EPISODE #114 - SATURDAY JUNE 9, 2012

The wind and rain were really whipping around this past week.  It seemed more like a fall day than a late spring day.  Still, I can feel the warmth of the wind and the sun breaks are definitely welcome.  Soon I’m sure we will get the sun back on a more permanent basis.   Before it gets back I will have to get out and re-finish that back deck!

We kick off the show this week at Standard TV and Appliance (503-619-0500) in Beaverton.  We are thinking about doing a kitchen makeover and we are here shopping for appliances.  They have a great selection of appliances and great customer service. 

Also, if you remember a couple of weeks ago we did a story on changing the look of your room by using paint and a stencil.  Well, Cutting Edge Stencils has given us a stencil to give away to a luck viewer.  All you have to do to enter is to go to our home page at www.FusionNW.com and click on our link to Facebook and ‘like’ us.  You will automatically be entered to win.

Staging a Home

If you are looking to sell your home it can be a challenge in this market.  The housing market has been in a downturn for quite a while and it is slowly crawling back up.  In these conditions you can really make your home stand out by doing a little staging of your home in preparation for sale.  We met with Linda Gemal (503-803-8000) a local home designer and realtor to get some tips on how to do that.  We started at the front of a local home.  This area should be your first focus.  To get ready for a sale everyone starts working hard on the inside, but the outside of your home is what makes the first impression.  If your home looks bad from the outside most people won’t even stop to check out the inside.  Clean up the flower beds and plant some small colorful bedding plants to spruce things up.  Also clean up the front the house and the roof.  Give the front of the house a good spray from a pressure washer.   ‘Clean’ is the key word.  Both inside and outside should look clean and non-cluttered.  That takes us inside the house.  Linda showed us how to depersonalize your home to get it ready for sale.  You need to walk around your home and look for all the little knick-knack items and put them away.  In the bathroom, stash all your personal toiletry items and clean off the counter.  Look at your home as a buyer would.  What would make you want to buy the house?  If you have too much stuff, put it in boxes and move it to the garage.  Better yet, if you can’t remember the last time you used an item, sell it or donate it.  The key is to let the buyer think about their items in the space and not see your stuff cluttering it up.  Bring in some flowers to dress things up and KEEP IT CLEAN.  If you are looking to get your home ready for sale and could use a little help, you can give Linda a call, and since she is a realtor, she can help you sell it too.

Swedish Cream

We love Milo’s City Café (503-288-MILO)!  Owner, Chef Loren is such a great guy and the food is incredible!  Today he is showing us how to make a Swedish Cream.  This recipe can be a dessert for after dinner or as a morning brunch treat.  This is also one of those recipes that you can do ahead of time so there is less work when you are making dinner.  You start by scalding some heavy cream with a little gelatin (about a teaspoon of gelatin in a cup and a half of cream).  Let it scald for about 2-3 minutes to let the gelatin dissolve, then remove it from the heat and put it in a mixing bowl while it is still warm.  Next mix the other ingredients in the bowl with the cream/gelatin mixture.  A good sour cream, a thick Greek yogurt (plain, unsweetened), some sugar, orange juice for flavor and some vanilla extract.   Mix it together with a whisk to make a ‘fancy puddin’ as Loren likes to call it.  When it is mixed you can pour it in a couple of glasses and place it in the refrigerator to let it get firm.   After a couple of hours it is ready for the topping.  Chef Loren topped his with fresh berries and it was ready to serve.  It was to die for!!!!  If you would like to give it a try here is the recipe.  If you are not that great in the kitchen you can stop by and try it at Milo’s.  They always have a menu full of great things!   

