The Home front

By JUDY STARK

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 15, 2000

Fridge customized for contents

Food may stay fresher longer in Maytag's new refrigerator with ClimateZone technology, where storage drawers have three separate settings: 31 degrees Fahrenheit for meat, fish, and poultry; 34 degrees for fresh produce, 39 degrees for citrus fruits. Cold air forms a jacket around each drawer, and excess moisture is absorbed by a fabric-like material to keep foods from getting soggy. The ClimateZone refrigerators start at $1,899.

Tips for tiny bathrooms

Trying to make the most of a tiny bathroom? Here are tips from Porcher, manufacturer of luxury plumbing fixtures: Use light, cool colors to create an airy atmosphere. Wallpaper with a small pattern expands the space. Emphasize the horizontal with a tile or wallpaper border. If the room is long and narrow, paint the short walls a darker color to give them greater weight. Pedestal or wall-hung sinks and wall-hung toilets create an uncluttered look. Large mirrors, reflective surfaces such as marble, and a glass shower enclosure will expand the space. Look up for storage space: vertical cabinets above the toilet, hooks, hanging baskets.

Stuck-up tape

Where's the tape? If you've ever spent time digging through drawers looking for Scotch tape, you'll appreciate this: a mountable dispenser for pop-up tape. It attaches to any flat surface with a Command adhesive strip and can be removed and repositioned, leaving no residue behind. Or remove the tape cartridge from the mounting bracket and wear it on your wrist. The dispenser delivers two-inch precut strips of tape. The periwinkle blue dispenser, on a white bracket, comes with two 75-strip pads of tape at a suggested retail price of $2.99 at discount, drug, and food stores and mass merchandisers.

Sources for buyers

Forty-nine percent of home buyers first learned about the home they bought from a real estate agent, down just one percentage point from 1997 and 1995, the National Association of Realtors reports. Only 4 percent said they first learned about the home from the Internet, up from 2 percent in 1997 and less than one percent in 1995. But when it comes to information sources used in the home search, the Internet has taken off, from just 2 percent in 1995 to 18 percent in 1997 to 37 percent last year. Real estate agents pretty well maintained their position as the top source of information: They were cited by 86 percent of buyers in 1995, 82 percent in 1997 and 80 percent last year.

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