And the winners of the two Delta Showerheads are:

Comment #11 – Todd and Comment #13 – Jackie McMahan

Thanks to everyone who participated! More giveaways coming soon.

This Giveaway Has Completed

A month or so back, I wrote a short post about a new showerhead I scored while visiting the Delta Faucet headquarters in Indy. Since that time, and I am NOT exaggerating here, Kim and I have said “man, I LOVE that new showerhead!” at least a dozen times out loud and probably thought it silently every shower, so that’s at least twenty. (you have to pay attention around here or you’ll miss stuff)

Big News: Delta is providing TWO of these awesome showerheads to give away here this week! $87.00 value each!

See the giveaway details after the review.

The Original Review Post

I’ve done a whole lot of remodeling, and I’m pretty sure I’m about to share the absolute fastest and easiest home-improvement project I’ve ever completed. And the difference is amazing.

I was recently at the Delta Faucet headquarters in Indianapolis to learn about some great new things they’re doing in terms of design and technology. When I left, I snuck out with a showerhead. (couldn’t figure out a way to stuff a new touch operated kitchen faucet in my shirt)

Here’s the showerhead I grabbed:

This awesome showerhead is part of the Addison Series by Delta Faucet. You can buy just the showerhead for $87.00 (list) or the whole new valve and trim.

So here’s the big deal: I unscrewed the old showerhead and screwed this one on. Elapsed time: about one minute max.

I liked my old showerhead. It had good pressure and a nice spray. I was skeptical that I’d be wanting to leave the new Delta Showerhead in place, even after an impressive demonstration at Delta HQ.

That thought changed pretty quickly. As soon as the new head was installed, I thought “wow, that looks great”. It’s really a very nice looking piece of plumbing hardware.

But when I first took a shower with this new head, I was instantly converted. This showerhead uses a new Delta Faucet technology they refer to as H2O Kinetic. It’s not an easy thing to explain, but I’ll give you the highlights:

• The size of water droplets is controlled and varied
• The direction of the water spray is not static…it moves.
• Their is no induction of air into the shower spray so the water stays warmer.

I’m telling you what, it feels like twice the volume of water (even though it actually uses less than my old showerhead at only 2gpm flow) and the temperature difference is significant. I can literally compare it to a waterfall, just with less water.

I think what I’m trying to put into words is that there is a noticeable difference in that you instantly recognize the lack of voids in the water spray. I didn’t realize they were there, until they were gone.

I honestly can’t think of any project in your house that can make more of an improvement in your life with anywhere near so little effort. Again, this took less than one minute to accomplish.

If you’re doing a whole bathroom remodel you should also consider changing to a new shower valve. You’ll get better temperature control (especially when someone flushes a toilet!) and the full Delta warranty. If your walls are open anyway, it’s not a big job to change the valve.

You should give it a try.

The Giveaway

There are two ways to do giveaways on blogs. The boring way, which is “leave a comment to enter”. That’s no fun. Then there is the fun way, which gives you a gazillion ways to enter so you can multiply your chances. (1 gazillion = 10 in regular numbers)

10 Possible Entries Per Person

• Visit Delta Faucet’s Website and then come back here and leave a comment telling me what you would pick if one thing was free!
• Follow Delta Faucet on Twitter
• Like Delta Faucet on Facebook
• Follow me, Remodeling Guy on Twitter
• Tweet about this giveaway
• Post this giveaway on Facebook
• Post about this giveaway on your blog
• Subscribe to Remodeling Guy through Feedburner Emails
• And Finally – so nobody can say I didn’t give any easy options – you can just leave a comment to enter!

You don’t have to do all of these things. These are just ways to get additional entries. Very important: You must leave a comment for each entry. I use the comment numbers to select the winners via random number generator.

Delta has provided two showerheads, so there will be two winners. I’ll do the random selection next Monday morning!

Good Luck!

PS – If you’re in the mood to win stuff, EverythingEtsy.com is having a full week of giveaways. Starting today with a couple of awesome printers!

Is that a countertop in your pocket?

The new mySurface App for iPhone is Solid…surface, that is… solid surface, as in Corian and Zodiaq.