French Prairie Gardens Shortcake

One of the best things about spring is the fresh fruits and vegetable that you can get at your local store or market.  But not only that, you can actually go out to the farm and pick the fruit yourself.  One of the best places to enjoy the freshest of fruits is at French Prairie Gardens (503-633-8445) near St. Paul.  We love stopping there to shoot during the spring and enjoying the tasty strawberry shortcake.  This year Karren has been generous enough to share her shortcake recipe with us.  The recipe is pretty easy, but the key is the fresh strawberries that you will need to top it all off.  You have your chance to pick those delicious berries and enjoy a cold brew these next 2 weekends at the Berries, Brews and BBQ event at the farm.  BBQ competitors from around the state will be trying to make the tastiest dishes on the 9^th and 10^th.  On the weekend of the 16^th and 17^th they will have the Battle of the Food Carts!  The farm will also have a bunch or Oregon breweries and Wineries there as well on both weekends.  You can enjoy all the normal farm festival fun including farm animals, hay rides and slides.  Stop by and check it out.  While you are there you can sign up for their Grilling in the Garden event on the 21^st which features a farm inspired menu.   Check out their website for more details.

Saws and Blades

Getting the job done right requires the right tools and that includes saws.  If you have ever been to Parr Lumber (866-214-7277) you may have been overwhelmed by the number and different types of saws.  To help clear up the confusion we talked to Amber to find out the differences between different saws and the blades that they use.  She started with the big one, a sliding compound miter saw.  This one has become a replacement for the huge table saw that a lot of people used to have in their homes.  Since a lot of people don’t need to cut huge sheets of material (they can do that for you at the lumber yard) they are now opting for this small more versatile saw.  It is really safe, really accurate and, if mounted properly, really stable.  Since it is a sliding saw it can handle larger pieces of material and it can also do cuts on an angle, which is great for sawing molding and trim.  Then we moved to a saw that a lot of people have; the jig saw.  This saw is great for small pieces of material and for fine, detailed, circular cuts. This saw is a favorite of hobbyists.  Next was the ‘recip’ saw; or reciprocating saw.  This saw is the jig saw on steroids!  It has a push-pull blade like the jig saw but it can cut through much larger pieces of material.  A lot of people use this as a demolition tool.  The final saw we looked at was the circular saw, or Skil Saw (named for the company that first marketed it).  This is ‘the’ standard for saws.  The portable circular saw is the working mans saw and can be found in just about every toolbox.  It can do and cut just about anything since the blades are easy to change.  Speaking of blades, there are lots of options here too.  The general rule of thumb is that the finer the teeth on the blade the finer the cut.  Bring in the old blade or have a measurement of the blade so you get the right size.  Knowing the type of material you are going to cut makes a difference too.  If you are cutting ‘hardi-plank’ siding, fiber-cement boards or sheetrock that may mean using a different blade, but the experts at Parr can help you choose the right one.  You should also look at replacing your blade if the teeth are missing or worn down.   If you have any questions at all stop by and talk to a friendly Parr salesperson.

Creating a Lamp

The right lamp can create a mood, dress up a dull spot or make a statement to your décor, but sometimes it can be difficult to find the right lamp for your room.  To learn how to get around that problem we stopped by Naomi’s Lampshades and Lamps (503-636-1884) in Lake Grove to talk to Bea Searles.   She is the expert when it comes to lamps!  She can take almost anything and make it into a lamp, whether it is an antique, a piece of pottery or even a piece of artwork.  She can even make a lamp out of grandpa’s ashes! 

The key is knowing how to make the lamp with various pieces.  For example, if you had a piece of artwork (or grandpa’s ashes) they would build a stand to place the piece on, and then using the right materials, build a French mount to run behind the piece without disturbing it.  If you had a special piece of pottery they can even drill a hole in the bottom and make a lamp out of it.  The one thing that they hesitate to make a lamp out of are pieces of hand-blown glass.  These pieces have an inherent tension to the glass and when they are drilled that releases the tension and they can crack easily.  They can still find ways to make a lamp out of those; they just can’t drill the glass.  The final touch is the shade.  Sometimes the shade is what will really make the piece stand out and they can pick out one from the thousands they have in stock!   If you are looking to make your own custom lamp, stop by and see Bea and her crew.