Foothills Green Expo

Today we went to the first ever Foothills Green Expo which was hosted at Pacific Outdoor Living and was co-hosted with Phat Energy. Let me just say that I was really impressed by this very small green expo. The amount of services these two companies offer is rather astonishing. We are getting very excited about working on our yard now, previously I think we were a bit nervous about the whole thing though we were slowly figuring out what we wanted to do with the yard. Today these two companies just helped us to see how to really kick up the green in our yard way beyond what we had imagined.

Pacific Outdoor Living offers tons of services. They will even come out to your house and help you design your yard as well as what order things need to be done in and help you keep it all in your budget. We were most excited by the way that they can put your water storage underground and then put either a water feature or a permeable paver patio deck on top of the water storage area. I know it sounds a little confusing so I really recommend if you are intrigued by this look at their website or call them or even go down there and talk to them in person. You will be amazed at this, so cool not to need to have rain barrels all over the yard to store water for irrigation of the yard.

Phat Energy had these super cool Phatports. They are structures similar to a pergola style patio cover but they have solar panels on the roof area. You can use these as carports, patios, etc. We are really excited about the possibility of putting one in our backyard to cover our patio area. We had thought previously about an umbrella or a sail canopy or possibly even building a pergola style patio cover. This is super exciting though to think of having a covered patio that produces electricity to help offset our electrical usage.

Windows for a 1948 cottage

Sadly our house has only one original window left, well three if you count each of the windows that make up our bay window. The other windows in the original structure are aluminum windows that are leaking, with the exception of Ethan's bedroom which has a pair of vinyl windows and is not having any real problems thus far. We love the bay window and even before we bought the house we thought that getting it fixed was a good idea, no we haven't gotten it fixed yet.

Over the weekend we went to the Go Green Expo here in L.A. hoping to find some ideas for the house as well as other things. Well we had our first of the window people from the expo come over the other day to discuss replacing our windows with us. This window company's representative was too busy with another couple at the expo so I simply wrote down my information based on what I saw about them at the booth, they were a local company that manufactures their windows locally. Much to my surprise when the sales person showed up we quickly learned that they only sold vinyl windows which wasn't really what I wanted but I listened anyhow, well until he suggested that I replace my 62 year old bay window with vinyl windows. At that point he completely lost me.

Now I am back to the drawing board so to say looking for windows that will suit a 62 year old house that has been maintained very well overall. We still have the original wood floors, the original cabinets, the original tile counter tops and back splashes, the original tile work in the bathtub. Granted I don't plan to save all of it because the tile is in pretty bad shape, but I would like to maintain the original integrity of the house as best I can and to me that doesn't include vinyl windows.

Well last night I got a call from one of the other window companies that was at the expo, this was one that we actually got to talk to at the expo and learn a little bit about their product. I'm not certain how I feel about their windows yet as they are something a bit different from the old fashioned wood windows, but they are definitely closer in appearance to our bay window than many modern windows. I set up a time for someone to come out and discuss our windows with us, after all who knows if they will be the right option for our house or not.

Go Green Expo - L.A.

For us Pampers and the other big brands were never really an option regardless of the environmental impact of them because of our son's very sensitive bottom, of course it was never our intent to use the big brand diapers. Before our son was born we had ordered a case of Seventh Generation diapers to get us started. Later on we switched to gDiapers which are a hybrid diaper. They have flushable, compostable inserts that you put inside the vinyl liner. The vinyl liner is snapped into the little g pants which close in the back making it more difficult for little hands to open the diaper.

When we were at the Go Green Expo we got a chance to meet up with Michelle Carver Schnoor of gDiapers. gDiapers are something we have been using for about 2 years now. We initially bought them because they were more environmentally friendly disposables than the Seventh Generation diapers we were using at the time. Shortly after we began using gDiapers I then learned that some moms were using prefold cloth diapers in their little g pants so I went ahead and gave it a try. While the prefolds worked quite well in place of the flushable inserts they were quite bulky. I tried making my own cloth inserts to use in the g's so that they wouldn't be so bulky, but I never had great success getting them to be trim like the flushable inserts without causing a diaper rash on my little one's sensitive bottom.

