| Ben Thompson (32)

The holidays require flexibility. It is not for everyday living. It is a compressed time of celebration. Family, Friends, Food, Fun all of them can be amazing, and sometimes not. The purpose of this blog post is to offer home & hospitality related ideas that will increase your ability to be guest-focused this holiday.

These are five, universal tools that everyone can use. Enjoy chores made easy! 1) Autobit screwdriver from Woodcraft in Kentwood or online. 2) LED Flashlights - buy yourself a 3 pack and stash them around the house. One place I keep one is in my dresser, another is the junk drawer in the kitchen. Another clever spot to stash one is at the electrical box. When the lights go out, I know where to find one. Here is an example from Amazon. 3) Folding Ladder - Little Giant or I bought a simple Werner version at Menards for $89. Here it is on Amazon. 4) Basic blow torch - My primary purpose for this is as fire starter. Pistol grip is easiest ($25ish) or the old school valve that you'll use a flint sparker to start is the manliest for $8ish. You can buy the propane canisters at any hardware store. 5) No clog rakes by True Temper - cushy handle prevents blisters and tine design saves the hassle of releasing leave clumps from the tines. Buy on Amazon or at a local hardware store. Bonus Tool: Log Tote A log carrier allows you to carry more, stay clean yourself, and not have to sweep your floors after you bring logs in the house to start a fire. Inexpensive + Smart = Cool. You can buy it on Amazon. Fun note: This content was shared on the final LIVE episode of the Thompson Remodeling Home Improvement Show on Newsradio WOOD 1300 & 106.9 on 9/3/11 www.woodradio.com

Can you believe that it was 1986 when Crocodile Dundee came out? Well, moves are stress relieving entertainment for a lot of us and John gives us a term I'd like to steal for my own purposes. I'll call this stress relieving activity a Walkabout.

I received a great question through our website the other day and thought the answer might be helpful to our readers. The question was regarding a guest bathroom shower that, when running, can be heard throughout the rest of the house. Is there anything that can be done to quiet this noise?

I just walked around my kitchen counting the number of selections that have to be made in a kitchen remodel. After pointing at the microwave, backsplash, cabinet pulls, and making one circuit around the kitchen I counted 40 decisions someone needs to make in a kitchen remodel. Here are 6 shopping secrets from your favorite kitchen & bath designers on how to successfully shop for the finishes for your next remodeling project.

I heard a funny deck story from a client last week. It's summed up with this quote from him, "I should've just handed him [13 yr old son] $250 and done it myself." There were swirls all over the deck from power washing with too much pressure, stain on the vinyl siding up top, and stain on blue stone from lack of drip protection. This week another client told me about how her father-in-law power washed and stained their deck while they were out of town a few years back. Her comment, "There is stain on the siding, but can you tell Dad he did a bad job? I guess we got what we paid for..."

It's one thing to discuss the possibility of energy savings with a prospective client. It's another to introduce Andy and Randy. The infographic here is a colorful clarification of how the owners of two similar homes can have very different energy results based on the changes they (or their contractors) do or don't perform. Click here to see the infographic.

We buy a house because of the vision we have for it. We see ourselves living here. We see our family future here. Then slowly we begin to look at our house differently.

"Thompson Remodeling provided amazing expertise from design all the way through to punch list. We were guided every step of the way and the communication was so timely that we never had to ask "what is next?" They have an amazing team and we will definitely be working with them again!" (comment via GuildQuality)