Use What You Have

Quick!  Name something that's really easy to do and green at the same time.  Oh, that's a good one!  You should put that in the comments.  

I was thinking about using something that we already have rather than buying something new - no matter how environmentally-friendly the new thing is.  It's still better to use what you have until it fails to meet your needs.  (And as my dad used to always ask me, "do you need it or just want it?"  My dad should be proud every time he looks at the sink in our new kitchen!)

Mr. Green Stuff and I really wanted to replace our old sink with a different one.  Our original plan was to reclaim an old farm house sink (with the drainboard and all!) but then we remembered how scratched and disgusting the porcelain sink was that came with our house.  After that was scratched off the list, we talked about a trendy under-mount sink.  We weren't looking for trendy and we were concerned with the bowling alley counters being exposed to that much water so that was nixed.  Then we looked at new square stainless steel sinks.  They were all really great looking but then realized they weren't that much different than the one we put in our kitchen when we bought our house.

So here's what we put in:

Our old sink.  Isn't it lovely?  It may not be the oldest, the coolest, the trendiest, or the fanciest sink around but it makes me happy that we kept it.  And that makes it fancy-cool to me! 
 
What have you been able to reuse lately? 

Peace,

Stacey

How We Turned A Bowling Alley Lane Into A Kitchen Counter (Day 1)

This was a daunting task.  I knew we could do it but it was one of those things that I was just afraid to begin.  We kind of kept putting it off until neither of us could park in the garage, the cabinets were scheduled to be installed, and, well, we just knew it was time.

We knew the dimension we wanted and we knew one of the bowling alley lanes was in much better condition than the other so the "good" one was picked to be our 9' section.  Each one was 10 feet long so not much was needed off the ends.  The sides were another story because bowling alleys are 42 inches wide.  As a reference, a standard counter is 25 inches deep.  I just assumed we make this job as easy as possible because each one of those skinny little boards is 2.5 inches deep and held to the adjacent ones with screws and/or nails.  I thought "we" would just cut one side off but lucky for me, I'm married to a guy who like things done the right way.  Having a carpenter (with all his knowledge and tools) as a friend is also very handy.

Anyway, the boys cut off equal amounts from each side so the arrows would be centered at the end of my "new" counter!

Another interesting tidbit is that even though there are thousands of screws holding these lanes together, braces are still needed underneath to keep the center from sagging or bowing!  Luckily, I did my research and knew this and the guys were smart enough to shorten and replace the braces that were already in place so we could just reuse what we had.

In order to put the counter on top of the cabinets, the brace could not cover all of the boards in the bowling alley.  We decided to put 10 inch screws into the front not only to secure the last 2 or 3 boards but also to simulate the look of the screws throughout the entire lane-turned-counter.

Before those screws were put in though, I wanted a line routed into the face of the front piece of wood.  This exaggerated what was already there because the edge of counters shows how each board is slightly tongue-and-grooved to the next one.  I thought it would look cool if this was more prominent.

After they brought the giant and heavy bowling alley counter-top inside to scribe it to the wall, it had to go back outside to actually be scribed and then sanded.  (I was not part of this scribing process so if you're using this as a tutorial, let me know and I can find out how they did it.)

Sanding the old sealant off, baffled us.  It wasn't just the potential toxins in the sealant but I also didn't know what to use.  I didn't know if we should rent an industrial floor sander or simply use our palm sander and the belt sander that our friend owns.  We ended up using a combination of a hand sander (I felt very 19th Century) and the palm and belt sanders. 

We started with 80 grit sandpaper and progressed all the way up to 220 grit to make it nice and smooth.  It was very messy and I've never been so happy to wear a face mask!

It was tedious work but achieved the look we wanted.

The next step was to get it back into the house so it could be sealed but sealing is another day and another post.  (Spoiler alert!  It turned out great.  We've been using is since the last week of November.)

Peace,

Stacey

Barn Wood Shelves

My reclaimed barn wood shelves went up in the kitchen last weekend!

And I couldn't be happier.  (Well, maybe if the painting was finished but let's not get greedy here!)