What It Does

Okay, imagine this… you’re out for a night on the town. You’re all decked out and feeling gooood. The weather is beautiful and things just couldn’t be better as you walk into a new restaurant that just opened. You’ve somehow managed to put that kitchen remodel to the back of your mind for a little while.

But then, BAM!You see the PERFECT counter on the bar in the beautifully decorated restaurant. You’ve been scouring magazines and websites for weeks trying to figure out what you want and here it is! How will you get the same thing? What will you do?

mySurface to the Rescue

No problem, just whip out your iPhone, open up mySurface, and quickly find the right color range. A few seconds later, you’ve found the exact product. You save it to your favorites, order it the next week, and live happily ever after. Just one more way your iPhone will save your life this week!

Dramatic? Of course… that’s the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it.But it’s also realistic! I know from experience that design ideas, the proverbial lightbulb above your head, can happen anywhere. Too often, those inspired ideas aren’t captured. And that’s a crying shame! At least with countertops and other solid surface applications (walls, showers…) this won’t happen anymore!

I’ll show you how it works!

Say you’re enjoying a nice cup of coffee while flipping through the latest issue of Florida Design Magazineand thinking how crazy some people let themselves act on their blogs. You come across a kitchen you love and the countertop is perfect…

It looks like there are some little stones in this counter, so you head to the Zodiaq section ofmySurface…

Using the color slide bar on the right (or simply scrolling the screen) you narrow it down. Wow, this may be it… (and you think “how cool is this!”)

Just in case the color is off, you better look a little more. Save your choices to your favorites with the click of a button.

Go ahead and use the “share” button to email these selections to your designer, contractor, spouse, banker..whatever… and you’re in high cotton! Going to be a great day!

The product lines of both Corian and Zodiaq are represented in this app and DuPont essentially invented the idea of Solid Surface materials more than 40 years ago! Can you believe that Corian has been around for 40 years? The stuff lasts forever, so I bet the original installs still look good, and the colors might be coming back by now!

Other Ways to Use the iPod

Aside from blaring music in your ears to drown out the constant scream of the table saw, the iTunes App Store has some other great applications available for free. Here are a couple that would help me!

Carpenters Helper Lite – a free version of a complex construction calculator. Figure out square yards, cubic yards, square feet, convert feet to inches and inches to yards… whatever floats your boat. A great tool.

The Weather Channel- I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called my wife from a jobsite and asked her to pull-up the weather radar on the computer. “Okay, honey, what I need you to tell me is EXACTLY what time it will rain on this house withno roof!” With a radar in my pocket, I can save her that emotional anguish.

Colors Lite – If you need to draw a sketch and no pencil, paper, or scraps of 2×4 are available, you can use this app just like a “Paint” type program to illustrate your thought. Also useful in psychoanalysis of potential contractors. Give them the phone, have them draw whatever comes to mind and see what you get! If it’s an armored car or a butcher knife, move on.

Alas The Giveaway!

DuPont is excited about the possibilities of this new tool! So much so that they sent me an iPod to test it out and they’re offering to give one away to you (also on other sites which I’ll list!). This is a brand new iPod Touch and if you haven’t tried one of these yet all I can say is that you’ll be hooked from day one!

Three Chances To Win

1.Sign-Up right here for the Remodeling Guy Newsletter, which is like getting a free prize all by itself (and you get my Ebook too!). You can unsubscribe if you’re mad at me because you don’t win or it just doesn’t seem useful to you, but I appreciate you giving me the shot!
Make sure you leave a comment saying that you subscribed OR that you are already a subscriber. That’s one entry.

2. Join me at the brand new Remodeling Guy Facebook Page. I’m really excited about this because I think it will be an excellent place for real discussions and interactions about your remodeling dreams and ideas! I’m really enjoying Facebook and I think you will too. If you are already a “fan” or as soon as you sign-up to be one, leave me a comment here saying so. That’s the second entry.

3. Subscribe to Remodeling Guy via RSS or Feedburner Emails.  Either way I appreciate you being an official part of the Remodeling Guy Crew! Make sure you leave a comment telling me that you are already a subscriber, or that you subscribed. That’s entry number three.

We’ll leave this open for entries through Friday October 16th and announce the winner on Saturday.

OH! and, as I said, this isn’t the only iPod giveaway in town, check out  Living Locurto and Hooked On Houses for more chances to win.

