Develop a Home Fire Escape Plan

When a fire strikes, there's no time for mistakes because it can take less than two minutes for smoke fumes to overcome a child or an adult. Create an escape plan for your family and know what should be avoided. Hold a fire drill twice a year.

Safety Tips

• If possible, plan two ways out of every room.
• If one of your escape routes is through a second- or third-story window, invest in a safety ladder.
• If you sleep with your bedroom doors closed at night, have a smoke detector in each room.

Exit Procedures

·         When you hear the alarm, roll out of bed onto the floor. Get down on your hands and knees, crawl to your door and touch it with your hand.

·         If the door feels cool, brace it with your body and open it just a crack to check for smoke. If there is none, leave by your planned escape route. Remember to keep low. Don’t stop for clothes, papers or valuables. Keep your head down to avoid the smoke. Crawl under low smoke.

·         Meet at a prearranged place for a head count.

·         Never go back into a burning building.

·         It's important to go over your fire escape plan with your family in advance. Make sure everyone knows the local emergency phone number. Guests as well as your family should know the sound of your smoke detector's alarm and be familiar with your plan of escape.

·         Make sure babysitters practice fire and burn safety tips, especially the use of safety ladders, escape routes, fire extinguishers, smoke detectors and emergency phone numbers.

Get Outdoors and Reap the Rewards

You need willpower, smart food choices and regular exercise to lose weight. Before you start training for the next major road race, think about this: working in your yard is hard work. What better time is there than the beginning of a new year to start developing healthy habits?

Men and women of all ages can benefit from a moderate amount of daily physical activity. The good news is that the activity doesn't have to be strenuous to achieve results. Check with your doctor before starting an exercise program.

You've heard the advice before to go outside and play in the dirt. It's estimated that a 135-pound female can expend more than 160 calories when she gardens for 30 minutes. If you're a 175-pound male, you'll expend close to 210 calories. If you replace that riding lawn mower with a hand mower, you'll burn 193 or 251 calories respectively.

Remember, it's never too late to start exercising regularly! By exercising outdoors, you'll feel better, boost your energy level, and get a healthy dose of vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin, in the process. Plus, if you do it right, you'll have the best-looking yard in the neighborhood.

Tips on Selecting a Christmas Tree

Your home reflects your style, and your style says a lot about who you are. So what should you do this holiday season about "the tree?"

If you decide a pre-cut or a choose-and-cut tree is best for your family, the Georgia Forestry Commission has some tips to help you find a fresh tree. Visit www.gatrees.org and click on "Christmas Tree Directory" for a county-by-county list of places to buy choose-and-cut trees or living trees that come in burlap bags or containers.

Buying a locally grown tree supports local growers and is good for the economy. Many attractive species are produced in Georgia, including: Fraser fir, Douglas fir, Virginia pine and Leyland Cypress.

For optimal stability, choose a symmetrical tree with a straight main stem. Make sure the tree's needles are still firmly attached to the tree. All trees will drop their needles when they dry out, but if your tree is shedding before you get it home, you'll be sweeping or vacuuming your holiday away.

If you've chosen a pre-cut tree from a local lot, trim an inch or two off the butt end and place the tree in water right away. Choose-and-cut trees must also be quickly put in water. The vessels at the end of a tree are usually blocked with dirt and/or sap after harvest and transportation. A fresh cut allows the tree to take up water from the tree stand.

For balled-in-burlap or potted trees, always be sure to keep the root ball moist, but not saturated. Indoors is a stressful environment for a living plant, so limit the tree's time in the house and transplant it as soon as possible. Potted trees can be set outside after the holidays; keep them watered and plant by March. Balled-in-burlap trees should be planted as soon as possible after Christmas so the roots don't dry out.

To close the season, get tree-planting tips from www.gatrees.org. Then, have the family help dig a hole where you can plant your tree and grow nice memories of Christmas 2011!

Source: Georgia Forestry Commission, http://www.gfc.state.ga.us/

Light Up the Holidays: Lighting Tips From GE Lighting

This weekend homes across the country will be a little brighter when millions of Americans kick off the holiday season by trimming their trees, and their yards, with holiday lights.

Here are some seasonal lighting tips suggested by GE Lighting veteran Mary Beth Gotti, director of the GE Lighting & Electrical Institute.

• Know Your Lights. When purchasing lights, begin by making sure that all of the light strings are compatible. When choosing the amount of lights to purchase, plan on using an average of 100-150 lights per vertical foot of the tree.

