they have run out of the most popular choices. However, with the online paint selection tools you can choose a pre-specified color pallete or let the artist in you go wild by trying new color combinations that WOW you (and can easily be changed).

Here are some the paint selection tools I have come across in my internet journeys; some require you to register to use them, but are really fun. If you know of any more that I don’t have listed here, please let me know and I will post them.

1. Behr Color Explore
2. Sherwin Williams Paint Visualizer
3. Dutch Boy Color Simplicty Tool
4. Bob Villa Paint Designer
5. Benjamin Moore Personal Color Viewer
6. Lowes’ Paint online

In addition, I came across this great Colorcharts.org database (powered by CBN) of all digitally certified colors. It has over 80 paint manufacturers listed and all of their digitally certified colors. If you have a colorchip from a paint company that is not in your area, you can find that color in their database, ask it to match the color, and it will tell you all other other digitally certified colors that match it from other paint manufacturers. Fun, eh?  This site has definitely made it to my “favorites” list!

Photo by Sharyn Morrow, used under creative commons licensing.

Tankless (a.k.a. demand or instantaneous) water heaters provide hot water only as it is needed instead of continuously heating a reserve tank of water as with conventional water heaters.

The basics of how they work:

1) Water enters the heater.
2) A water flow sensor detects the water flow.
3) The computer automatically ignites the burner.
4) The water circulates through the heat exchanger (coil).
5) The heat exchanger instantly heats the water at the designated temperature
(this takes only 5 seconds).
6) The heater can provide you with endless hot water continuously.
7) When the hot water tap is turned off, the unit shuts down automatically.
Read the rest of this entry »

I am always on the look out for new products for my home and I, like many other folks, have begun to realize that choosing environmentally friendly products is not only in my personal best interest, but also benefits the community as a whole. 

In my web wanderings I ran across a type of home insulation I haven’t seen before. It’s called Retrofoam. Read the rest of this entry »

Love this stuff! It goes on pink and dries white so you don’t have to keep checking for dryness AND it makes application easy on a white wall. DAP DryDex Spackle, cost: about $7.