Redecorating

I'm still working on the living room. I've made a lot of progress; unfortunately, I had to reset my expectations.

We don't have a television; instead, we have a projector that we hook up to our Wii and to the laptop for movies. The original plan was to mount four bracketless shelves (Lack from IKEA) on the back wall and use them to house the projector, speakers, internet radio, and Wii. One shelf also would provide a space for the laptop to sit when we watch movies.

Alas, I didn't measure the depth of the shelves in relation to the depth of the projector, and the front half hangs off the shelf. Not okay. I had already mounted one of the shelves, and I mounted it too high for the purpose, too, but that's a discussion for another day. I discovered all this Friday night, and I just let it sit. I was discouraged and irritable, my friend Christi was at the house, and I just decided not to decide.

I spent most of Saturday getting Burgundy ready for the military ball. We had a major snafu with the dress, and when we sorted that out, she wanted her hair in an updo. By the time she left and I turned my attention back to the furniture issue, my mind was able to look at the situation with a fresh perspective.

So I moved the large entertainment center/wardrobe over to the back wall and placed it under the Lack shelf. It turned out to be the perfect solution, too. All the entertainment stuff fits inside it, and a hole in the back allows us to run cords out. The industrial surge protector, which is huge and unsightly, is hidden on the top of the wardrobe under the ivy. When we're not watching, we can shut the doors, and it's all hidden away. I love this idea so much more than the original. I still have to find a way to bring in the dog kennel because the dog has decided that used Kleenex and bathroom trash constitute oh-so-tasty chew toys.

I also need to find a place to hang our pretty wedding photo. It doesn't really go anywhere. The frame just isn't right for our house, but I'm not willing to spend the money to replace it right now.

Well Mark and the girls have just left for school and work, and I need to get to work myself. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to post photos later.

Laundry 5 Cents per Load

I've been doing 1 load of laundry a day, and it's getting very close to the point where I'll only have one load to do on any given day. I'm very pleased with this consistency and with the order it's allowing me to introduce to our home.

I used the last of my laundry detergent recipe today, so I had to whip up some more. I have never been successful with the liquid soap recipes I've found online, so a couple of month ago, I switched over to the (mostly) powdered version. I'm very happy with it.

Laundry detergent recipes pretty well are ubiquitous on the web, and I won't pretend that I'm original in my concoction. All the same, I am proud of what I've learned and figure I ought to show it off.

I found a recipe I like (no idea where) and made a very slight adjustment to make it easier to remember. I changed the ratio of ingredients to be 1:1:1. It was pretty close to that before, and this gets my clothes fully clean.

1 cup grated Fels Naptha (a bar soap available in the laundry aisle at the grocery; look on the top shelf)
1 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
1 cup Borax Washing Powder.

Fels Naptha cost around $1 a bar; I think I pay $1.19. A 55-oz box of Arm & Hammer runs $1.89, and a 76-oz box of Borax is $2.89. Going by the weight of a cup of each of the powders and calculating the cost per ounce of the powders, I was able to calculate that the powder portion of my detergent costs me about $0.53/batch. I usually can get about three batches out of two FN bars, so I figure more or less 1.5 cups per bar.

Total cost: $1.39 for about a month's worth of detergent. I use one heaping table spoon full (that is, not a small cutlery spoon, one of the larger ones) per load, and our clothes have been cleaner and have smelled better since we switched to this. At one load per day, that puts our laundry detergent cost at about $0.05 per load.

Rearranging the House

My husband hoards. It gets overwhelming sometimes. He's slowly getting better (as in, over the last 7 years, he's begun to see reason about things like not having a garage full of books he won't read, but he still can't let go of the pile of movie stubs going back at least 10 years), and our house is slowly getting better along with him. 

::mumblemumble:: Well, it helps that I've started cleaning house, too.  ::mumblemumble::

So the books in the garage are starting to go away, but we still have all the "House Books." Like cats, they get in the way, sit on the couch when I don't want them there, poop on the rug (well, okay, they leave dust bunnies on the shelf), and generally command attention I do not want to give them. 

Lest you think I'm an illiterate, non-reading boob, I have a degree in literature. I love books. Reasonable books. But these are books on circuitry and obsolete technology (the 3.5 Floppy Disk Will Alter Our World), old magazines, phone books, etc. Jane Austin is welcome to crap on my carpet (metaphorically). Ma Bell? Not so much.  

Our most successful foray into controlling the books to date has been two 5 x 5 Expedit bookshelves, both of which are crammed into my relatively small living room. Well, I've had an idea. I moved one of the Expedit shelves into the formal den, which currently does not house a table, and in its place, I will mount four (4) and only four (4) bracketless shelves from IKEA on that wall in the living room. 

I will find a way to make do with only four because that's how many I already have, and I'm NOT buying more.The shelves will be not quite randomly spaced, but they won't be all in a straight line. Those four shelves will house our projector (stand-in for a TV), our Wii system, our speaker system, and a blank spot for the laptop when we want to watch a movie on the projector. I'm very excited about it.

Meanwhile, of course I had to completely unload all the books and other detritus from the shelf in order to move it. So while I loaded it back up in its new home, I decided that I should at least cull my own collection of books. Well, of all the surprising and embarrassing discoveries, I only found one (1) of my husband's books on the shelf. And it was worth about $20 (he sells books online). Awkward. Now even accounting for the three shelves that our electronics occupied on this thing prior to its move, I still cleared out seven (7) shelves on this case. That were double-stacked.

Mark graciously looked up every book I set aside for its value and listed any for sale that were worth more than a few dollars. There were two, maybe three books. The rest I boxed up and took to half-price books. I got $12 for those, and then dropped off another trunkload of clothes, knick-knacks, and other random things at Goodwill.

This has inspired me to cull the other shelf now, so that's my 15-minute daily project this week. Wish me luck!

Photos to come soon! I'm excited.