(ARA) – Are you ready to host all of those summer barbecues and impromptu get-togethers that summer brings? And the bigger question – is your house ready? The season’s beautiful weather ushers in a slew of home repairs that are needed to get ready for hosting guests. Whether it’s a broken bird bath, a loose stone on a walkway, or a broken patio chair, there are some things you need to take care of before you welcome your friends and family.

The best way to prepare for these upcoming household fixes is to assemble a first-aid kit for your house. Keeping some quick repair tools together makes you that much more efficient. Below is a list of items that are invaluable for household repairs:

1. Gorilla Glue – This product is 100 percent waterproof and perfect for fixing anything from a broken chair leg to a broken flower pot. You could even use a strong glue like this to fix a loose stone on a walkway. If you’ve never used a polyurethane glue before, be careful, because they expand as they cure – you will only need a very small amount for an indestructible bond. Visit www.gorillatough.com for more information.

2. Gorilla Tape – Made by the same company that makes Gorilla Glue, Gorilla Tape is the toughest duct tape that you will ever meet. It has a strong fabric backing and three times the adhesive of other duct tapes and will even stick to impossible surfaces like brick and stucco. Visit www.gorillatough.com for more information.

3. Simple tools – Why is it that you can never find a hammer, screwdriver, utility knife, tape measure and pencil when you need one? Keep duplicates of these tools in your first-aid kit, and you won’t have to run around your house or shop looking for them.

4. Sandpaper and a two-part, epoxy-based wood filler – For outdoor wood repair needs, this is really the way to go. All exterior door and window trim work should be checked every spring because gaps and cracks not only reduce your home’s efficiency, but can also provide an entry location for unwanted insects and rodents. Most of these repairs can easily be taken care of this time of year before the summer rains damage the integrity of the wood.

5. Cordless drill and variety of high quality screws – With the diverse weather changes in the winter, screws will loosen over the winter. Tighten up exposed screws on things like your deck, wood railings, etc. before they become a safety hazard.

6. Touch-up paint and foam applicators – Avoid having to search the garage for a can of paint by putting a small amount of paint in a disposable airtight container and add it to your kit. As you make your outdoor repairs, you will have the paint on hand for a quick fix. Foam applicators, which you can get very inexpensively from any craft and hobby store, are great for quick touch-ups, and are easy and disposable.

With your first-aid kit assembled, you are ready to tackle all of your outdoor fixes.

(ARA) – The aging population will have the second biggest impact of any factor on the remodeling industry over the next five years, according to the AARP and National Association of Home Builders. Why? Because today’s homeowners overwhelmingly prefer to live independently in their current homes, even if it means remodeling to meet their needs.

Whether you modify your current house or purchase new these are some must-haves to ensure you’ll have a safe, secure and easily maintained home in which to spend your golden years:

Floor plan
* Open floor plan with wide, accessible paths
* Single-story home or a two-story with a first-floor master bedroom

Bathroom
* First-floor master bathroom equipped with safety products, such as grab bars, elevated toilet seats and shower chairs
* Curbless shower, featuring a handheld showerhead with an extra long hose
* Adjustable- or varied-height countertops

Kitchen and laundry
* Adjustable- or varied-height countertops
* Upper wall cabinetry 3 inches lower than conventional height
* Pull-out kitchen faucet with lever handles
* First-floor laundry with front-loading machines

Electrical and security
* Light switches by each entrance to halls and rooms
* Security system connected to police, fire and EMS
* Flashing porch light or 911 switch

Flooring
* Smooth, non-glare, slip-resistant surfaces
* Less than 1/2-inch pile carpet with firm padding

Exterior
* Low-maintenance exteriors, such as vinyl or brick
* Covered garage or carport
* Handrails near steps

For more information about ADA-compliant pull-out kitchen faucets from Moen or bath safety products, such as SecureMount Grab Bars, elevated toilet seats and shower chairs from Home Care by Moen, call 800-BUY-MOEN(800-289-6636) or visit moen.com.

(ARA) – With today’s record low real estate prices and attractive mortgage rates, now may be a good time to think about investing in a second home that ultimately can be used as your permanent residence upon retirement. By taking a “buy-and-rent” approach before you’re ready to retire, your new home will actually have partly paid for itself by the time you’re ready to move into it.