• Go Green. The national tree isn’t the only one that will sparkle with LED technology this year. The use of LED holiday lighting, which consumes up to 80 percent less energy than incandescent holiday lights, may fill as much as 45 percent of store shelves this season. Because LEDs are cool-operating, they can be left on for extended periods, making them an ideal fit for both indoor and outdoor lighting. Because long-lasting LEDs emit less heat, they're also much more durable, so if one bulb goes out, the rest continue to work.

• Add Movement. Want that snowflake display to sparkle or your eight tiny reindeer to trot? Give the illusion of movement with color changing lights. Many options are available, including twinkling, chasing and fade-in, fade-out styles. New this year from GE are cascading icicles with a circuit that gives off a melting effect.

• Mix Lighting Styles. To make holiday lighting stand out, pair strings of different sized lights together to add depth to décor. On the tree, set a base of white lights at the bottom and continue upward, adding strands of large bulbs and novelty lights for color and variety.

Every year, thousands of tree lighting ceremonies take place all over the country. Draw ideas from these magical designs. One of the most renowned tree lightings is the National Christmas Tree in President’s Park, a tradition that began in 1923.

Source: GE Lighting

Get Ready for the Holidays With Paint

MOSAIC Group Guest Blogger: Tim Small, retired paint and coatings salesman

If you want to change the look of your home quickly and inexpensively, consider paint. Painting a room is an excellent way to set the stage for the upcoming holidays.

Prevent surprises by doing a little homework ahead of time. If you have questions, talk with a paint professional at your local paint or home improvement store. They are a fountain of information and are pleased to share their knowledge with you.

Color selection is extremely important. A dark color will make a space seem smaller, and a light color will have the opposite effect. Also remember that a dark color will not cover as much area as a light color. Dark colors lack titanium dioxide (or white pigment), which gives paint its hiding power.

If you rub up against a dark flat surface, you will "burnish" it and it will appear shiny. You will then need to re-paint it.

According to the Paint Quality Institute, the 2012 paint palette will draw heavily upon the natural colors in the American landscape, including blues, greens and violet.

If a neighbor has a color you've fallen in love with and they don’t have the can, all is not lost. Take a sample, which is at least the size of a quarter, to your favorite paint store and ask them to match it for you. They will use a machine, which is called a spectrophotometer, to get the formula for your color.

The spectrophotometer shines a beam of light on your color sample and takes a reading of each wavelength of light reflected off the object. The best samples are flat with no texture.

Your next step is to prepare the surface to be painted. If there are nail holes or cracks, patch them with spackling paste before sanding and priming them with a good quality latex primer.

If there is new drywall or trim, you need to prime them as well. Proper preparation and primer will make your finished job look better and last longer. Without proper preparation, you also risk voiding the paint warranty.

The latex, or acrylic, paints that are available today do a great job for just about all surfaces. If you're painting cabinets, look for a modified latex enamel, which will give you the durability of oil without all its restrictions.

Consider using satin or semi-gloss paint in high traffic areas because most of them are washable.

If doing it yourself isn’t for you, how do you hire a professional painter? Get quotes from several contractors. The quotes should be close. Cheaper isn't always better. Check references from previous clients. Talk to the people in your local paint store. Ask them who they would use to paint their house. They interact with these painters on a daily basis and know what kind of work they do.

When all is said and done, painting can dramatically change the appearance of your home for reasonable costs.

Learn How to Prune Ornamental Grasses

Keep your yard in shape. Eric King shows you how to prune ornamental grasses during this three-minute video.

Learn More About the "Not So Big House" Movement

Join MOSAIC Group's William Fadul Saturday, Oct. 15, at 10 a.m. as he talks about the guiding principles of the "Not So Big House." The free educational program will be held in the MOSAIC showroom, located at 2358 Perimeter Park Drive, Suite 300.

Here are some of the things you'll learn.

• What is the philosophy behind the Not So Big House and other similar and related trends in building and remodeling? It's not just about size, nor is it just about "green."
• William will discuss some of the design concepts Susanka extols in her books: ceiling height changes, multipurpose spaces, openess and light. These are not "new" ideas but are in many cases classic, yet forgotten.
• He will discuss how the Not So Big House concepts can be integrated into remodeling, rather than being limited to new home design.
• How can smaller actually feel bigger?
• How would one go about applying Not So Big House ideas to hiring a designer, architect and remodeler?

The program is open to the public. Please R.S.V.P. to sylvia@mosaicgroupatlanta.com.