I was ready to give up on my gDiapers when he outgrew his medium pants, but then gDiapers introduced their own cloth inserts. Excitement really overcame me when I heard the announcement of the cloth inserts. I was more than happy to order myself some more gDiapers and some cloth inserts and I awaited their arrival as patiently as I could manage. Let me just say that I absolutely love the new cloth inserts for gDiapers. They are nice and trim and easy to clean and are very absorbent. I do still use the flushable inserts from time to time as I always have, but for us the real love of gDiapers is the ability to use cloth in them. They are so easy to use and we rarely have a leak with them thanks to the nylon liner.

I even passed on our old mediums to my sister since her little one is smaller than ours. She absolutely loves the gDiapers with cloth too and is planning to use them on their next little one who she is expecting in March. These diapers hold up really well and can be passed on or saved for the next little one or even resold to another mom.

Go Green Expo - L.A.

We went out to the L.A. convention center today for the Go Green Expo. We had a very nice time there and learned about some great new products and even found some companies that we might be able to use in fixing up our newly acquired house.


Probably our favorite find of the day was the Vapur water bottles. We had been looking to replace our old Sigg water bottles with something free of BPA. These bottles are super cool. They fold completely flat when they are empty, are easy to fill up with water, have a sport cap for easy drinking, and you can even fill them half way with water and stick them in the freezer over night so you have ice cold water. We are already falling in love with our new water bottles, and the 2 and 1/2 year old is a huge fan already. He loves that he can squeeze the bottle to get the water out rather than having to tip the water bottle to get water out - much easier for the little one.

Master Bathroom (part 4) - shaving mirror

My husband had one additional request, a shaving mirror. We had one in the house we used to rent and I admit it was rather useful to have it. Now that he started straight razor shaving he thinks this will be even more useful to have than it was in the rental when he was just using a safety razor. I didn't realize just how expensive these shaving mirrors can get, some of them were several hundred dollars a piece. I knew there was no way we wanted to spend that much on a shaving mirror, at least not right now, so the search went on to find a reasonable shaving mirror for a more budget minded price. I actually managed to find one that extends up to 30 inches from the wall and is only $24.86 at The Home Depot. I figured that getting one that extends that far out might be rather useful, especially when I am cutting my own hair - getting the back is always a challenge. Of course if money were super tight I did actually find one for $4.99 at IKEA that reviewed equally well, but it only extends out 10 inches.

Master Bathroom (part 3) - extra storage

Once I decided that medicine chests were out of the question I moved on to finding some additional storage for the bathroom vanity area. I knew we really could use some additional storage that was easier to access than the storage we currently have under the counter top and would also be more attractive than just leaving the counter full of stuff as it currently is. It is really nice to be able to have some things out where they are in easy reach. I decided that maybe a black wrought iron look would be the best fit with the French antique theme I was hoping to achieve in the bathroom. Unfortunately most stores currently only sell free-standing storage units for the bathroom or single glass shelves that you mount directly to the wall. When I saw this one at IKEA for 19.99 it reminded me a bit of one I used to have at my parents house that was mounted to the wall for a bit of additional storage. I like the slightly less modern feel that this style of shelving option for a bathroom provides and the black wrought iron style of it will help it fit in with the black and white accents in the bathroom.

Master Bathroom (part 2) - vanity mirrors

I knew that I wanted new vanity mirrors because the ones in there right now aren't really our taste and they are just decorative mirrors that aren't even particularly well made and take up the entire wall above the counter top. They just feel too big to me, too overpowering especially for a room that has some really nice small details in it that lend themselves rather nicely to the feeling of an old French bathroom. So the search for new mirrors with a French antique feel to them was on.