Make sure you leave a separate comment for each entry method!  I’ll base the drawing off the comments, so one comment is only one entry even if you did all three things.

Comments are closed… thanks to all for participating!  Winner will be announced on Saturday!

Hey Crew!

I finished the Newsletter! It’s full of completely new and additional content, over and above what is found on the blog! I hope you all like it! Sometimes I bite off more than I can chew! Here is a peek:

If you would like to get the newsletter, just sign-up using the form at the top of the far right sidebar! All current Newsletter subscribers are automatically entered in all giveaways!

And the Winner is:

The fortunate winner of the Pink Toolbelt and other tools is, drum roll please: Denise from Journey to Maggie Mae! I’ve heard a whole lot from Denise over the past few weeks because she’s been painting her kitchen cabinets and she did a great job!

I checked out Denise’s blog and she is on a break from blogging until after Easter. It’s a sacrifice she’s making during the Lent season. I’m not sure if she is doing email or not, but I’ll try and contact her that way!

I used a random number thingy to pick a winner… it chose number 24 and Denise was the 24th person to subscribe to the Newsletter! Here is the non-photoshop edited screen shot:

Okay…one of two things is happening right now. Option one is that this picture is blurry, in which case you’ll have to take my word that it shows a 24. Option two is that my eyes are shot and my mind is foggy from too much blogging! In that case you would be able to see the number just fine! Either way, it’s a 24.

Thanks to all of you for entering and I plan to have more great giveaway’s this month!

For those of you who have the Newsletter, please give me some feedback here in the comments! Thanks!

That’s a song right? I mean, there is a jingle in my head to go along with that line, so somewhere in space and time I’ve been exposed to a song that goes Bird, Bird, Bird, bird is the word… Somebody tell me what it is!

The Votes Are In

And the winner is:

The Bird!

So, as promised, I will be making a cabinet door I have to look just like this and I’ll paint it a color of the winner’s choice! You’ll love the pictures and I’ll show you a great easy method for painting your cabinets!

Tammy, you’re the winner and I know you’re watching, so please contact me by email and I’ll go over color with you and find out where to ship your finished door!

I’ll probably do something with the other two designs as well! I really like them both very much. I actually thought the Flamingo would win! I was a little off… maybe y’all don’t like pink as much as I thought. Maybe I should be giving away a teal tool belt instead to the Pink Toolbelt Giveaway. (I know, I know,  the door isn’t teal, somebody name the color for me)

Thanks to all for playing!

You early crew members remember this:

It still makes me laugh as much as it did that first night WAAAY back in late January! It just sounds like a line of make-up or something. So you see the humor I hope.

Remodeling Guy don’t wear no make-up! (Why, what did you hear?)

Here is the big giveaway!

We’re talking a pretty good set of starter tools here! All of this is professional quality and I’m going to buy it all brand new, just for the lucky Crew Member who wins this!

No digging through my toolbox for last years tape measure! No grabbing one of the carpenter’s hammer on the sly next time I walk through the job! (they all engrave initials on them anyway)

This is $70.00 worth of tools, and shipping ! (US only, sorry JanMarie) For the original post about these tools, click here.

Pink is So Controversial

If you look at the comments on that post, you’ll see that I ruffled some feathers with the pink! I guess the concern was that I was being the stereotypical (in fact atypical) construction piggy man. I hope you all know me a little better by now.

The truth is this: I want this blog to EMPOWER you to go and do some great work on your homes! I mean that for men or women. I want to encourage and energize. I want to give you great ideas and help you figure out what small steps, or huge steps, that you can take to make it happen.

So my reasoning behind the pink is one of encouragement! If one of the ladies in the Crew goes out and learns some new skills and does a job in her house that makes her stand back and say, “WOW!”. Then I think that’s awesome! The pink is just a way to show you that I don’t think you should let anyone tell you that you can’t do it because you’re a girl!

By the way…if you’re not a girl…please leave a comment so I know I’m not alone! (thanks)

How to Win

Okay, you may have heard that I have this email newsletter coming out. The first issue is coming on March 1st! I want it to be huge! I want to reach as many people as possible so that I can really get my message out there! I need your help to do that! Please spread the word!

