We are failing

It is finally time for our bathroom remodel. Our current main bathroom if 5'x20'. Yes, you read that right. It is a bowling alley. We have decided it would be far more functional as two bathrooms, one 5x9' and one 5x11'. Why are we failing? We can't find fixtures that meet any of our needs.

We went to a high end showroom recommended by our plumbing company. Their bid for what we want - $10,000. Yeah. So not happening.

We spent a good portion of today wandering the warehouses at Second Chance architectural salvage. We thought for sure we would be able to find a good chunk of our materials there. First off, they are the outlet for Yorktown Cabinetry. We were so hoping to find ourselves two nice, overstocked vanities. Unfortunately, we struck out. Dismally. Then we went looking around at other stuff. In short, there was nothing there that met our needs (either color, style or price). For example, sure, they had a pallet of brand new Toto toilets for $250. But, I can get a perfectly good toilet for $100 at Lowes. So do we pay over twice as much for a surplus product that supports a good cause, or make our wallets happy when a Kholer toilet from Lowes?

Vanities are another issue. I really wish Ikea had quality bathroom cabinetry. Their kitchen cabinets are great, but their bathroom, not so much. At least with Ikea, they use sustainable harvesting methods for most products. Bah!

So, I think we went end up buying most of our bathroom stuff online or from an annoying big box, simply because our budget is not allowing high end stuff, and the salvage place isn't meeting out needs. At least the floor tile came from a Habitat for Humanity surplus auction. I guess I can feel good about that.

A post for women only

If you are a man, stop reading. Now. I mean it. NOW! If you keep reading, you will regret it. If you are a women, but squeamish about that monthly visitor, you should probably stop reading, too.

Since moving into a house with a (brand new!) septic system, I have become acutely aware of the waste created by my monthly female cycle. See, when you have a septic system, it is VERY bad to flush your tampons. They don't decompose, instead, they just float in the tank until it is pumped. And that assumes they don't sneak through the baffles and clog up your drain field. So, I bought myself a nice little trash can with a tight fitting lid. I kept it next to the toilet. I lined it with a plastic grocery bag, and, for one week a month, used it to dispose of my female grossness. Suffice to say, this solution was not the best. It was gross, very gross. It would smell if it wasn't empties regularly (and then just transferring the smell to the garage trash can). But mostly, seeing this made me realize just how wasteful it can be to be a female. I had thought I was doing the best I could when I switched to O.B. without the applicator. But, I decided it wasn't enough.

Enter the menstrual cup. I must admit, I had heard about these maybe 10+ years ago, but I always second guessed myself because it seemed, well, gross. The first time I heard about cups, I believe it was the one called The Keeper. It was expensive, and I wasn't sure I would like it. I tried Instead when they first came out, but I found them uncomfortable, and it seemed even more wasteful than tampons. But now, with the gross trash can issue mentioned above, it seemed like it was time to finally get up the nerve and try a cup again. Enter The Diva Cup. I picked it mostly because it seemed to be the cheapest one I could find.

I am now 3 days into my first month using it, and I am finally in love. There were some growing pains getting use to it, but I found the information at LiveJournals's menstrual cup support group invaluable! Most importantly, I learned that most everyone has some issues at first, and that the instructions that came with the Diva were not the only method of insertion. Since trying some of the other folds, I can now get it in and out quickly and easily (the first day, this was NOT the case). Its still a bit messy, but not terrible. And far less bad than a bag of 3 day old tampons.

I figure after 4 months of not buying tampons and pads, the Diva will have paid for itself financially, plus I will no longer be disposing of 20+ tampons per month.

Now... about my love of toilet paper...

Attic insulator

Our attic stairs don't quite fit properly into the ceiling, creating massive drafts. So Wirenut built a very cool insulator to fit over the top. Its hinged to flip up easily, and wrapped in R12 batting insulation. The inside is lined with R4 foam insulation. I found things like this online for $50 to $150. This one was built for under $20. The basic plans we used can be found here.

Update

I'm not a great blogger. Especially lately. We haven't done too much keeping with the theme of this blog, nor have I bothered to blog on the topics I planned. But, I will give you some pictures of stuff we have done, and I promise there is at least one energy efficient project coming up!
Before:


After!



And this is the area we have designated for our garden. Its going to be huge. And ideally, we will have rain barrels to provide supplemental watering in the heat of the summer. However, if it is as dry as it was this summer, rain barrels won't even help. We have a hearing to go to next week to determine if we will be getting public water. Keep your fingers crossed for us. The public water here is terribly chlorinated, very acidic, and tastes horrible. If they bring public water here, we will be forced to hook up. We are really hoping they do not force us to abandon the well, even if we can just use it for gardening.

Thirteen non-green things we do

I don't claim to be the most environmentally friendly person out there. My goal is to be more so, but I'm not there yet. So, I give you 13 habits I should change.