“Buying and renting out a second home as a vacation rental property until you’re ready to move in upon retirement can significantly help offset the cost of ownership,” says Brian Sharples, CEO of HomeAway, the world’s leading online vacation rental marketplace. “The income stream, in addition to tax write-offs for maintenance and repairs, make this an attractive strategy for many people nearing retirement.”

According to HomeAway, the average second-home owner rents out their property to travelers 17 weeks a year, generating more than $28,000 in rental income annually. And the demand for vacation rentals among travelers is growing, which is good news for second-home owners. In fact, 87 percent of travelers who looked into a vacation rental in the past say they plan to stay in a vacation rental in 2010 – a significant increase from the 67 percent who stayed in a vacation rental in 2009.

To generate income from a second home prior to moving into it when you retire, Sharples suggests consumers take the following steps:

* Consider the location and market potential – Carefully review the markets where you want to retire, and before you buy, consider the areas where consumer demand for vacation rentals is high, but inventory is low. For example, Atlantic City, N.J.; Sunny Isles Beach, Fla.; Hampton Beach, N.H.; Dauphin Island, Ala., and Mount Pocono, Pa., were among some of the most underserved markets for vacation rental properties in 2009, according to HomeAway.

* Factor in tax write-offs – Talk to an accountant about the tax advantages of owning and renting out a second home. Expenses such as insurance, utilities, home maintenance and depreciation can be deducted, depending on how often you rent out the property and how many weeks you personally stay there each year.

* Advertise to attract renters – When you’re ready to rent out the property, be sure to market the availability of the vacation rental to travelers by listing it on sites like HomeAway.com or VRBO.com, which reach millions of travelers each month. A 12-month listing costs $329 – or less than $28 per month – on HomeAway.com, so the advertising pays for itself with your first booking – and the rest is pure rental income.

* Stay competitive and network with owners – Check out other similar vacation rentals in the area to determine what rates they’re charging travelers, and price your home at a competitive rate to help drive bookings. Also, be sure to talk with other owners to get their tips and advice for maximizing a second home investment.

For more information on buying a second home and effective strategies for maximizing rental income, check out HomeAway’s online community for vacation rental owners at ownercommunity.homeaway.com.

(ARA) – Do images of flowering trellises laden with yellow, pink, green and purple blooms dance through your dreams? You may be ready for some warm spring-like temperatures, but the weather outside is still a little frightful. Ignore the weather and bring spring inside with some indoor gardening.

Not only does bringing spring inside help brighten your home, but houseplants can also improve the quality of the air you’re breathing. A NASA study found that houseplants remove up to 87 percent of toxic indoor air inside a sealed chamber within 24 hours.

By planting now, while winter is still in the air, you will have vegetables, herbs and flowers primed for transplanting when warmer weather finally arrives. And since they’re inside, you can watch the plants as they shoot their little green stems out of the fresh dirt, monitoring them as they grow.

* Use loose potting soil to promote root growth. Outside, worms and insects tunnel through the dirt, naturally breaking it up to help plants spread their roots. To mimic their effect indoors, use potting soil mixed with peat moss, vermiculite and perlite to create a light texture that won’t compact after a couple of waterings.

* Make sure the natural light is adequate. Some plants like direct sunlight and must be located near a south-facing window, while others prefer a few hours of indirect light. But to really keep your herbs and flowers looking strong all season long, consider using artificial light like the Grow Light Pro White from Wards.com, which can also help you get your spring garden started early with seedlings. The Grow Light has four lights that can be turned on as a unit or individually, and it has an adjustable bottom shelf so you can alter the light level as your plants grow.

When plants don’t get the light they need, they start to appear thin and frail. As your plants begin to grow, make sure to rotate the pots so the stems grow straight, rather than bending unnaturally toward the source of light.

* Keep the humidity level above 50 percent with a humidifier. Not only will your plants appreciate the extra moisture, but so will you. When the humidity drops below 50 percent, most plants suffer from water loss through their leaves, and it’s difficult to regain that water balance, even with frequent watering.

* Really bring spring inside your home with beautiful pots and decorating accents. Visit Wards.com to find beautiful and creative birdhouses that not only are functional, but stylish enough to hang inside. Consider hanging a wire birdhouse in the shape of an acorn in the kitchen window, or using a set of two birdhouses as a unique decoration for your entryway.

* Mix art and fun together with some ivy. Ivy topiaries are very easy to grow, and there are many creative planters and forms you can use to support the ivy as it winds its way toward the sun. Are you a music fan? A guitar and music stand with little pots incorporated into the design can help brighten up your living room. Or maybe you prefer a vintage look created by placing a Madeline Dress Form over your vines, allowing them to grow and construct the skirt. Both styles are available at Wards.com.

