New Item at Tessier’s … The Tick Key

The Tick Key

Tick Key Is The Easiest-To-Use Tick Remover
On Earth! Place the key over the tick in the
teardrop hole. Slide the tick into specially tapered
slot. Pull key up from skin. The Tick is removed
easily, head and all!
This patented design has been perfected and
tested for over five years and is responsible for
removal of thousands of ticks of all sizes including
deer ticks and dog ticks.
The Tick Key is fabricated from high-strength
anodized aluminum…this is not a weak piece of
plastic.
The Tick Key is currently available in 6 bright
metallic colors; Green, Blue, Orange, Purple, Red
and Nickel.
The Tick Key is flat and is easily stored in a wallet,
pocket, on a key chain, collar, saddle, or leash.
How Not To Remove Ticks
Don’t Remove Ticks With Your Fingers.
In many cases a tick is likely to be carrying pathogens such as lyme disease,ehrlichiosis
and others that are harmful to humans and pets. Tick saliva or blood is something you
do not want to risk being on your hands or under your fingernails.
Pulling on a tick, even with tweezers, can tear the mouth parts from the body of the tick
leaving them embedded in the wound causing risk of secondary infections.
WHY TICK KEY?
Don’t Squeeze, Crush or Squash A Tick.
This can force spirochete and other infective body fluids through the mouth parts of the
tick and into the wound site increasing the risk of infectious diseases.
Don’t Apply Substances To A Tick.
Applying any substances, such as petroleum jelly, fingernail polish remover, repellents, or
a lighted match that upset or harm the tick almost always cause the tick to vomit the
contents of its stomach back into the host.
No matter how badly a tick may want to remove itself, it is not capable of doing so quickly.
Ticks can live without air for long periods; attempts to smother it can allow disease
transmission for hours.

TICK KEY is the only tick removal device on the planet that uses natural
forward leverage to remove the entire tick, head and all, quickly and safely
without touching or squishing even the toughest engorged ticks.
Tick key is 99.9% effective on all sizes and types of ticks.

20 Top Secrets of a Superfluous Paint Job

Getting Ready

1. A bigger, better swatch
Don’t expect a thumbnail-size color chip from the paint store to give you a sense of how a color will look on the walls. Colors are relative to one another and the objects around them—like, say, that new leather sofa. Instead, make your own megaswatch. Get a sample quantity of paint, brush two coats on a slab of foam core (its white surface acts like primer) at least three feet square, then put it up against the wall. You’ll get a much better sense of how your tint plays off your furniture and flooring. Eyeball the color at various times of the day and move it around the room to see how it looks in different light conditions.

2. How many cans?
Before you set out for the paint store, take a tape measure and figure out how much surface you need to cover—and don’t forget the ceiling. Measure the longest wall, and square that number for the ceiling. For the walls, multiply the length of the longest wall by its height, then multiply that number by four. Double your numbers if you’re doing two coats. Or use an online calculator, like the one at thisoldhouse.com; as a rule of thumb, one gallon covers about 400 square feet.

3. Go for the good stuff
Invest in a premium paint. Why? Because cheap paint covers very well when it’s wet—the first, and in many cases last, time many people scrutinize their work—but not so well once it’s dry. “There is only room for a gallon’s worth of stuff in the can,” says Seattle-based painter Doug Wold, owner of Queen Anne Painting. “If you add more cheap pigment, you take out more expensive resin—and that’s what holds it together.” Always apply two coats, and allow 2 to 3 hours between them.

4. No muss, no dust
Painting prep usually involves scraping, sanding—and dust-making. “You might be shocked at how far dust travels, and what small areas it can get into,” says Rich O’Neill, owner of Masterwork Painting, in Bedford, Massachusetts. If you don’t want to invest in a spring-loaded-pole-style barrier system like that made by ZipWall (zipwall.com), put plastic up around doorways that lead to the work area and over furniture. Skip the flimsy stuff: Clear, heavier-gauge sheeting (2 to 4 mil) is reusable, easier to fold and unfold, and less likely to rip. Secure it with painter’s tape.

