Five Home Improvements for a Better Family Life

If you haven’t been able to save up enough to get a full makeover of your family home, you are not alone. We all need to prioritize expenses and home renovation projects, but it can be challenging. You need to focus on the improvements that make the greatest difference in your and your family’s life. Below you will find a few home renovation projects that will improve your family’s comfort, finances, and security.

1. Playrooms

playroom

Busy parents working full time to make ends meet can benefit from a bit of free time when they can cook a family dinner, or just watch a movie together. If you create a playroom for the kids, they will be out of the way when you are trying to organize your finances and file your invoices, and you will know that they are safe. Building a playroom in the garden, or converting your conservatory is a much better option than allowing your children to play on the street all night.

2. Home Security

It is also important that you invest in home security, so you can take a long weekend away, without having to worry about your house being burgled. Some DIY house alarm systems are as effective as those that are installed by professionals, and can be tailored to your needs. If you are any good at wiring and drilling, you can set one up in just a few hours. Security is one of the most important aspects of family life, so you should invest in it.

3. Smart Thermostat

If you worry about your kids not turning off the lights or heating, you might want to get a smart thermostat. It is a great investment, but doesn’t come cheap. If you need to take out credit, you can check how to get a quick personal loan online and fund your smart thermostat. Your savings over the years will cover your investment, and you will no longer have to worry about heating an empty home.

4. Kitchen Area

Cooking with kids is a cheap and joyful weekend activity. You can improve your kitchen in a way that it is easy to walk around the island, and everything is easily accessible. This will improve your weekends, and help you teach the kids some important life skills. Get a Bluetooth speaker, and stream some fun music while you teach them how to cook Spaghetti Bolognese.

5. Garden Landscaping

garden

Image via Wikipedia

If your kids love the great outdoors, you can make your garden more child-friendly. Create some benches where they can have a doll tea party or play with their toy cars. Build a garden hut that protects them from the rain, and a small playground to keep them busy during the summer vacations. Kids love tree houses, but if you don’t have any, you can get a cheap log cabin and turn it into a play den where they can escape to whenever they have friends around.

Whenever you need to prioritize home improvement projects, think about your values and preferences, and investments that will make your family life better.

This post is a collaborative effort by St. Louis Dad.

Upgrading Outlets to USB with DIYZ

Disclosure: This post is in collaboration with the DIYZ® app. All opinions of apps and companies that help me complete DIY projects are my own.

diyz-logo

One thing I hear all of the time from my family and kids is that I often forget to charge their tablets. My best excuse it that I have no idea where the chargers are or that I can’t find the big brick blocks that are required to charge these things. Fact is, it’s just a USB cable connected to some power. You can now upgrade your home outlets to include a USB port so you can charge your devices. Isn’t the future great? For this Mother’s Day, the kids and I are doing a little home upgrades. Mommy will be so proud.

Outlet-with-Tablets

Now, I am a pretty technical person but when it comes to electricity, I can get a little freaked out. I need to be sure I am doing everything right so I don’t hurt myself, or someone else. That’s where this awesome app called DIYZ comes in. I downloaded the app to my phone and got right to it. It is a very easy to use app with a plethora of projects to look through for every DIY skill level. Each project includes step-by-step instructions and even the option to live video-chat with a professional contractor if you need it. The Pro Advisors are available Monday through Friday from 6:00 PM – 1:00 AM ET and on weekends from 8:00 AM – 1:00 AM ET. Check it out and #GetWise! The DIYZ® app is free to download and is available in the Apple App Store for iPhone and Google Play for Android. For a limited time, the video-chat feature is also FREE!

app-screenshot

I easily found the project I needed and started going through it step-by-step. First, I needed to make sure I had all the tools needed, and within each project on the DIYZ® app you can easily browse a list of tools for each project with the option to purchase directly in the app via Amazon, if you don’t already have them. Doesn’t get much easier than that. I thought this project was going to be easy as I already had all the tools that were listed, so I was ready to get started right away. But first I figured I would get the kids involved in this as well. It is good for them to get experience with tools and get some hands on #DIYZ experience.

BreakerBox

So the first thing you always need to do when working with any sort of electricity is to turn off the breaker. Always be sure to double check that the flow of electricity has been cut with a none contact voltage tester, just to be sure no current is still going through. With all tools in hand and the electricity turned off, we were ready to start the removal of the old outlets. I picked up a couple outlets so we have some options on where we plug in our devices. We decided to start in the kitchen.

Daughter-Tool

The kids removed the screws from the outlet covers first and then they unscrewed the outlets themselves. I did all of the wiring. It was fun working with them on this little project using the DIYZ® app. The app really helps make the job a lot simpler and set my nerves at ease when working with something like electricity.

WireOutlet

There also wasn’t a big mess, and now Mom will be super happy being able to charge her devices just about anywhere in our home. The new outlets were unveiled on Mother’s Day and my wife was so proud of her kids’ hard work. It was a big hit in our home and I am finally out of the dog house when it comes to charging the kids’ tablets!

Dad-Daughter-Outlet-App

Be sure to follow DIYZ on these social channels and download the app today!