I would love for you to subscribe to both the RSS or Email blog updates AND the email newsletter, but if I have to pick, I pick the Newsletter. You can get the blog content anytime by logging on, but the newsletter is additional content over and above the blog content. I’m going to kick-it-up y’all. I’m talking really putting my best into this!

So, the way you enter for this giveaway is by signing-up for the email Newsletter. There are important things you need to know:

• You will only get emails from me personally.
• I will not share your email address with anyone.
• You can opt out at any time with one click (maybe two).

For those of you who have already subscribed, consider yourself entered and thank you! For the rest, here is a sign up form:

Name:
Email:

/

Thank You and Good Luck!  I’ll randomly select a winner on February 28th! Oh, one more thing:  it’s neck and neck on the vote for the best drillbit design cabinet door.   If you haven’t voted, let your voice be heard!

Hey Crew! Time to pick a cabinet door winner!

It was really fun hearing everyone’s ideas and it was not easy at all to pick three finalists!

Some of the ideas were great, but beyond either my abilities, or at least my time constraints! I would have enjoyed trying to create the flowing hair of an Afghan Hound, but I just don’t think I can squeeze in the four weeks that would take me!

I appreciate all the ideas and I hope you all vote for your favorite.

Door #1

Coffee Cup w/ Steam!

This was first suggested by Michelle at AuntieThesis!

Door #2

A Tall Pink Flamingo!

At first I thought this would be too hard, but I decided to see what I could do. I lost count, but there are over 100 holes to drill! This was suggested by Victoria at Auction Girl Vintage.

Door #3 is…

For the Birds!

The orginal bird got lots of support already, so it seemed like a sure thing finalist to me! It will be on the same cabinet door as the ones shown above, not on this door here…but doing these little things in Photoshop is a chore! So I was happy to use the picture I already had!

The bird was first suggested by Tammy! (I don’t see a link to a blog)

The actual door is solid maple and is about 13″ wide x 18″ high. I’ll find some cool hardware to put on it or leave it blank. I’ll discuss that and the color with the winner before we do it!

I’m going to combine the hole drilling with a post on painting your cabinets! I’m going to try and refrain from doing something super artsy and out of the ordinary so I can show you a simple “paint your cabinets” process!

We’ll do a solid color and I won’t use a sprayer…we’ll apply the paint by hand and I’ll show you how to get a great finish!

Cast Your Ballot!

Let your voice be heard! You wouldn’t want the lesser design to win just because you did not vote, would you? So vote and rest easy knowing that the American way is alive and well. The future of our great nation (or at least kitchens) depends on it!

We’ll leave this open for votes for a few days and I’ll announce the winner late next week!

Another Giveaway!

I hate to bore you with too many giveaways, but this door one was kind of “spur of the moment”. But I already had an AWESOME giveaway planned and I’m excited to get it out there! So come back on Monday to see what that’s all about and to get your chance to win big! (really, pretty big)

Door #1, Door #2, or Door #3 ???

Vote now just by simply leaving a comment saying which one is your favorite. No secret ballots here! Votes are open to everyone…just tell me which one you like!

Take a look at this! My wonderful wife, Kim, found it!

I thought it would be a funny story to hear what happens when your husband comes home and finds you painting your cabinets a bright color.

Well, I think this one would be even better! He comes home and you’re mad at it with the cordless drill punching holes in the cabinet doors!

But, you have to admit, the look is kind of cool. I think I know one blogger in particular who would like this one!

Let’s do this…everyone and their sister and mother give me a suggestion as to a great “drillbit design” for a cabinet door and I’ll do it! I’ll drill all the holes and then do a post on “how to paint your cabinets” with it. I’ll send the door to the creative soul who chose the winning pattern!

This is going to be fun…I finally get to bring out my tools! Tell your friends!

Update - After 24 hours of great ideas, there isn’t a clear winner yet!  This whole thing was spur of the moment last night.  I think what I’ll do is pick my three favorites (in addition to the Palm Tree), Photoshop up renditions of them, then put them up for a vote to decide the winner! 

I have a smallish solid maple cabinet door that I’m going to use for this and we’re going to paint it very nice!  I’ll even let the winner pick the color!  This will be something you’ll want in your house!  I’m going to keep this giveaway open for another few days to see what other great ideas we get….simple designs have a better chance!

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