Month: April 2009

Time for Some New or Refurbished Tools

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I am at a point right now where I am needing to pick up some new power tools.

As I’ve been looking at what kind of tools to pick up as well as looking at the brand of tool, I have also been considering some refurbished tools. One Project Closer has a great article on reconditioned tools that got me thinking about maybe heading in that direction, even though I hadn’t really considered it before now.

Some of the benefits of refurbished tools that they mention are:

  • 30 – 60% off regular retail price
  • Include a factory warranty

The tools are usually purchased online through places like Amazon, and quite often you don’t have to pay sales tax and can get it shipped for free if it’s a large purchase.

Check out everything that they have to say over at One Project Closer – Factory-Reconditioned Tools | Refurbished Tools.

Free Ceiling Insulation for Australians

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I don’t know how I missed this, but the Australian Government is offering $1600 to all house owner-occupiers to have ceiling insulation installed. They estimate that it will save up to $200 per house in energy bills, and increase the energy rating of all Australian homes to a minimum of two-stars.

In addition to offering the $1600 to owner-occupiers the government is also offering a $1000 rebates to landlords to encourage them to install ceiling insulation in their rental properties.

Currently about 40% of homes in Australia and New Zealand are not insulated, with Queensland having the lowest percentage of insulation of any state in Australia.

Our house currently has a spray on reflective insulation on the roof, which we also had done to our first house which you can see here, spray on reflective roof insulation. This type of insulation works by reflecting the suns heat, but there is no mass of insulation (like your classic pink bats, or fibreglass insulation) in the ceiling, so the $1600 could be used to insulate the area over the core four upstairs room in the house, although it would definitely cost a lot less than that to do.

You can read more about the free ceiling insulation project from the Australia Government here.

Build a DIY Kid’s Kitchen from an Entertainment Center

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With my daughters birthday coming up I have had big plans to build her a kid’s kitchen. Unfortunately time hasn’t permitted me to do that, but in looking around I found a fantastic way to build a children’s play kitchen out of an old / unused entertainment unit …

DIY Kids Play Kitchen

They took an old entertainment unit and re-used it as a DIY Children’s Play Kitchen, which turned out really good I reckon.

At the moment I am going to start looking around for an old entertainment unit and see if I can pick one up. I think that I will start on Freecycle and then maybe look at Craig’s List and see what I can find. Someone out there is probably replacing their old tube CRT TV with a new flat panel and don’t have a use for their old entertainment unit.

Of course, that could all change if they have a young girl who loves to pretend to cook and they read this article …

You can read about how to build the kid’s kitchen here.