I found a listing on craigslist for reclaimed wood from local barns.  (Yes, craigslist again!)  Our vision was to use something exactly like that for the "new" kitchen shelves... that was until one of my friends asked me about the wood she had just purchased.  She was concerned about lead paint and unlike our floors, her's came with a enough of that antique red paint to raise a red (pun intended) flag!  

But I digress... I found something local AND reclaimed!  What a score!  I just asked for pieces where all the paint had faded or chipped off... mostly.

Who needs a truck when a Prius can haul 7' boards?

We were still concerned about the lead issue so we decided not to sand this wood.  We'd learned from installing our reclaimed floors that after about 5 coats of water-based polyurethane, most of the bumps, scratches, and splinters are smooth. That's what we ("we" meaning Mr. Green Stuff) did here.  After many, many coats, we ("we" includes me here because I held the boards!) cut the barn siding to the proper length to transform them into our shelves.

I searched for months trying to find some used shelving brackets that would be strong enough and fit properly. I failed.  I finally found these super, cute ones from a manufacturer in Texas.

And even though someone had his doubts about the sturdiness of my purchases and someone else hem-hawed around because of the old paint, as you can see, they're up now!  And we're both happy!

Let's just hope there is no more drama involving these shelves!

Peace,

Stacey

Our "Scrap" Backsplash

We got a "new" backsplash behind our oven.

And the best part is that I salvaged it!  

I feel like I need to explain a little because "salvaged" might not exactly be the best way to describe it.  It's more like the idea of something being recycled out of "post-industrial waste" rather than "post-consumer waste." 

My dad has a factory that uses this galvanized sheet metal.  The sheet we used for our backsplash is cut from the scraps left over after the machine is fully assembled.  I guess it's best described as "salvaged post-industrial waste" then, right?

Whatever you want to call it, I'm happy because I saved this piece from being recycled or sold on craigslist, which is where I convinced him the rest need to go. 

We had planned on having a local sheet metal shop create the same look out of stainless steel.  That would have been a perfect match.  I would have been supporting a local business.  And it wouldn't have had that little dent in it near the bottom.  I realize all that but it wouldn't have had the same story.  (You know the story about my dad and the salvaged post-industrial waste!)  It also would have cost a lot more and wouldn't have had that cute little dent. 

So how do you classify this?  Salvaged?  Reclaimed?  Repurposed?  I kind of like my new phrase.  Salvaged post-industrial waste has a nice ring to it.  Plus, I kept something out of the recycling bin for a while and I used another person's trash to make my new treasure.

Peace,

Stacey

Repurposed Champagne Cork Cabinet Knobs

I have knobs on my kitchen cabinets!!!

I might not have toe/kick plates under the cabinets yet.  I might not have all the cabinet doors painted yet but I have knobs on the doors that I have finished so far.  And, aren't they awesome?!?  I reused something that's renewable!

Mr. Green Stuff saved all the corks from almost every bottle he'd had when we met.  We continued to do this together for years.  When I noticed we had so many of them they were taking over, I found a place to recycle them.  We kept the ones with sentimental value.  (He always wrote on the ones he saved.)  And now I know why!  We're using champagne corks in our "new" kitchen.

Here's how "we" did it with step-by-step directions so you can do the same.

1. Figure out where you want your knob.  (We wanted ours to line up with the corner of our recessed panel.)  Use a pencil to put a dot there.  We used a laser level to ensure they all lined up.

2. Drill the hole exactly where you put your dot.

3. Place cork over the hole and screw into it from the back.  (We used extra flooring screws, if it matters.)

4. Straighten any design on the top of the cork in order to step back and admire your green skills!

I've read a lot about the durability of our new cabinet knobs.  It appears that they should last a long time but if they don't, I guess we'll have to drink some more delicious champagne.  Darn.

I'm so happy.  Not only are we reusing something; we're reusing something that has meaning to us.  Let me know what you have reused lately in the comment section.  I'd love to hear about it!

