Vinegar has so many practical uses we could not possibly fit them all into one post even if we tried to. From erasing stains left behind by a ballpoint pen to cleaning the grout in between your bathroom’s ceramic tile, vinegar is a must-have in every homeowner’s pantry. Here’s a list of five ways using vinegar around the house will simplify your life.

Cleaning Your Coffeemaker

According to the National Coffee Association’s 2017 Coffee Drinking Trends report, sixty-two percent of Americans drink coffee on a daily basis. You probably don’t give much thought to your coffeemaker unless it malfunctions, but do you honestly remember when the last time was that you gave your coffeemaker’s innards a thorough cleaning?

Lime and hard water deposits can lead to a funky cup of coffee, so it is essential to give your coffeemaker a good cleaning once every 40-50 pots. Mix two cups of white vinegar with one cup of water, place a clean filter in your coffeemaker and then run a full brew cycle. Repeat that process three times, and then brew two cycles of clean water. After you clean your coffeemaker, mix equal parts vinegar and salt in the decanter, swirl it around for two minutes, and then use a clean sponge to remove the grime from the pot.

Remove Mineral Deposits from Your Showerhead

Fill a large Ziploc bag halfway with white vinegar, place the bag over your showerhead, and then use painter’s tape to hold the bag in place overnight. When you remove the bag the following morning, all the jets on your showerhead should be free of mineral deposits.

Deodorize Your Dishwasher

If you smell something foul inside your dishwasher, add three cups of vinegar to the bottom of your dishwasher when it is empty, and then run the dishwasher on its standard setting. Your dishwasher will be odor-free in under an hour.

Remove Water-rings from Woodwork

If your end tables show signs of your guests not using coasters, you can make those water-rings disappear by mixing one pint of water with four tablespoons of vinegar and two tablespoons of olive oil and applying the mixture to your furniture. Wait ten minutes, and then use another clean cloth to buff the stains away.

Remove Rust from Hand Tools

Ask any DIYer how much money they’ve spent on their tools and you will understand why nobody wants to see rust forming on wrenches. You can remove rust from your hand-tools by filling a shallow plastic container with white vinegar and leaving it in a well-ventilated space overnight (preferably outdoors, away from the elements). When you return to your tools the following morning, wipe them down with a clean rag, and they will be rust-free.

If you’re thinking about making a bid for the Presidency in the 2020 election, be aware that becoming President of the United States of America will not save you from explaining to your four-year-old that it isn’t practical to keep an alligator as a household pet (or is it?)

According to the Presidential Pet Museum, three alligators have called 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue home. President John Quincy Adams got a kick out of scaring his guests by directing them to enter a bathroom in the East Wing of the then-unfinished White House where he housed his pet gator. America’s 31st president, Herbert Hoover, allowed his son, Allan, to keep two alligators as pets.

Although President Lyndon Baines Johnson was the last man to keep any critters more exotic than dogs, cats, or birds in the White House (LBJ’s family had a few hamsters, also), more than a few unusual pets have made America’s most famous address their home over the years. In honor of President’s Day, we put together this short list of some of the more notable pets of past POTUSes.

President Thomas Jefferson received two grizzly-bear cubs as a gift in October 1807. Jefferson was uneasy about keeping the animals as pets but allowed the bears to stay at the White House until they outgrew their enclosures on the White House’s lawn.

Teddy Roosevelt was born and raised in New York City, but after his first wife, Alice, and his mother, Martha, died on the same day, Roosevelt disappeared into the Badlands of the Dakota Territory to wrestle with his grief. Roosevelt made peace with his tragedies by maneuvering the unforgiving landscape on horseback, sustaining himself by hunting big game just as the Lakota Sioux had done for thousands of years.

