Joey Green's Kitchen Magic: 1,882 Quick Cooking Tricks, Cleaning Hints, and Kitchen Remedies Using Your Favorite Brand-Name Products

Joey Green's Kitchen Magic: 1,882 Quick Cooking Tricks, Cleaning Hints, and Kitchen Remedies Using Your Favorite Brand-Name Products Review

From the guru of brand-new uses for brand-name products come ideas and tips for culinary fun, cleaning shortcuts, and kitchen cabinet remedies

Joey Green has fascinated readers for more than a decade with his quirky and innovative tips to make domestic engineering a lot more fun. Now fans will be completely intrigued and entertained by Joey’s kitchen- and pantry-focused ideas, like using Canada Dry Club Soda to buff stainless steel appliances and flexible fabric Band-Aids as labels for frozen foods.

Filled with time- and money-saving ideas, Joey Green’s Kitchen Magic offers clever ways to make household items do double duty, like using ReaLemon for revitalizing wilted asparagus, L’eggs Panty Hose (clean, of course) for removing corn silk, and Oral-B Dental Floss for slicing layer cake. He shares unusual ideas for kitchen troubles, like stirring in Jif Peanut Butter to save burnt gravy and using Efferdent to clean the coffeepot. Joey even tosses in home remedies from the kitchen (soothe a blister with Carnation Nonfat Dry Milk) and simple recipes (try Slow-Cooker Brisket with a Coca-Cola marinade).

Whether it’s a quick fix (Eggo Waffles for hot dog buns, anyone?) or an emergency substitution (Bounty Paper Towel for a coffee filter), there are loads of useful and entertaining tips for making the most of brand-name purchases.

The Natural Building Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to Integrative Design and Construction

The Natural Building Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to Integrative Design and Construction Review

A State-of-the-Art Resource for Natural Builders

Natural buildings not only bring satisfaction to their makers and joy to their occupants, they also leave the gentlest footprint on the environment. In this complete reference to natural building philosophy, design, and technique, Jacob Deva Racusin and Ace McArleton walk builders through planning and construction, offering step-by-step instructions on:

• siting and site analysis
• choosing materials
• integrating basic structural considerations into a design
• strategies for heating/cooling efficiency and moisture management
• planning for acoustics
• developing an integrative design
• navigating budgeting, code compliance, and project management
• creating the foundation, wall system, roof, and floors
• selecting and making plasters and paints
• evaluating options for mechanical and utility systems
• protecting against fire and insects
• integrating structures within landscape, climate, and human communities

...and more

Applicable to building in climates that are cold and wet, hot and dry, or somewhere in-between, The Natural Building Companion provides the tools necessary to understand basic principles of building science, including structural and thermal engineering, and hydrodynamics. This guide offers thorough, up-to-date, and advanced installation details and performance characteristics of straw-bale, straw-clay, woodchip-clay, and cellulose wall systems, as well as earthen and stone wall systems and a variety of framing, roofing, flooring, mechanical system, and finishing options. This fully-illustrated volume informs professionals making the transition from conventional building, homeowners embarking on their own construction, or green builders who want comprehensive guidance on natural-building options.

The book, part of the The Yestermorrow Design/Build Library, is accompanied by an instructional DVD.

Green Building & Remodeling For Dummies

Green Building & Remodeling For Dummies Review

Want to build responsibly, reduce waste, and help preserve the environment? Green Building & Remodeling For Dummies is your friendly, step-by-step guide to every facet of this Earth-friendly method of construction. Building a home—even a green home—uses plenty of resources and energy. This practical, hands-on book shows you how to build or remodel conscientiously, whether your dream home is a simple remodel or a brand-new multimillion-dollar mansion.

You’ll start by identifying green materials and sizing up potential systems and construction sites. You’ll weigh the pros and cons of popular green building methods and identify opportunities for saving money in the long run. Need to find some green professionals to assist you in your venture? We’ll help you do that, too. This book will also help you discover how to:

• Understand the lifecycle of building materials
• Choose the right system for your green building project
• Put together a green team
• Work within your budget
• Use green building methods and sustainable systems
• Speed construction and reduce energy use and waste
• Refinish old fixtures and materials
• Beware of asbestos and lead-paint hazards
• Avoid costly mistakes

Complete with lists of ten green things to do on every project and ten things you can do right now in your home in order to go green, Green Building & Remodeling For Dummies is your one-stop guide to planning and building the home you’ve always wanted.

The Straw Bale House (A Real Goods Independent Living Book)

The Straw Bale House (A Real Goods Independent Living Book) Review

Imagine building a house with superior seismic stability, fire resistance, and thermal insulation, using an annually renewable resource, for half the cost of a comparable conventional home. Welcome to the straw bale house! Whether you build an entire house or something more modest-a home office or studio, a retreat cabin or guest cottage-plastered straw bale construction is an exceptionally durable and inexpensive option. What's more, it's fun, because the technique is easy to learn and easy to do yourself. And the resulting living spaces are unusually quiet and comfortable.

The Straw Bale House describes the many benefits of building with straw bales:

• super insulation, with R-values as high as R-50
• good indoor air quality and noise reduction
• a speedy construction process
• construction costs as low as -per-square-foot
• use of natural and abundant renewable resources
• a better solution than burning agricultural waste straw, which creates tons of air pollutants