Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

For a while there, I did not recycle. Separating my trash and treasures turned out to be a scam when it was discovered that all the stuff ended up in one place anyhow. Now, recycling is a little different. It is taken a lot more seriously.

I have a friend who has two garbage pails in her kitchen: a one-gallon pail, and a 13-gallon pail. One is for trash, and the other for recyclable items. I would always throw stuff in the wrong pails. Who would have thought a single woman living alone would have 13 gallons of recyclable stuff a week, and not much garbage.

I decided that it was time for me to start being greener, so when I got home, I set up a recycle bag. I knew I did not have as much recycle as garbage, so the recyclable stuff got the smaller can.

Silly me.

Turns out that more of the stuff I use can be recycled than previously thought. Meandering over to my city’s refuse website, I learned that short of soiled paper towels and tissues, and food products, almost everything else can be recycled. I switched my pails around, apologized to my friend and started recycling.

In went junk mail, cereal boxes, and milk cartons. The aluminum cans from tuna, olives and cat food found their way into recycling. Plastic bottles from my diet of water, peanut butter and yogurt were added to the mix.

The website also offered up what I could do with my foodstuff. Mainly, compost it. Buying a compost bin at a nice discount from my city, I started throwing in fruit and vegetable scraps, eggshells, tea leaves and grass and plant trimmings. It’s already due for its first turning! When the compost is ready I’m going to give it to my neighbor to use in her garden, where she grows tomatoes, corn and broccoli.

I’m going Green!

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So close! Yet, so far…

My living room is coming together quite nicely. I finally got the room painted, trimmed out and ready for the sanding of the floor. I think the effect is stunning, even if it is my own work! Never having lived in a house with walls that curve before meeting the ceiling, I wasn’t exactly sure how to paint the room. Do I paint the whole room one color? Do I stop part way up the wall? Do I stop part way on the ceiling?

I had a client who stopped the deep blue color of her walls right before the curve started. She had installed picture rail there then painted the ceiling down to the picture rail white. It looked nice, but made the room look short. Plus, it was hard to see the curve.

I decided to do the opposite and paint the color of the walls up and around the curve, stopping at the point on the ceiling where the curve ended. Then paint the ceiling a different, contrasting color. I put molding at the point where the two colors met.

With that decision made, next was to figure out the color scheme I wanted. Usually I go out and find curtains I like then paint the room a color in the curtains. This time, I found the paint I liked first. I really like the faux suede look, and the richness of the colors fits my style, so I went with Ralph Lauren’s Suede “Angel Fire” for the walls, and “Rancho” for the ceiling.

The suede-look adds a great texture to the walls without really adding texture to the walls. It is a time consuming process. The first coat took me about 3 hours to put on. The second coat took me well over 15.

But it sure is pretty!

I started looking for curtains on line, then realized I was going to have to go into the store. JCPenny’s was having a Labor Day sale, so I figured it was time to go window treatment shopping.

I’m sure finding curtains to match mauve walls, tan ceilings, light tan leather couch and black accessories would be a piece of cake. Not to mention that the room was both a dining room and living room. What would be comfortable for a living room was too heavy for a dining room. And vice versa.

After about an hour of curtain shopping, I found the perfect combination of curtains. On sale too!

The List

My house is a disaster. Working construction all week leaves me feeling less inspired to work more construction come the weekend. The shoe cobbler’s kids go shoeless, and all that. Looking through all the photos I have of the paid jobs I’ve completed, then looking at the construction zone I call a home made me realize it’s time to get the ball rolling again, and on a more consistent basis.

Figuring out all my financials, I can work 5 days a week then spend one day a week working on my own home, with one day off to do ANYTHING but construction. I decided to put this plan into effect this Saturday past. With a helper wanting to learn the trades, I put a list together of all the stuff that needs to be done in order to call my home “finished”. Although as most homeowners know, “finished” happens only when you no longer own it. Otherwise, there is “before” and “during”.

Any who, I took a pad and paper and went room by room by room, (including the garage and outside too!) jotting down notes as to what needs to be done to complete the room. That was much harder than I thought it would be, and created a list longer than I thought it would be. However, I now have the foundation for “The Plan”. I like making nice, organized, linear plans. And, I’m good at it. I can see a project from start to finish, moving smoothly from before to after with nary a bump.

In construction, there is a natural flow to the work. It doesn’t make much sense to paint the walls before they are built, now, does it? The flow should start with any structural changes, followed by plumbing and electrical work, then adding insulation, closing up the walls, preparing the wall surfaces for paint/paper/tile. Afterwards finishing the floors, then moving on to the final touches including installing all the baseboards, moldings, trim, and, if the homeowner needs help, accessorizing the finished room with curtains, wall hangings, etc.

The current project finds me wanting to move my TV, surround sound, and furniture out of the TV room, and put it all in the living room. I’d like to then use the TV room as a rental bedroom (or spare bedroom when times get better.) Before I can move the TV room into the living room, I have to paint the walls, sand the floors, and install the baseboards, window/door casings. Construction logic dictates that it should be in that order. BUT, all the trim for all the rooms is sitting in the living room, preventing me from painting the walls and sanding the floors.

Which is how installing kitchen cabinets became the first part of a plan to rent out my spare bedroom.

As I have written before though, any plans in this house started as linear always turn into a pyramid plan. Such is the case with my current plan. It did not really make much sense for me when I decided to finish refinishing my cabinets before mudding the walls and ceiling, but sense is an infrequent visitor to my home.

With the kitchen cabinets installed, I can move the trim to the garage!

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