(ARA) – A disorganized home wastes time, and time is money. It can be frustrating if you’re constantly misplacing items, throwing out spoiled food that went missing in the kitchen and paying surcharges for unpaid bills that got lost in the shuffle. But it’s easy to put a little happiness back into your life if you just get organized. Here are some tips for getting your home – and your life – back in order.

Get organized
Tackle one room at a time to get a sense of accomplishment right away. The kitchen is a logical place to start since it’s typically the landing place for all things that get dropped while passing through, from cell phones to car keys to school notes. Get rid of visible countertop clutter. Throw out what you don’t need and corral small items in great-looking woven baskets or pottery bowls.

Next, de-clutter behind the scenes in the drawers and cupboards. A few well-chosen cabinet accessories can help you here. A wood cutlery divider added to a crowded utensil drawer will keep your flatware in place, and give you a fighting chance at locating the pie server or pizza cutter. One option is Diamond Cabinet’s easy-access, Wood Tiered Cutlery Divider, which has a top tier that slides back so you can organize more items. And, if you can’t open a lower cabinet without a pile of pots and pans clattering to the floor, find your headache prevention in the Utility Storage Cabinet With Pot & Pan Pull-Out, featuring both a pot and pan rack and pantry pull-out within one cabinet.

Save money
Designate a “home office central” so you can keep track of money matters and never miss a bill again. Carve out desk space in the kitchen or family room to sort mail and pay bills as they arrive, or to keep it all in one place until payday arrives. Everyday items can pull double duty to help you organize. Turn an attractive rectangular serving dish into an “inbox” for bills, and let a colorful coffee mug serve as a pen and pencil holder. While you’re at it, why not use a wine rack to organize bills? A wine cabinet with an open, X-shaped interior can provide fashionable storage for your reds, whites and zinfandels, but it will also work perfectly fine for sorting and organizing bank statements, tax information and charitable contribution receipts. It can serve to sort a variety of other items, from mittens to small toys – just let your imagination be your guide.

Be happy
As long as you’re making a few changes around the house, kick up your mood with color. Be on the lookout as you organize drawers, cabinets and closets for items that can be used as accessories to brighten up your home – dig out that collection of baseball caps in team colors and display it on pegs in the mudroom; turn a red metal toy truck into a conversation piece for the mantel; re-cover old pillows in fun new colors and throw them on the couch. Cheer up cabinets with fashionable finishes in inspiring colors that make you feel good, such as buttery Honeysuckle, warm Cider, spicy Sangria or the soothing blue-grey tones of Tidal Mist, all from Diamond Cabinets. Visualize the possibilities at www.diamondcabinets.com. With these simple changes, you’ll not only get organized, but you’ll save money and feel happier about it, too.

By Al Heavens

Q: We live in a home that is more than 50 years old. It has a cement foundation with a finished wallboard basement. We noticed an earthy smell in the basement. We feel that the smell is coming from the high moisture content of the old cement walls behind the wallboard. We have been advised that to fix the problem, the wallboard would have to be torn down and wire mesh would have to be put up on the walls and more cement and then a special paint be applied. The estimated cost for the wire mesh process alone would be roughly $10,000, not including the demolition and refinishing of the basement. Since we do not plan to stay in this home for the rest of our lives, do you have any other suggestions for us?

A: Get another opinion. Moisture finds the lowest point, and you don’t get much lower than the basement. Yet putting a layer of — I guess — stucco on top of a moisture problem is not the answer. The source of the moisture is outside the basement or perhaps under the basement — high water table. Some basements are not meant to be finished. Water problems are never cured — they are managed with a sump pump and french drains or a properly sized dehumidifier. When builders of new houses create “dry” basements, they start on the outside, not inside, and that’s where someone who knows what he or she is doing should start.

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Q: I have an older house with bathroom wainscoting covered by lead paint partly covered by tile. I’d like to remove the rest of the tile, smooth the combination of paint and adhesive, and paint it.

My concern is the lead dust when I pull off the tiles, and my idea is to wet around and behind each tile as much as possible before pulling one off, wear a mask, and keep the window open and the door closed. I’ve discussed this with a plumber and also with a contractor who was in the house for other reasons. Both say I worry too much and that the amount of lead is insignificant.