When Roosevelt emerged from his self-imposed exile, he prided himself on being a man of the woods, and a lover of nature. Somewhere between running the country, ensuring the construction of the Panama Canal, and winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Roosevelt and his family built a menagerie of animals ranging from a flying squirrel (it often slept in the president’s shirt pocket) to a laughing hyena named Jack, a badger named Josiah, and a guinea pig named Bob Evans.

Calvin Coolidge’s love for animals was a well-known fact, so it came as no surprise to the White House staff when visiting foreign dignitaries gifted President Coolidge a pygmy hippo (Coolidge named him Billy), a pair of lion cubs, a bear, a wallaby, a donkey named Ebenezer, and a bobcat named Smoky.

Coolidge made a practice of keeping most of the exotic animals at the White House until the gift-giver had ventured on, then shipping the animals along to the National Zoo. For reasons known only to Coolidge, he decided to keep Smoky the bobcat around awhile longer—much to the dismay of the White House staff—and allowed the surly feline to roam the halls unsupervised.

Most fathers would not find it amusing if a colleague gave his child a rather large animal, but President John F. Kennedy wasn’t most fathers. In the spring of 1962, Vice President Lyndon Johnson and his wife decided to give the Kennedy children the gift that keeps on giving—ponies.

A pony named Tex for John Junior, and a Pony named Macaroni for five-year-old Caroline. Caroline Kennedy adored her pony so much that it was quite common to see her atop Macaroni’s back as the gentle creature wandered the White House grounds, occasionally stopping to snack on Jackie Kennedy’s daffodils.

Early in his career, a young singer named Neil Diamond found himself suffering through a case of writer’s block while penning a tribute to his wife. Neil’s problem, as he explained to a reporter some thirty-odd years later, was that he needed a three-syllable name for the chorus. Mr. Diamond glanced over and saw a magazine’s cover photo of young Caroline Kennedy riding her pony in front of the South Portico at the White House, and that’s when inspiration struck.

“Sweet Caroline” went on to become a huge hit for Neil Diamond, and a fan favorite at Fenway Park, where the song plays over the P.A. system during the eighth inning of every Boston Red Sox home game. Diamond’s ode to Macaroni and Caroline has brought joy to countless baseball fans in Bean Town every spring, summer, and fall since 1997, when the fans at Fenway sing “BAP BAP BAH” in unison during the eighth-inning stretch. If that isn’t America at its finest, we don’t know what is.

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Knowing how to choose a carpet installer can save you a great deal of time and money, which is why choosing a carpet installer is a big decision for so many homeowners. If you pick the wrong contractor, and the installer botches the job, you may lack any form of recourse.

To spare you from enduring unnecessary headaches, we put together this short list of what you should watch out for when narrowing your list of prospective candidates.

The adage about word-of-mouth being the best form of advertising still rings true, but word-of-mouth isn’t just beneficial to companies— it is beneficial to homeowners, too. If your neighbor or your sister-in-law had carpet installed by Company ABC and had nothing but problems with the installer, then you know to cut that company from your list of prospects. Does the installer have the necessary licenses and insurance? Will they work around your busy schedule? Is the installer in good standing with the Better Business Bureau? If the answer to any of those questions is no, send that installer on his or her way.

Any installer who will not back their work with a written lifetime installation warranty is an installer who lacks faith in his or her ability to do the job the right way. If you give an installer $8,000 to re-carpet your home, don’t you want to know that the installer will come back to handle any repairs that may arise in the future? An installation warranty is more than just a piece of paper—it’s your peace of mind.

If you find an installer on Craig’s List claiming he can perform your installation for half of what everyone else charges, you should run away from that installer as fast as you can. Why would he do the job for half the cost? Chances are, he doesn’t grasp the full scope of the work, or he has burned so many bridges in the flooring industry that doing shoddy work out of the back of a van is the only way he can support himself.

Either way, he isn’t the person you want to give thousands of dollars of your hard-earned money. Always remember that buying flooring is just like buying a car; the good ones aren’t cheap, the cheap ones aren’t good, you can’t buy a new Mercedes for the price of a ’77 Chevy, and you will get what you pay for.

