Once again, we have the privilege of teaming up with The Salvation Army to help out with their Annual School Drive. The Salvation Army strives to help everyone and anyone that they can, and their focus in this time is for the students.

Every year, The Salvation Army School Drive is held yearly to help out the families that cannot afford school supplies for the children. They will be turning their entire gymnasium into a Back To School themed room where parents and kids can walk through and receive a new outfit, a coat, a backpack, and essential supplies.

In saying this, we need your help! We are looking to collect donations of essential school items including:

  If you would like to donate, please take all of the items you wish to give to The Salvation Army at 24140 Mound Road, Warren, MI, 48091. Your donation is tax deductible and a receipt can be provided if you would like. School Drive donations are being accepted until September 25th, but they will accept donations year round.

We are so grateful for all of the donations you can provide, and we thank The Salvation Army for allowing us to be a part of this wonderful cause.

Homeowners often ask us if they can use bleach to clean and disinfect their hardwood flooring. Using bleach as a household cleaning agent is a cost-efficient way to disinfect the bathtub and keep your socks looking bright and clean, but bleach is a highly caustic chemical; using it to clean your delicate hardwood floors could cause serious, irreparable damage to your floor’s delicate finish.

A quick Google search will turn up a trove of information on just about any topic you can think of, but just because someone posted it on a website doesn’t necessarily make that information reliable, accurate, or truthful. Some self-proclaimed home improvement aficionados tout bleach as an effective method for pickling certain species of unfinished wood.

If you’re trying to lighten reclaimed banisters, moldings, or chair rails, bleach may work for those specific purposes; however, using bleach to lighten or pickle your hardwood flooring will weaken the wood’s fibers, making your flooring more susceptible to damage caused by foot traffic.

Some people claim using steam is the best way to clean a hardwood floor. Steam may work to remove dirt from the surface layer, but steam will cause the wood to swell and contract, which could lead to unsightly gaps between the planks. Additionally, steam may cause your flooring to peak, creating a trip hazard that might send you or a loved one to the emergency room.

The best method to maintain hardwood flooring’s beauty is inexpensive and easy; all you need to do is remove your shoes as soon as you enter your home.

The treads on your shoes pick up tiny rocks and other abrasives that will inevitably cause unsightly scratches and dents on your hardwood flooring. Removing your shoes and maintaining a regular sweeping schedule—always with the grain, never against it—is the best way to keep your floor’s finish looking beautiful and scratch-free.

When your flooring is in need of a more thorough cleaning, we recommend using the Bona hardwood floor cleaning system. Wilhelm Edner, founder of Bona, made floor wax as a means to supplement the income he earned selling coffee in Sweden back in 1919.

As demand for Bona’s products began to grow beyond the European marketplace, Bona started to expand its existing product line. Ninety-nine years after Wilhelm Edner made his first sale of floor wax, Bona’s award-winning line of sealants and cleaning products are available to consumers throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and South America.

When you want your floors to have the very best protection, maintain them with one of Bona’s floor-cleaning solutions. For more information on Bona’s superior cleaning products, visit bona.com/en-US/.

Anyone who has renovated a home before can attest to the fact that making significant upgrades can turn into a very costly endeavor in no more time than it takes to blink your eyes. Many homeowners try to save money by going the do-it-yourself route only to realize that they bit off more than they could chew.

Some homeowners cut corners by purchasing entry-level materials that end up disappointing them when the product fails after six months. Consumers often ask if it is possible to buy cheap flooring that looks expensive. Unfortunately, the answer to that question is a definite no.

When you purchase new flooring, think of it as purchasing a new car; the good ones aren’t cheap, the cheap ones aren’t good, and you can’t buy a new Maserati for the same price as a used Mazda.

If you’re looking to make a quick aesthetic fix on a rental property or a flip house, it may not make sense to pour thousands of dollars into a home improvement project. But if you plan to stay in your current home for any length of time, you’re better off seeking financing options or saving your money until you can afford a reputable product and have it installed by a professional flooring company.

If you’re unsure of how to differentiate between a good flooring product and a cheap product, your best bet is to do your homework on the manufacturer and the warranties that company uses to back their materials.