I suspect that they prefer to believe this, but that it’s not true. I would value your opinion, as well as any suggestions you might have.

A: I always err on the side of caution. Take every precaution you’re planning to take, and check the Web site of state and federal environmental agencies for their advice as well. It may even be wise to have one of the tiles tested for lead, especially if you have children younger than 6 — the most vulnerable to lead poisoning. There is probably not very much lead dust, as the plumber and contractor say, but there is enough to track it around the house on the soles of your shoes.

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Q: I have noticed my roof is stained black, making it look horrible and perhaps damaging it. Is there something I could do to remove this marking?

A: This question appears almost as often as algae on roofs. The black stuff is an algae called Gloeocapsa magma, and it thrives on asphalt shingles on the shady roofs of houses, where it has constant moisture. When roofing manufacturers began making fiberglass shingles as older materials disappeared from the market, they added ground-up limestone to make the shingles heavier. The algae appear to thrive on limestone. Manufacturers are changing the mix. Some add copper filings to counteract algae growth.

You can clean the algae off with oxygen bleach; chlorine bleach will damage the shingles. Roofers are now nailing copper or zinc strips at the highest points of roofs so that rain washes copper and zinc down on the algae, killing it.

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Q: We bought a house with a wall of mirrors in the master bedroom. I want to remove them. How do I do that?

A: They’re probably glued right to the wall, which means lots of work and damaged plaster or wallboard.

You could use a solvent to take care of the glue and loosen the mirrors, sand the remaining adhesive off the wall, make any repairs, prime the walls as if they had new drywall, then paint.

Someone else suggested steaming the mirrors off the wall and loosening the adhesive as one would wallpaper paste. But the glue used for sticking mirrors to a wall is different from paste. Maybe a wallpaper removal company would be your best bet.

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(Have questions for Alan J. Heavens? E-mail him at aheavens@phillynews.com or write him at The Inquirer, Box 8263, Philadelphia PA 19101.)

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(c) 2009, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Between 2000 and 2006, the most recent data available, 180 Americans died beneath fallen furniture, and 80 percent of the deaths involved children younger than 10, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Thousands more adults and children are injured by fallen furniture each year. The problem is so serious, that the CPSC ranks danger from tipping furniture and TVs among its top five hidden home hazards.

Each year, injuries suffered beneath fallen furniture and TVs send an average of 15,000 children younger than 18 to the emergency room, according to a recent study by Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. The injury rate has increased more than 40 percent in the 10-year study period. “This trend demonstrates the inadequacy of current prevention strategies and underscores the need for increased prevention efforts,” study senior author Dr. Gary Smith, director of the hospital’s Center for Injury Research and Policy, has said.

So how do you ensure your flat-screen TV stays put — and your children stay safe? The experts at Sanus Systems, makers of furniture and mounts for TVs and other electronic accessories, offer some basic advice:

* Don’t Underestimate — The sleek, thin build of a flat-screen TV may lull you into a false sense of security about its overall size and heft. Keep in mind that these televisions can pack 100 pounds or more into their compact design. They need to be well secured with mounts specifically designed to hold them safely.

* Wall Mount Well — Wall mounting a flat screen has numerous advantages, including aesthetic appeal and keeping your expensive investment out of reach of little hands. When done properly with a high-quality device, mounting a flat screen on the wall is much safer than placing it atop furniture.

Look for a product, like Sanus’ VisionMount series, which incorporates a wall plate that secures into the studs behind the wall, and attaches to the TV with mounting brackets. All mounts within the Sanus offering lock securely to the wall and all are rated by Underwriters Laboratories, an independent organization that subjects products to rigorous safety testing.

* Stand Can Deliver — While wall mounting is the safest way to display your flat-screen TV, some situations might make it impossible to do so – if you’re renting with strict rules about what you can put on the walls, or simply don’t have enough open, secure wall space. If you must place a TV on furniture, keep in mind both the TV and the furniture piece tend to be top heavy. You should secure the top edge of the TV to the back of the furniture, and the furniture itself should be secured to the wall, following the manufacturer’s guidelines.

Still, the safest, most practical mode of displaying a flat-screen TV and all its components (DVR, video game, cable or satellite receiver, etc.) is to mount the TV on the wall and place the components beneath it on a piece of furniture specifically designed for that purpose. Sanus offers a full line of home theater furniture designed to hold all your home electronics.

To learn more about options for safely mounting your TV, visit www.Sanus.com.

Courtesy of ARAcontent