DIYZ Homepage: https://www.diyz.com
DIYZ Blog: https://www.diyz.com/blog
DIYZ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DIYZApp
DIYZ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DIYZ_App / @DIYZ_app
DIYZ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/diyz_app / @DIYZ_app
DIYZ Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/diyzmobileapp
DIYZ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVRsZ1NjtnDAU5JkhXEjyBg/

“This post is in collaboration with the DIYZ® app. All opinions of apps and companies that help me complete DIY projects are my own.”

Accomplishing My #LawnGoals

LawnGoals-Alex

Ah, spring is here and that means it is time to put on my yard pants and get to work on my lawn goals. Each year before winter my wife and I get all of our kids’ toys and put them up so the yard is clear of anything that could damage it during the cold months. We put up houses, cars, sandboxes, slides, and more. It’s a lot of work preparing for winter, but it’s even more work afterwards.

This year I am attempting to crush my lawn goals by getting rid of our bare spots. This requires some prep work and tools and other materials, like grass seed and some straw. I could go the sod route but I chose to grow my own. You could use something like a Cub Cadet Garden Tiller to get your ground ready for your seed. I’m trying to grow some grass, but you could use a tiller to get a veggie or flower garden ready as well. It’s all about what your own lawn goals are.

lawngoals

So after I get my ground worked up I enlist the help of the kids to start spreading some seed. We hopefully got it spread all over so that when it’s time for it to sprout I’m not left with some bare spots. Using a rake I sort of spread the dirt to smooth it out and get the kids to help start spreading straw. They are the best helpers and they did a pretty good job as well. It was fun listening to them point out spots they missed and wanting to make sure they did a good job.

With the seed and straw down it’s time to start getting the toys out and cleaned up along with getting the lawn ready for it’s first mow. We like to use Cub Cadet leaf blower to get the remaining leaves up and off the grass. Because of our large backyard it can take a little bit of extra time. The Cub Cadet helps speed up that process but sometimes we still don’t get them all but we do our best and once the leaves and sticks are all picked up it’s time to fire up the mower and get that fresh cut grass smell going.

LawnGoals-AbbySo now that we have the debris cleared I am ready to get things fresh. Like I said, my backyard is pretty big, so I’m not a fan of push mowing. It takes longer and I just don’t do as good of a job as when I’m using a zero-turn. I am really impressed with Cub Cadet’s RZT L/LX Series. I have tried one out and the comfort and ease of use really makes maneuvering around obstacles as efficient as possible.

Our backyard is our stay-cation. It is where we go to hang out when we want to go outside and just get out of the house. We can run around, let loose, and just have fun back there. Keeping the lawn ready for any sort of family adventure is at the top of my lawn goals list.

 

CubCadet-Logo

#LawnGoals Sweepstakes

Do you have your own #LawnGoals? Enter to win one Cub Cadet RZT L 42 KH Lap Bar Zero-Turn Rider (ARV $2,399.99), hotel accomodations for two, and two tickets to attend an NHRA event this summer 2017! Click here to learn more!

  • To enter capture a photo or video of your yard, tell us how you bring your lawn to life and why your yard is #LawnGoals. Share the post on Twitter or Instagram with the hashtags #LawnGoals #Sweepstakes or visit www.cubcadet.votigo.com/lawngoals and upload a photo.
  • If your entry is approved, you’ll be entered for a chance to win one Cub Cadet RZT L 42 KH Lap Bar Zero-Turn Rider (ARV $2,399.99), hotel accommodations for two, and two tickets to attend an NHRA event in the summer of 2017.

Show us your #LawnGoals!

Be sure to follow @CubCadet_USA on social media!

 

The Script – Short Film

The Script - Movie PosterSometimes I obsess about things. Most of the time it is an obsession with a T.V. show or movie. I will start watching a series and if I have to stop watching in the middle of a season then there’s a good chance that I just start thinking about that show constantly. Wondering what’s going to happen next. Analyzing all of the details, etc. Same thing with a movie. I will watch it and then think about it so much that it becomes this weird obsession.

There are times where this obsession extends beyond T.V. and film. Recently, my cousin and I have been working with a group of students so they can create a short film for this festival a few teachers and I are trying to put together. So as me and my cousin are talking with these kids and telling them that making a short film can be challenging but can also be somewhat easy.

It’s easy right? At least that’s what we’re telling these kids. Come up with a story and then start putting together your shots and you’ll do great. So why not show them how easy it actually is. So I started obsessing. I got home one night and spent 30 minutes trying to come up with an idea. Most of the those ideas were way to crazy. I wouldn’t be able to pull off over half of them. So I went simpler. That’s when the idea hit me. I spent the next 20 minutes writing a script and I fired it off over to my cousin and he took a look at it and gave me the thumbs up we needed to get started.

After a bit of back and forth to figure out logistics we had our plan in place to get this short off the ground. We planned to shoot everything in one day so the schedule was going to be pretty tight. I figured the majority of the work was going to be editing. So once the day of the shoot arrived we knocked out all of our shots four hours ahead of schedule. We could’ve maybe done some more, but we had what we needed and we didn’t want to over complicate things. Remember, we’re doing this to show teenagers how to make a movie.

20 hours was put into editing the footage, creating the animation, and editing all of the audio we had our short film. I created a poster and a little behind the scenes slideshow to show the students. We went over how we did some of our effects, practical and digital as well as where lighting was set, the acting process, and a few other neat tidbits about our process. The students seemed to really enjoy our short film and now I hope you do as well.