I really wanted to find an actual antique, but being that I need two matching mirrors I didn't think that was going to be very likely to happen - especially in my price range. So I went online and searched. I found various mirrors that I thought might work. I even found wall mounted medicine cabinets that had a nice shape and feel to the mirrored front, but at about $250 a piece I just couldn't even bring myself to seriously consider them. Of course I prefer to at least start off a bit cheaper and take it from there if the cheaper option(s) doesn't work out. As far as the more affordable options go, I found these mirrors at IKEA for $29.99 which means $60 for two new vanity mirrors. I just love how they hang from the wall on a chain and ribbon, to me it gives them a bit of that old antique feel that I was hoping to find. I think the lace detailing around the edge of the mirror also lends itself to that antique look and feel that I was hoping to achieve also.

Master Bathroom

I have finally figured out what I want to do with the master bathroom. It isn't that we really dislike the way it was when we bought the house, it is fine. It is more just a case that the decorative tile in the shower and other details in the bathroom just go unnoticed. The decorative tile in the shower goes unnoticed until you get into the shower which seems like a shame to me, why spend money on decorative tile if you are just going to let it go unnoticed. Knowing that I wanted to make the decorative tiles and other small touches in the bathroom stand out more is where my idea stemmed from. I decided that in order help pull out the blue in the decorative tiles and add to the French theme that the towel bars and toilet roll holder and a lot of the other smaller things in the bathroom seem to have I would go with a nice traditional blue toile for a curtain. This would also help make the room appear more finished as having a bare window in there right now just makes the room feel unfinished to me.

This isn't necessarily the exact toile I will use to make the curtain for the bathroom window, but it provides an idea of what the curtain will look like. Now that the curtain was decided I was left figuring out what else to do with the room to make it feel more finished and make it work better for us. I knew we also needed to find a new paint color for the bathroom because to us the bathroom is just not that inviting. It is a muddy shade, not a bad color really but just not something we feel is appropriate for a large bathroom like ours. I know we both loved the bathroom of our last place at grad school and that was a rather bright bathroom with a retro feel to it. It was two different shades of green with bright white as the third color. I don't think that color scheme would work in this bathroom of course, but I know we both like a nice cheerful bathroom. I think that when I have a brighter color on the walls of my bathroom it helps me to wake up and start my day off on a more positive step. I think that a nice light and fairly bright shade of yellow would be a good match for the blue in the toile and the decorative tile work. I still have to pick the exact color for the walls, but a friend suggested The Freshaire Choice for a non-VOC paint. I did notice that they have at least one yellow that might work for our bathroom (it's kind of hard to tel when looking at paint chips on the computer) - Delightful Daffodil. I still need to get paint chips for The Freshaire Choice line of paints and see if I can find some other good non-VOC paints that are available locally. A non-VOC paint is very important to us for the interior of our house because we really don't want to breath in all that stuff while we are painting or to need to air the house out for several weeks after painting. Non-VOC paints are just a much healthier paint option.

Rainwater Collection

As we have begun to get our rains I am once again giving thought to what the best way to collect some of that FREE water and store it for use in watering our landscape and even washing the car is. The options are seemingly endless if you have the space to dedicate to storing the water, but we don't have a huge yard and I'm not so sure I want to tear it up to bury tanks or give up otherwise usable space to store above ground tanks. I am looking at a few storage options that would fit along the side of our house where we have a rather long walkway that is about 4 feet wide.

Of course before I can decide on a system I first need to determine just how much water I will be able to harvest from our roof. I was rather surprised to find that our area gets about 22 inches of rainfall annually, part of the shock for me was due to the fact that almost all of our rain is in the winter months. That is a fair bit of rain to receive over a short period of time in an area that is so dry that the water generally just runs right off the yard without really soaking in during rains or even a good watering.

Anyhow, for those of you interested in storing water in a fairly tight space two options in collection tanks I have found are the Waterwall Fatboy and the Rainwater Hog. Both are modular (you can connect multiple tanks together). The Rainwater Hog is the narrower of the two at only 20” wide x 9.5” deep x 71” tall but it only holds 50 gallons per tank and a cost of about $400 per tank (accessories are extra). The Waterwall Fatboy is the largest I have found holding 650 gallons per tank and measuring in at 7'6" long x 6’7" high x 2'4" deep at a cost of about $1200 per tank (accessories are extra).

