OUR MISSION

We believe that quality should not be governed by the amount being spent.  You as a customer, deserve our best efforts whether you are willing to spend $50 or $50,000.  You have every right to expect & receive the very best quality we can provide.

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HOME IMPROVEMENT TIPS

A general rule of thumb for many years now has been to include a garage electrical recepticle as well as an outside recepticle on the same circut as the bathroom plugs.

If you lose power in any of these locations check the bathrooms for a GFCI recepticle and reset it. A good first place to check.

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Give us a call today at (816) 289-9556 or fill out the Home Improvement Quote Form to receive a FREE no obligation quote on your next home improvement project.

Home Improvement Tips

Lifestyles Home Improvement offers monthly home improvement tips as we know home improvements can't always be an easy task.  Below are helpful tips for some of the most common home improvements, big and small.

• Patrons of home improvement chain stores should carefully weigh advice given by employees who represent themselves as authorities when they may have no experience at all to draw upon.  Everyone has an opinion - this should make it easy to get several.
• Plumbers, mechanical inspectors, and homeowners who have learned the hard way agree that egg shells & potato peels need to go in the trash and not the disposal.  These items tend to collect and eventually compact in drain lines.
• Kitchen ventilation where cooking odors are involved is generally inadequate.  Frying foods in the kitchen like bacon will leave a lingering odor that can be avoided by simply using an electric skillet out on the deck.
• Wood rot on housing exteriors has become very common place. Technology has finally introduced replacement materials that are much less susceptible if not immune to the rauaggs of weather. Window & door parts (i.e. sill, brick mold, etc) now come in PVC plastic (the same stuff that drain lines buried inside and outside of your basement are made of). The bats, fascia, band & sidings can be replaced with smart trim and smart panels - a composite material that paints well & looks like painted cedar when finished.
• It is important to maintain grout & good seal around tubs, shower enclosures, sinks, etc. An excellent product for this is Polyseamsil. Unlike silicones which afford excellent water barriers, but are messy to apply.  Polyseamsil comes in tubes for a caulking gun or smaller resealable squeeze tubes for smaller jobs. When applied can be smoothed and directed as willed and excess cleaned up before drying begins with a wet sponge & rinse water.  Allow your work to dry 24 hours & it is good to go and gloomed all over.
• Change that furnace filter regularly. Everyone will generally get their filter dirty at a different amount of time. Determine a regular time & get on a schedule. Many homes have humidifiers on the furnace, which mandate that the unit be on in the winter and off in the summer. While you're there making the change is a great time to change out the filter.
• I recently determined that if I sprayed the same cleaning solution in the toilet tank that I was using to clean the bowl, I was able to ward off the inequitable build-up of sleaze that eventually affects the ability of the tank to hold water or flush properly. Take life off, flush, with the water receded spray everything in tank liberally and put the lid back on.
• Eventually everyone feels the need to clean their carpet. Whether you rent a machine & do it yourself or have someone come in professionally, be very aware that if a product is used to clean then it is equally important that the solution be thoroughly rinsed. Cleaning solution left in becomes a dirt magnet.
• Before you build a fire in that masonry fireplace or fire up the gas logs, do a good visual inspection of the flue. An obstruction can back smoke into the house or fill the house with carbon monoxide...that stuff can kill you.