5. A clean sweep
Many of us are so anxious to get the paint up that we don’t take the crucial first step of thoroughly cleaning the walls—especially in the kitchen, where they may be invisibly decorated with grease, oil, and food residue. “If you don’t clean that off, you could be painting a greased cookie sheet,” says Doug Wold. “It ain’t gonna stick.” Same goes for the bathroom, the domain of airborne shampoo, hair spray, and cosmetics. Use a degreaser on tough areas; household cleanser should work elsewhere. Then rinse.

Know Thy Tools

6. The mark of a good brush
Bristles should be “flagged”: tapered, —split, and arranged in multiple lengths to form a slim tip. Synthetic ones—especially a mix of nylon and polyester, like DuPont’s Chinex—hold and release latex paints exceptionally well. (It’s best to reserve natural bristles for oil-based finishes; water-based paints make them swell and lose their shape.) Unfinished hardwood handles are easier to grip with sweaty hands, and copper or stainless-steel ferrules won’t rust after you’ve washed the brush. You’ll want at least one 21/4-inch angled sash brush for cutting in trim, and one 3-inch brush for cutting in walls and ceilings.

Buy the best ones that you can find—a good brush will generally run you $12 to $15. “People think nothing of spending $10 to go to a movie,” says John Hone, owner of Hone Painting and Restoration in Caldwell, New Jersey. “But they put themselves through torture trying to paint with cheap equipment.”

7. Size matters
Your local home center or hardware store offers lots of standard 9-inch roller cages and covers for painting walls, but they’re not the only size to consider. Small foam rollers are good for door panels and wainscoting, and 14- and even 18-inch rollers hold enough paint to allow you to cover a lot of area faster—handy if you have a high-ceilinged great room to get color on. “Manufacturers make larger rollers, and there are people buying them,” says Chicago’s Mario Guertin, president of Painting in Partnership. “But only the educated ones.”

8. A better sandpaper
Look for black sandpaper coated with silicon carbide—it won’t gunk up as quickly as the standard-issue brown kind, so it’ll last longer. Foam sanding sponges covered with the same stuff allow you to sneak into corners and evenly wrap around rounded trim—plus, they’re reusable. Just wring them out in water to clean them, then use them damp to trap more of the dust.

Which grit to pick? Use a medium grit (100 or 120) when you’re prepping walls that are already in decent shape; a coarser 60 or 80 grit to take the edges off paint that is chipped or peeled. Very fine (200 or 220 grit) sandpaper is best for smoothing surfaces between coats of paint.

Tape Tips

9. Let it be your guide
Pros use miles of low-tack blue painter’s tape—mainly to protect surfaces, but also as a guide for cutting in walls or ceilings. “With older houses, flat surfaces can be so uneven you can’t be sure you are getting a crisp line if you paint over tape,” says Hone. “So just use it as a guide.” Cut in up to the edge of the tape, but don’t cross over it. Bring your fully loaded brush within about 2 1/4 inches of the tape, but go very light on that last 1/4 inch closest to the tape. “When you do that, you have a fighting chance that the paint won’t wick under the tape’s edge,” says Hone.

10. The perfect stripe
Like the look of painted stripes? To put on a crisp band of color without any bleed, first lay down a line of blue painter’s tape, then run a small bead of latex caulk over the edge where the two colors will meet. “Wipe down the caulk until you have a very thin layer on the wall,” says Portland, Oregon, painting contractor Dave Siegner. “Then peel off the tape, and paint up to the line of caulk.” The thin bead will seal off the dry surface better than any tape. A few hours later, peel off the caulk.

11. Score it
If you’ve masked off baseboards with painter’s tape, pull it off the same day as you apply the paint—but run a blade along it first, says Siegner. “Sometimes latex wall finishes are rubbery until they cure completely, and if they’re touching your tape you can pull away a piece of the paint from the wall when you go to remove it,” says Siegner. Score the edge of the tape between the top of the baseboard and the wall with a putty knife held at a 45-degree angle.