When you’re ready to choose a carpet installer, make sure the company you’re working with offers the following:

At a glance, the differences between laminate flooring and luxury vinyl plank (LVP) flooring are barely noticeable. Both come in styles designed to mimic the look of real wood or stone, both are available in a click-and-lock installation method, and both are less expensive than the natural materials they imitate.

To help you determine which of these products is best suited to your home’s unique environment, we decided to weigh the potential pros-and-cons of each in a side-by-side comparison, based on cost, performance, and overall ease of maintenance.

The potential cost of installing luxury vinyl flooring or laminate in your home boils down to three main factors:

If you plan to install the flooring yourself, you can find entry-level laminates on sale at big-box retailers for roughly $1.50 per foot. Underlayment, seam tape, pull-bars, transitions, coordinating moldings, and—most importantly—your time, will cost extra. Keep in mind, purchasing flooring is similar to making any other major purchase—the good things aren’t cheap, and the cheap things usually aren’t good.

On average, a good-quality laminate product usually runs $4–$8 per foot (not including all the extras), with an additional cost of $2–$7 per foot to cover installation. The cost of high-quality luxury vinyl flooring is $4–$8 per foot, with additional charges for installation.

Advantage: Even

Flooring manufacturers use high-density fiberboard (a combination of resin and wood byproducts) to create a laminate’s core, to which they then attach a photo of real wood covered with a wear layer and a coating of aluminum oxide. Laminate is popular with many homeowners because it is scratch resistant and cost-efficient.

As a wood-based product, laminate flooring often fails after exposure to excessive moisture or humidity. Over time, pets’ accidents, wet shoes, repeated mopping, and spills are likely to inflict damage on a laminate floor. If you need flooring able to withstand heavy foot-traffic and you don’t plan to install your new floors where moisture may become an issue, laminate flooring may suit your needs.

Luxury vinyl is available in two styles: tile, better known as LVT; and plank, better known as LVP. LVT mimics the appearance of stone, marble, and slate, whereas luxury vinyl plank mimics the appearance of hardwood. Depending on the style and product you choose, there are two methods for installing luxury vinyl products: floating method (meaning the planks or tiles interlock, but do not attach to the substrate), or the glue-down method (meaning the product attaches to the substrate).

Luxury vinyl’s molecular structure makes it durable, dimensionally stable, and impervious to moisture. If you need new flooring in your basement, bathroom, or kitchen, luxury vinyl is a smart choice.

Advantage: Luxury Vinyl

Laminate flooring’s smooth surface makes it easy to clean; a quick spin through your living room with a microfiber duster or a broom should be sufficient to remove any crumbs, dirt, or dust. Unfortunately, using a wet mop on laminate flooring will eventually lead to buckling, swelling, and chipping of the planks. Luxury vinyl flooring takes the lead in this category of our comparison because of its moisture-resistant properties.

Advantage: Luxury Vinyl

Thanks to all of the awesome people for the donations sent in, the little pups at the Humane Society enjoyed an exciting National Dog Day 2015!

To celebrate the pet holiday, we asked all of you to help out by donating different items for our pets that we could pass along to the Michigan Humane Society of Rochester Hills. These items are essential for the MHS to properly take care of the dogs in their care.

Click the picture for event details

The Michigan Humane Society has dedicated all of their efforts to helping animals in need. They strive to find each animal a home and clean them up of any issues they were facing upon their arrival.

The staff allowed us to take a small tour around the facility, and we were able to see how they work. The dogs are well cared for, and they get all of the essential care they need for growth. Along the way, we were able to meet a few furry friends including:

Thanks to all of the help you provided, we were able to give a large and wide variety of items that these little guys (and many more) were in need of. If it was not for your help, this would not have been possible. If you would still like to donate, the MHSRH is always accepting donations. Keep your eyes open for future events we will be holding to better the community one step at a time.