Peace,

Stacey

How We Installed Our Reclaimed Floors

Last weekend was quite productive around here.  Check, check, check it out:

The finished reclaimed tobacco barn wood floor

I know!  They're beautiful... but they took a lot of work.  It all started late Friday night.  Mr. Green Stuff and I put on our work gloves and jumped right in to our pile of splintery wood.  For us the real beauty of this wood is that it came from those old barns in Pennsylvania but that also gave us our own set of problems.  The splinters were the worst for me.  (And by "the worst for me" I don't mean to imply that I ended up with the most splinters because I didn't. I am the only one still whining about them though.)  I just mean the other issues like a few warped boards and figuring out the layout were easier to work around.

When the flooring came from Olde Wood Limited we received four different widths of boards.  I didn't really think it was a big deal because we had roughly (pun intended) 25% of each of the 3", 4", 5", and 6" widths.  I figured we would pick out the boards as we worked our way across the room and it would be fine.  I'm not sure what I was thinking!  I should have known that Mr. Green Stuff would never go for that.  But I digress.... back to Friday night!  We laid out our floor.  There is no particular pattern but we did arrange it so our favorite boards are in the middle of the room. 

Hmm... decisions, decisions

After we had our design arranged, we wanted a "map" of where each board would go.  With this plan Saturday could be all about installing rather than about thinking or planning.  We labeled the back of each piece of wood with a permanent marker.  I wanted this to be as simple as possible (remember I originally wanted to "wing" it) so I naturally called the first row "Row 1" and then each board was given a letter with A being the one to the far left of the room, then B, C, etc.  On the boards that needed trimmed to fit, I put an "X" on the end that I wanted removed.  Confused?  Here's an example: the eighteenth row needed four boards to span the room so we had boards labeled 18A, 18B, 18C, and 18D. 18C needed the right end cut in order to fit so there was an X on the back of it where it would be shortened. We also wrote down (on the map) that they were 3" wide.

As we labeled them, I stacked them on the far side of the room with the last row (28 if you're curious) on the bottom. Once they were in the correct order all we really needed to do during installation was to grab the ones on top and make sure we used A first. (O.K., maybe I'm totally into organization, too.)

All stacked up and ready to go.

Saturday morning while I was teaching yoga, Mr. Green (with a little help) began installing the floor.  Other than being so loud that we had to open the windows and wear ear plugs, it went remarkably well... aside from a few more splinters.  It worked out well.  From our Friday night design, we only needed to substitute one board because the original was warped and replace another one due to a miss-cut.  The whole floor was installed in time for a late lunch.

Ask around before purchasing tools. My brother-in-law let us borrow this "gun."

After our break, the treads were installed on the stairs and the landing was redesigned (we stole our replacement boards from here) and installed.

I love the look of the white paint with the natural floors.

Some friends stopped by to see our progress, which led to some Dark and Stormies, which in turn led to a later-than-anticipated night.  We didn't want them to leave because we knew something else that was "dark and stormy" was looming; the polyurethane was calling our names.  I was dreading this because my mom had warned me about how stinky polyurethane is.  I tried to find one with very few VOCs but it's not easy.  I found a water-based one (rather than oil) but it still had "less than 275 grams per liter."

Guess what?  It turns out that it's not that hard to seal a floor and the polyurethane we found wasn't stinky.  In fact, the smell was almost unnoticeable.  We wanted to get two coats on before we went to bed so around midnight we watched the documentary Bag It while we waited for the first coat to dry.  (I'm pretty sure I saw about 90% of it. From what I saw, I think it is definitely worth a watch!  Plus, the friend I borrowed it from highly recommends it.) Then we applied the second coat.

What?  Everyone else doesn't scavenge for danger tape?

Sunday morning we loved the way the floors looked but some of the really big scratches and knotholes were still rough, which made me fear splinters.  In order to avoid them, we decided to apply another coat.  I sanded the floors with an orbital sander using 220 grit paper.  This barely even dulled the sheen but it was enough to get the next coat to adhere.   And the next coat!  After the fourth coat, we were ready to call it quits.  And not just because the polyurethane was starting to stink.  The floor looked great but there were two spots that were still a bit raised.  It wasn't enough for me to notice with my hand but I could feel my socks snagging on it SO we sanded one more time and applied our final coat of poly!  (We're officially on a nickname basis, poly and I, after all the time we've spent together.)

