Care for Your Home the Lazy Way

You may be wondering if "the lazy way" will actually accomplish anything. I know I've tried "the lazy way" many different times and had it back fire, and we all have a few pink t-shirts in our closets. But I can tell you from first hand experience that the suggestions in this book, though lazy, are effective. You can consider me a guinea pig of sorts, for I am the only child of Terry ( & Jeanette - his wife). I've endured the strange smells, odd piles, and creative "tools" my dear old dad has come up with in order to come up with these lazy suggestions, and he, obviously, only included those that worked. I will grant that I am somewhat biased, but I definately can say, "seen it, done it, been there". So check it out. It really does work. Way to go Dad!

'Care For Your Home' is a valuable contribution to the do-it-yourself canon. By implicitly condoning and even lauding a heretofore immoral trait, the authors of the Lazy Way series have begun the hard work of stripping away the residue of the Protestant and Jewish work ethic in order to help us achieve a worthier goal: total, unrestrained hedonism.The target audience of this book seems to be young homeowners who have day jobs and are therefore unable to give a lot of time to the maintenance and improvement of their abodes. It's a sort of cross between Heloise and Norm Abrams with a little Painting For Dummies thrown in. I personally don't like the Dummies/Complete Idiot approach, with its relentless attempts at cuteness, but if it helps to bring software geeks and policy wonks to a fuller understanding of gutters and studs, then so be it. Terry Meany isn't so cloying as some of the dummy advisors, and with a little acid this book could be made downright enjoyable.The discussion of wood gutters could be dropped altogether. Perhaps they're common in Seattle, but in my experience they're as rare as California condors. If you do own a home that's old enough to have wood gutters, it's likely you've got lath and plaster walls, which render the studfinders Meany recommends totally worthless, whether they're magnetic or electronic. Probably a third of the homes in the country have plaster walls, which makes the alternative to studfinders worth mentioning: measure over 16 inches from a corner or doorway, then drive in and pull out a 2 inch nail every inch to the left and right until you hit something solid. Fill up the little holes with spackle, then touch up or hang a picture over them (which is probably why you were looking for the stud in the first place).I both applaud and deplore Meany's section on yards. He recommends hiring somebody to cut your lawn, which may not be 'A Complete Waste of Time', but is certainly a total waste of money, which, when you consider that most people exchange their time for money, translates to A Complete Waste of Time. When you add to that time spent watering, you approach if not embrace A Massive Waste of Time. Yet, reading on, I found that Meany has actually hit upon the correct solution, which is low and no-maintenance plants. Rip out the grass (that is a task you'll want to hire out), till the soil, and plant tough, aggressive groundcovers and shrubs. For groundcover, vinca can't be beat. You can walk all over it, neglect it, never mow or trim it, and it still looks great. It even has little purple flowers in the spring. For shrubs, there is the usual assortment of evergreens, which grow to shapes varying from elephant to doormat. And Meany forgot to mention herbs such as sage and oregano. You can put in a little pint-size sage plant in the spring, and by October it will be bigger than a lawnmower. The rule of total neglect applies here, too. And it's great on chicken!It was disa