I did also find a 214 gallon rainwater collection system that measures 69" long X 22" deep X 45" high. I didn't however see an option to add additional tank(s) to this system. The complete rainwater collection system is currently selling for about $1200.

Of course smaller rain barrels (about 55 gallons) could also fit along the wall, but I could only fit so many of them before I run out of space. And unlike the Rainwater Hog traditional rain barrels have a larger footprint and also aren't designed to allow stacking. I guess once I calculate out how much water can be harvested from the roof I will know just how much water I would need room to store, but until then I can think about all the great options out there for collecting and storing such a precious resource as water.

Bottled Water

I will admit that sometimes it is really nice to have a bottle of water beside you, but I really hate to think of throwing out all of those plastic bottles. Yes, I know they can be recycled and yes I do recycle what I can, but to me that doesn't mean it's alright to discard stuff just cause it can be recycled. Recycling is the third part of Reduce-Reuse-Recycle. We should always first try to reduce what we use, then we should reuse what we can, and only after those two have been done should we recycle what is left.

For today's little project I took an old glass soda bottle with a screw on lid and cleaned it up and removed the label from it and now I have a lovely glass water bottle to keep on my night stand or on the table while we are eating our meals so that there is always water on hand to refill our glasses with. I like it so much that next time I buy soda I may keep the bottle again for keeping fresh lemonade and other good stuff in.

My evolving diet

Through my adulthood my diet has slowly changed for various reasons. I more or less gave up on all pork after getting a bad case of food poisoning from a pork sandwich once. I have cut back on most dairy over the years as a result of my body having difficulty in processing milk and cheese products. I have slowly been eating less and less meat over time for many reasons - first because it was just expensive when I had little money, then because I was really afraid of getting salmonella or some other food born pathogen, after that I became more concerned over the environmental impact that eating meat has and the way the animals are treated, and now I am beginning to realize that when I have a reasonable amount of meat with any given meal I feel really heavy after I'm done (think about how you feel after Thanksgiving dinner or any other really big feast) and sometimes the next day I wake up feeling a little under the weather (as if I am coming down with a cold).

This is how my diet has slowly evolved to being primarily vegetarian and leaning towards vegan for the most part. I must say that this evolution of my diet has had some wonderful effect already. I get sick less often that I used to. I don't feel so heavy or uncomfortable after I eat. I have been losing weight without even trying. I have been eating more and more fresh foods and have even begun to buy more locally produced food. I have also grown to have a big interest in growing my own food. I have also begun to be far more willing to experiment in the kitchen, this has led us to find many new favorite foods. I am also very happy that our 2 and 1/2 year old son loves his fruits and veggies and other healthy foods so much, he will choose a good piece of fruit over a cookie any day.

Planning a garden

I have been starting to plan out our "garden" for a while now, but now that the house is painted and we are getting closer to fencing in our front yard the time to start the labor of planting things is quickly approaching me. I intend to transplant the vast majority of plants that were already on the property when we bought the house. We are hoping to go with an English cottage style garden in the front yard. Basically no grass, just flowers and herbs and things with paths going through the yard. I am still trying to decide on how I want to add a seating area to the front yard - do I want a small patio area in the middle of the yard or would it be better just to have a bench in front of one of the trees or a combination of the two (a patio area right off the tree with a bench and table and chairs).

While I looking up herbs (how tall they get, how far they need to be spaced out, what kind of environment they prefer, etc.) I stumbled upon this great webpage that discusses companion planting. This is of great interest to me because I prefer to keep as organic a gardening atmosphere as possible and knowing what to plant next to what to help control pests is very useful information. I was really excited to see that I can help deter aphids by planting garlic next to my roses. This was super exciting to me because last year I had a huge infestation of aphids in the rose garden at the house we were renting and the house we bought has several rose bushes as well. If you don't know what aphids are you are really lucky cause they are so disgusting to have all over your rose bushes. I saw them on pretty much every rose bush in town last year so I really hope that planting garlic with my rose bushes keeps those nasty aphids away.

