By NZONG XIONG, Fresno Bee

A little embarrassed that you burned dinner again tonight? It's time to turn on the range hood to suck out the bad smell, one of the obvious signs of your kitchen misadventure.

But if the odor still lingers hours later, maybe it's time to take a look at your range hood and see if a new one might be better.

Three years ago, when one of Merryanne Bauer's sons divorced and refurnished his home, she stepped in to help.

She went shopping. However, she didn't shop at only retail furniture stores for all-new pieces; instead, she also went to consignment stores.

"I bought two complete bedroom sets from Consignment Cottage" in Fresno, Calif., says Bauer, 77, of Fresno.

The next time you need to clean your kitchen countertops, don't rush to grab the disinfectant spray you usually use. Instead, dig around in your cabinets -- you might already have natural items that can be used to tackle many cleaning projects.

Five must-have natural ingredients recommended by cleaning experts are baking soda, borax, lemon, salt and white vinegar.

A recent scare that could have turned tragic made a Clovis, Calif., couple do something they had never done in the 10 years they've lived in their home.

It caused Dwight Siemens and his wife, Mary, to enclose their swimming pool with a removable mesh fence.

In recent years, the trend of extending living spaces to the outdoors has resulted in homeowners creating lots of areas to relax and entertain in their yards.

But if you're getting tired of sitting in the same old patio furniture, now might be the time to update your outdoor pieces.

Don't know what to buy? Here are five patio-furniture trends some experts have spotted.

VISALIA, Calif. -- Irma Cisneros is fond of older homes. She grew up in one.

When she walked her children to school in Visalia in the early 1980s, she passed an 1870s Queen Anne home and always looked at it with envy. Her husband, George, wasn't into those kinds of homes.

"I was raised in poverty, so any common house was fine," George Cisneros, 60, says.

With the first day of spring about a month away, it's time to go through the house to see what needs cleaning, dusting and updating.

To help you get started, here are some new household cleaning products coming out on the market.