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.