Here is a link to the webpage I stumbled across on companion planting: http://www.thefarm.org/charities/i4at/lib2/complant.htm

The house is painted

We are so happy with the results of having our house painted. The painters did an excellent job. We already had one neighbor request a business card from our painter and another one asked me what we paid for all the work. I know several other houses in the area could use a fresh coat of paint like our house just got. For us it was as much about maintenance as it was about aesthetics. Some of the wood trim on our house had no paint left on it and was beginning to warp due to exposure to all the elements. Hopefully we caught it early enough not to have any bigger problems where the wood had been so exposed.

Greener Laundry

We have a rather unique way of doing laundry in our house. We have a single unit that is a washer and a dryer in the same unit, no it is not a standard item in stores so we had to special order it. One of the great things about the washer dryer we got is that it also has a delay timer on it so we can set it to do our laundry while we sleep which then allows us to conveniently use off-peak electricity to do our laundry. Of course to further increase our savings I hang some of our things to air dry on racks in the house and in the summer I love to hang the clothes outside to dry.

One of the odd things with our washer is that if I am going to use the dryer to dry my clothes I can only put in a half load of laundry (luckily half of a huge load is still a very large load) and set my washing machine to do a wash and dry. Of course since we have both the washer and dryer in one unit it takes a while for the clothes to dry because it runs on 110-volts of electricity, but since we run it while we are asleep anyhow it really doesn't matter to us that it takes longer. Our washer is also very water and energy efficient so we qualified for rebates from our water and electric companies when we purchased it. The rebates helped to make the washer a little more affordable. I also love how clean our clothes get in our new washer. I only use about half of a portion of detergent (I then split that between the regular wash cycle and prewash cycle) about half a portion of softener and some OxyClean. That gets almost all of my very rambunctious two and a half year old's stains out of his clothes, no pre treating or stain sticks or anything.

Go Green Expo - L.A.

Business-to-Business Expo
Friday, January 22, 2010 • 10am - 5pm

Open to Public
Saturday, January 23, 2010 • 10am - 6pm
Sunday, January 24, 2010 • 10am - 5pm

The Los Angeles Convention Center
1201 South Figueroa Street
Los Angeles, CA 90015
www.lacclink.com

THE LOS ANGELES CONVENTION CENTER IS THE FIRST CONVENTION CENTER IN THE U.S. OF ITS SIZE AND AGE AND THE FIRST L.A. CITY BUILDING TO BE AWARDED LEED® GREEN BUILDING CERTIFICATION FOR EXISTING BUILDINGS BY THE USGBC

Tickets:
Friday: Complimentary to Business Buyers (please bring your business card for admission)
Saturday & Sunday: $10 for a full weekend pass / open to both business buyers & consumers.


for more information: http://www.gogreenexpo.com/events/index.php?evid=13

Vintage finds

Shopping vintage is one of the greenest ways to find some stylish clothes and accessories. It is also much kinder on the pocketbook than those big department stores and those cute boutique shops. At $14 for the red suede heels and $10 for the sequined and beaded blue flats you really can't do better, especially since the red heels are the most comfortable heels I have ever worn - even more comfortable than the Easy Spirit Spa's that I used to own. I really love the satisfaction I get from finding a great and stylish bargain that I will be able to love for sometime, I try to only buy items I truly love and enjoy.

DIY - tiered serving tray

With one dozen cupcakes for our little New Years get together last night I was left wondering how to serve them up in style. I decided on creating my own tiered serving tray to display them, I figured that adding a little height to my cupcake display would make them look more stylish. How did I make a tiered serving tray at the last minute you may wonder. It was actually very simple. I took one full sized dinner plate placed a coffee/tea cup in the center of the plate upside down, then I placed my dessert plate on top of the coffee/tea cup as to balance the plate. Then I just added the cupcakes to the plates. Next time I do this to display my cupcakes I may try adding some museum putty to help hold all the pieces together. Of course you could get some flea market finds or even use some chipped dishes and permanently bond them together to make a tiered serving tray.