Teaming Up

12. Halfway measures
If your budget is tight—and your painting skills are decent—ask a painting contractor if he would willing to talk about splitting the job with you. Brandt Domas, owner of Domas Fine Painting in Denver, Colorado, occasionally enters into such partnerships with homeowners. “We may go in and strip the trim, then people will do the paintingthemselves,” he says. “Or we may go in and do the prep repairs, or the high areas. We don’t always have to say ‘It’s all or nothing.'”

13. A little help, here?
Pros always work with “wet edges.” Meaning they roll walls before the areas where they’ve cut in—or painted with a brush along the wall’s perimeter edges—have dried. “It’s best to have one person cutting in and another rolling walls right behind her to avoid ‘banding’ around the edges of a room,” says painting contractor Jim Clark, who’s worked on many This Old House TV projects. If you can’t lean on a buddy to help and you’re working alone, try to cut in only as much as you can roll while the paint remains wet.

Smooth Talk

14. Bust the fuzz
There’s nothing more frustrating than seeing little squiggles of lint embedded in your freshly painted walls. To keep them at bay, wrap your hand in painter’s tape—sticky side out—and pat down new roller covers to catch any stray fibers.

15. Glob patrol
Never dip the roller so far into the paint that the the roller arm gets wet—this is a recipe for drips. And at the start of each workday, strain your paint into a clean bucket, even if you’ve sealed the lid tightly overnight. “If you skip this step, you end up with coagulated pieces of paint—we call them boogers or snots—on the walls,” says Mark Casale of Hingham Painting and Decorating in Massachusetts. And nobody wants that.

16. Give walls the once-over
To trap sanding dust on trim, you probably already know to run tack cloth—essentially, cheesecloth embedded with sticky resin—over it. But it’s also a good idea on walls. “I wrap tack cloth over the head of my pole sander and run it over the wall surfaces to pick up the dust,” says John Dee, a painting and decorating contractor based in Concord, Massachusetts. Most hardware and paint stores carry tack cloth, but if you don’t have one, use a Swiffer or a microfiber dusting cloth instead. It’s not a bad idea to vacuum walls with a soft brush attachment, as well. Just be sure the vacuum has a HEPA filter to keep the dust from recirculating back into the room—and back onto your walls.

Flawless Coverage

17. The right sequence
Many homeowners paint the walls first, then move on to the trim while they wait for the first coat to dry. Homeowners should think more strategically, says Rich O’Neill of Masterworks Painting. “Paint all the woodwork first—the first and second coats—then move onto the walls,” says O’Neill. “If you toggle back and forth, your cutlines won’t be as sharp. When you do the woodwork first, you can ride the trim paint onto the walls a little, then cut over it in one go.”

18. Through thick and thin
When applying your coats, don’t just focus on coverage, think about a uniform thickness as well. “Homeowners think that pro painters put on color, but they actually put on texture,” says Doug Wold of Queen Anne Painting. On woodwork, align your strokes to follow the grain. Try to avoid “fat edges”—the goopy cornices of paint that can hang over the edges of a door—and rope marks left by overloaded rollers. “If you don’t hold the roller uniformly against the wall, it can leave a ridge—just like on a ski hill, when groomers leave little ridges between their tracks.”

19. Lay off already
After you’ve rolled a section of the wall, make a series of long vertical strokes—moving in one direction, left or right—up the full length of the wall. This last step, called “laying off,” distributes the wet paint across the surface in a nice even layer.

20. How to load a brush

Good bristles pull paint up toward the top of the brush and the metal ferrule. To keep from overloading your brush, dip the bristles not more than halfway into the bucket. Then gently tap the bristle ends against both sides of the bucket to remove any excess. Or do as Mark Casale of Hingham Painting and Decorating does. “Dedicate half of the pot as your ‘wet’ side, using the handle as an imaginary dividing line.” Tap one side of the brush on this side of the bucket, then turn the brush untapped-side up.

To get the paint on the wall, Casale recommends setting the brush a few inches away from where you’re cutting in, then moving it in to the cut line and drawing it straight up until the brush starts to drag. Then draw it back down in a line to level it out. Finally, move the brush upward with a light stroke to “tip off,” smoothing out any brushstrokes.