1. I drink my soda from cans. And I drink lots of soda. Granted, I recycle the cans, but I really should cut down on the soda consumption for many reasons. One of which is the energy spent to make it. Another is the implicit support of evil corporations (i.e. Monsanto) who poison us with things like aspartame.

2. I am having trouble convincing Wirenut to focus on organic farming. He hates aphids and ants. And he likes to poison them. I found white pesticide residue on some basil plants. BASIL!!

3. I'm not so good about taking my own bags when I shop. I justify this by saying we use the plastic shopping bags for other things, like cat poop. I will turn down bags for small purchases, and I try to rebag purchases to minimize plastic bag use. But I still use them.

4. I HATE cleaning paint rollers. Therefor, I buy the contractor pack of rollers, de-lint them before painting, and throw them away when I am done. I freeze the rollers between uses of the same color (it allows me to reuse the roller without cleaning). But when I am done with a color, in the trash it goes.

5. I love my air conditioning. I grew up in the hot, humid southeast. Some might say I should be acclimated to heat and humidity. Instead, I acclimated to sweet, wonderful, cool, dry conditioned air. I mitigate this with a programmable thermostat.

6. Wirenut loves lighting. All sorts of lighting. Lots of lighting. I guess it come with the electrician license. He also dislikes the quality of the light from CLFs. The other problem is I like dimmers. I want every light on a dimmer. Hallways - dimmer. Bathroom - dimmer. Kitchen - dimmer. Everything - dimmer. CLFs are generally not compatible with dimmers ("they" are working on it). So, we have lots of incandescents.

7. I have not yet switching to low/no VOC paint and stain. Partially because its difficult to find in our new area, and partially because of cost.

8. Wirenut drives a full-size pickup truck. Granted, its a late-model Japanese truck, and he does kind of need it, being in the trades and all, and its the 6-cylinder, non-4WD option. But still, not that great on the gas consumption.

9. We don't really recycle paper. I have no justification for this. We do compost some paper. And when I clean out the magazines, those go in the recycle bins. But everyday mixed paper goes in the trash.

10. Speaking of paper, we use too many paper towels.

11. We buy veggies from the supermarket (in general) rather than farmer's markets or organic stores.

12. Tivo and the cable box are on 24/7.

13. We buy stuff made in china (although, its very hard not to these days :( )

13 1/2. We fly too much. Somewhat due to my job. Somewhat due to living 800+ miles from lots of family. And somewhat due to the travel bug and the fact we have already have seen the entire east coast.

In short - I'm better on the big stuff then I am the little stuff. And the little stuff adds up. This was kind of eyeopening.

Saved from the landfill!

Although we closed on the house over a week ago, we had a two week overlap with the apartment we have been renting. The apartment complex has been remodeling with turnover. Today, they were doing the kitchen across the hall from us. We noticed them piling the old cabinets on the ground in front of our place. As some of you know, Wirenut has a thing for organization, and we had been talking about picking up some used cabinets from a salvage store to put in the garage/workshop. So, we asked the contractors and sure enough, they were just going to throw away the old cabinets and were more than happy to let us take them. Score! Free cabinets for our garage AND we saved them from the landfill!

In other news, we have been working our tails off. The strangest part, Wirenut has unfinished our basement. It had to be done, as it was VERY old paneling and 30 year old musty carpet. Here are some pictures so far!

The house is ours now

At the auction Thursday night and again during the walk-through on Friday, I was overwhelmed. I kept noticing all these things I missed before. I looked around and thought "so much work!" After closing, when we went back to what we can officially call "our house," it all seemed reasonable and quite doable. Funny how attitude can change with ownership.

In the first 48 hours, we have spent about $300 at Lowes/Home Depot and have successfully pulled up carpet in the living and dining rooms and hallway upstairs and most of the carpet in the basement. I'd say we have about 80% of the tack strips and staples out upstairs.

The basement is interesting. Its a small-ish rec-room and a decent sized bedroom. All done in 70s dark paneling. The carpet down there is so old the closet was built ON TOP OF the carpet. I was thinking about doing stained & polished concrete as the flooring down there; however, we had a rude surprise under the ancient carpet. 12x12 vinyl tiles circa 1968. My alarm bells are going off that its probably asbestos based tile. The good news is that it does not appear friable. But, I'm thinking taking it out and polishing the concrete would not be the most environmentally friendly process. I believe out best bet is encapsulation, just not sure how. I;m thinking 1x3 sleepers and then subflooring to allow for moisture ventilation. I'm not yet sure what to put on top of the subfloor.

And speaking of flooring, I want real, honest to gosh, linoleum for the kitchen. Its harder to find than one would think. Armstrong makes a real linoleum, but the one I have read most about is Marmoleum. Marmoleum is not available in this county, while the Armstrong website tells me I can get it from Home Depot. Wanna have some fun? Go ask the folks working in your local Depot flooring department for linoleum. Just try it. When they take you to vinyl, insist you want real linoleum. Explain that its a renewable material made from linseed oil. If your Depot is anything like the two I went to, they look at you like you grew a second head.