If you’re in the habit of forgetting your keys, you may find this Schlage LiNK Deadbolt with Keypad to be a sound investment.  Not only can you unlock your door by punching the numbered keypad on the deadbolt, you can also cause the latch to unlock from anywhere in the world using a computer or cell phone with Internet access.

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You can buy an H2Glow for the safety of the little ones — though in the fine print of their installation PDF, Sector Labs points out that the H2Glow is not a safety device — or just because it looks really cool.  It makes your water glow as it flows out of the tap, blue if it’s safe to touch and red if it gets too hot.

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Installing crown molding can be the hardest part of remodeling or redecorating a room — one wrong cut, one misplaced finish nail, one incorrectly angled miter, and the entire project falls apart. To make things a little easier, SoSimpleCrown offers pre-cut DIY crown molding, eliminating all the hard parts and leaving nothing but the installation.

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Here’s a great way to start feeling old: the Dustbuster is 30 years old this year.  Of all the products to make it 30 years, I would not have picked the Dustbuster as one that would stand the test of time — however it has done that and more. Almost everyone has owned one at some point, and the 2009 model kicks the crap out of the old 1979 version both in power and also, thankfully, in style.

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This is a prime example of why you need to pay attention when cutting anything that might be holding something up.  Use your head in the manner not seen in this video –- think.

This video might’ve been a staged thing, but I’ve seen it happen where it wasn’t, and more than a little wood and debris fell on the unhappy worker underneath.  Most remodelers don’t wear hard hats, but when doing demo, even if you know what’s going on, you might want to consider it.  This guy is just lucky there were no nails sticking out of that board that hit him.

Dangerous Woodwork [YouTube]

Every time a door slams shut in your kitchen you wince just a little, but if you want soft-close cabinets you have to redo your kitchen, right?  Blum created Blumotion compact soft-close adapters for their own hinges, but there’s nothing stopping you from using them with your existing hardware.

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Where I live, it’s already pushing 90 in the heat of the day, so a/c is your first, last, and only line of defense against sweating your ass off.  Unfortunately, this frosty image means that my a/c unit wasn’t cooling much of anything, despite the ice on the outside of the coil.  In this case, ice is not cool.

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Now that I don’t have a basement, I miss the storage space — but I don’t miss the issues with water. Water can destroy appliances, furniture, carpet, drywall, and anything else in its path, and most repairs that require a contractor will run into the thousands of dollars. I found this Basement Waterproofing Kit in the back of a magazine and was wondering if it’s worth its salt.

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These inexpensive little locks will secure a sliding window while it’s open, much like putting a nail in the sash keeps a double-hung window from opening far enough for someone to enter.  Unlike a nail though, you can easily remove, replace, change their position, or even use them to keep the window shut.

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I was reminded of Ben’s excellent post on vacuuming the ash in your fireplace when I was cleaning mine out a few days ago.  I’ve always just waited till the ash was cold, then I bust out a brush and dustpan.  With a price tag of over a hundred bucks, are ash vacuums really worth it?

I know that the regular old unmodified shop-vac will turn your living room into an ashen fallout zone, but can the specialized fireplace vac be used for other things?  That’s an awful lot of space taken up to just clean the fireplace.

Is the powered way just that much better, or does your name need to be Casanova before you actually run that many fires through your fireplace for this to become worthwhile?  Let us know in comments.

Cougar Ash Vacuum [Love-less Ash Company]
Street Pricing [Google]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

You want to install a ceiling fan in a room that’s not wired for controlling both a fan and a light.  Sure, you can operate the fan with the pull chains, assuming you can even reach them, but then you have to get up off your duff.  This RF remote control from Hunter has solved this problem for me and will hopefully help you, too.

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We’re sure that most folks to the north never give it a second thought till later on in the year, but down here in Texas, March means the blast furnace we call Summer is looming ahead.  In my case that meant I needed to get the AC fixed at the ole homestead. The Freon leaked out last year due to a faulty coil, and I’ve been without since September.

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If we can take ReTherm’s claim at face value, by installing their device to recover waste heat that would otherwise go down the drain, we can save at least as much as we would with tankless water heaters, at a fraction of the install cost — which means the device might actually pay for itself in a reasonable period of time.

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I came across Super Magnet Man by way of YouTube;  alongside some amazing videos of magnets smashing together in a bone-crushing manner, Super Magnet Man was hanging a wreath on his door with a magnetic hook and a rubber-coated disk magnet.  His store sells all sorts of amazing magnets, from a minuscule 1mm cube to mighty 2″ cubes.  Warning:  Some of his larger magnets may cause blood blisters or worse.

I use magnets in my shop to manage tools and also for odd things like remotes at my desk.  But Super Magnet Man has sparked my interest in these tools, and I want to start breaking ‘em out more often.  How do you use magnets in your shop?  Let us know in comments.

Magnetic Hook [Super Magnet Man]

Here in sunny southern California, as in many other areas of the country, we’re experiencing a drought, and it seems like all we hear about is water conservation. We were forced to switch out our high-powered behemoth of a toilet for a more efficient low-flow model, but what if you’re not satisfied with that level of water conservation — what do you do?  You pick up a couple of oddly named Toilet Tummies.

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Ever since I began shaving I’ve used the big-brand cartridge razors, until recently I had a revelation:  I hate spending money on overpriced razor cartridges.  My local knife store turned me on to the old-school pleasure of wet-shaving with a double-edge safety razor.  Blades cost 25 cents apiece — and there’s something cool about shaving the way my grandfather used to shave.

There are many options in razors — I use a vintage 1950s Gillette — but one of the best razors that balances cost and quality is the Merkur 33C safety razor.  It runs about $26 without blades. If you’re interested, check out Badger and Blade where you can find anything and everything related to shaving.

Merkur 33C [West Coast Shaving]
Street Pricing [Google]

Do you stay awake at night while you’re on vacation wondering if your pipes are freezing or if your freezer full of beef is still frozen?  If you had the FreezeAlarm from Control Products you might sleep more soundly.

Connect the Deluxe FreezeAlarm to your home phone line and it can call up to three telephone numbers and give a voice warning if the temperature is too high or low, if the power has failed, or if its own backup power is failing.  If you’re curious you can always call the FreezeAlarm and it’ll tell you the state of those three things.

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