Say you’re planning to change the flooring in your bathroom or your kitchen and you’d like a luxury vinyl product, but it isn’t in your budget right now. Cutting corners by installing a cheap peel-and-stick tile from your local big-box store isn’t going to give you the kind of results you’re looking for, and you could wind up with a big mess on your hand if the adhesive on those tiles begins to fail.

Another way to be sure you’re buying a good product is to explore options with a shop-at-home flooring retailer based in your community. One of the benefits of using a shop-at-home company’s services is that you’ll be able to look at flooring samples in the comfort of your own home, at a time that’s most convenient for you. Look for a company in good standing with the Better Business Bureau, and be sure that they back their work with a written lifetime installation warranty.

Every year on the last Monday in May, Americans gather together at parades, festivals, and family parties to honor our fallen military heroes who selflessly gave their lives in the line of duty.

The tradition of Memorial Day remembrance is one that is near and dear to our hearts and roots as a country, but we’re willing to bet that there are some interesting things you may not know about this special occasion.

In light of that, here are six cool Memorial Day facts you may not know.

Traditions of remembering fallen heroes date back to the days of ancient Greeks and Romans. Each year, graves of loved ones were adorned with flowers, and festivals were held to show honor to the dead. Similar events were also done in Athens with one of the first known celebrations held to honor Pericles, a strong Athenian general. The first Memorial Day in America began in the 19th century.

One of the earliest and documented ceremonies were held by over 1,000 freed slaves on May 1st, 1865. Groups of colored troops, such as the 54th Infantry, joined the newly freed men and sang hymns while distributing flowers among the tombstones in the cemetery. This event occurred near the end of the Civil War.

Before Memorial Day was actually called Memorial Day, General John A. Logan first issued a decree that today would be dubbed “Decoration Day”. Early American received this notion well, and ceremonies took place in more than 27 states within the first year.

Even though the term Memorial Day started gaining traction in 1880, it wasn’t until the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968 finalized the new celebration date and name. There was a ton of controversy that surrounded the changes for quite a few years from many groups, but as we can see, that settled.

Believe it or not, there is a lot of rivalry surrounding the topic of who celebrated Memorial Day first:

Only one town has federal recognition to back up their birthplace claim, and that is Waterloo, New York. They have the official U.S. Government seal of approval for their 1966 celebration.

Although more and more people celebrate Memorial’s Day as an annual summer holiday, there are many traditions that have remained strong through time:

You may not hold the secret to preventing global nuclear proliferation, but that doesn’t mean you can’t become a catalyst for positive change. Benevolence doesn’t require you to have the answer to all of the world’s ills, only that you be willing to take actions that lead to positive results in the lives of others.

If you want to change the world but you aren’t quite sure how to, here’s a list of five ways you can make a difference in the world, starting right in your local community.

Blood: everyone has some, and some people are in dire need of more. You could literally save a person’s life by making a deposit at your local blood bank, so there’s really no excuse not to donate blood. If you become squeamish at the sight of a hypodermic needle, close your eyes or direct your attention elsewhere while the phlebotomist draws your blood.

Underprivileged youth, senior citizens, and those suffering from limited mobility could always use a helping hand. You can make a big difference in the overall day-to-day quality of a person’s life by assisting him or her with a task they may not otherwise be physically able to do alone.

If you have an elderly neighbor that has trouble hauling their trash and recycling bins to and from the curb each week, take a few moments out of your day to help that person.

Many charitable organizations depend on the local community to provide hands-on assistance to achieve the organization’s goals. Churches, food banks, senior centers, and animal shelters always need an extra set of hands, so don’t be shy about reaching out to organizations in your neighborhood.

A community’s public parks, recreation areas, shorelines, and roadways always look much nicer when the residents band together to complete a beautification project. Gather a group of like-minded friends or family members to assist you in collecting trash, planting trees and flowers, or trimming overgrown vegetation so you can keep America looking beautiful.

Spending your hard-earned dollars with locally based businesses is a great way to make a difference in your local community. Locally based retailers depend on the community to keep their businesses alive. When you shop local, the money you spend strengthens the community because a portion of those dollars goes on to support other businesses owned and operated by people living in your area.

Choosing to eat at a restaurant owned by someone in your community strengthens your community’s tax base and the symbiotic nature of locally based businesses and the residents that support those business’s endeavors.