Now they look and feel gorgeous.  I'm loving our "new" floor.  I'm going to need to keep an eye one Mr. Green Stuff though.  He crazily mentioned how great it would look in the dining room.  I'm just going to ignore that comment for now.

Have you ever started a project like this where you assumed you could figure it out but had no real knowledge about the process when you started?  I didn't even know what an orbital sander was before this!

Peace,

Stacey

Zero VOC Paint

Today is another painting day in our kitchen.  The floors are being installed tomorrow and the risers on the stairs coming from the back door needed to be painted first. How did those get overlooked?!?  

It's like one of those M.C. Escher optical illusion pictures.

Anyway, I thought I should say something about VOCs.

What are VOCs, you ask?  The short answer is that volatile organic compounds are what make new paint smell.  Stinky things are usually high in VOCs. (A high "chemically" smell is often a good indication but not always.)  The problem with those smells is that they lead to potentially dangerous indoor air pollution.  

If you want to really delve in deep, here's a great article from the Minnesota Department of Health about VOCs.  It covers common types of VOCs (like formaldehyde), where they come from (couches, carpets, cosmetics, etc.), health effects (anything from headaches to cancer), and most importantly how to reduce our exposure (removal or containment) and more.  I think it's worth the read if you have a few minutes.

So like I mentioned before, we picked a (very affordable) paint with zero VOCs.

This is one of my favorite songs that talks about VOCs. Thanks, Train, for this line:
I wanna buy you everything except cologne 'cause it's poison.

Have a non-stinky day!

Peace,

Stacey

The Coolest Light in My House

Mr. Green Stuff made my day when I walked in to see this.  Obviously, it was my evening that he made but there's no catchy cliche about making someone's evening.

My "new" mid-century light!

I already introduced you to this light and its sister, which will hang in the dining room over our table, but now that one of them is out of the box, I wanted to show it off.

Seriously, I knew the new walls (made in the U.S.A. drywall!) and ceiling needed painted before the light when up, but I was still surprised to see this go up almost as soon as that made in the U.S.A., VOC-free paint dried.

I was also pleasantly surprised about how well it lights the room.  I was starting to worry.  Now I feel better.

The wrinkle to this beauty is in the switch.  I bought some of those motion sensor light switches.  (You know the kind. If you leave the room and forget to turn off the light it does it for you after a couple of minutes.)  Well, apparently, the ones I bought are specific to incandescent light bulbs.  

Do you know what happens when you use an energy efficient light bulb with those babies?  Well, let me tell you.  Discos!  Discos happen.  The light was constantly flickering... even when it was turned off.  It was enough to drive a girl mad!  I was starting to doubt my 50ish year old light fixture could be on a motion sensor but it was the 2 year old light bulb I took out of the replaced fixture that was the problem. 

Yes, the website clearly indicates that it is not a switch for CFL or LED light bulbs but the packaging doesn't make it as obvious.  I was totally perplexed when we discovered the problem.  An energy efficient light switch that only works with light bulbs that are energy hogs!  The irony.

Oh, and I failed to mention the smell...

Those switches are going back to the store.  And I'm back to the drawing board.  

Have you ever had a problem like that?  Please, tell me I'm not the only one... especially since this isn't my first time with a similar problem.
Peace,

Stacey

Barn Wood Kitchen Floors Have Arrived

Look what was delivered yesterday!!

Our "new" kitchen floors!! I know!  I'm so excited!  (You can tell from all the exclamation marks, right?)

Our "new" kitchen floors are reclaimed from an old barn.  A tobacco drying barn from Pennsylvania to be exact.  I know.  Awesome, right?  Don't worry; the irony of its first life is not lost on me, the non-smoker.

They're knicked, scratched, knotty, and full of holes.  As promised, there's no smell just those beautiful (ugly?) stains left behind from the drying process.

Want to see what my steps are going to look like?

And, yes, I did check to see how the flooring would be packaged.  (Thanks to the suggestions in this book.)  I didn't want a lot of wasted packaging like boxes or shrink-wrap.  I was reassured to find out that the packaging would be very minimal.  (I guess they figured it wouldn't matter if it was jostled around in the semi since the scratches are part of the beauty.)  See those little binding strips in the first pictures?  Besides the pallet they were stacked on, that's all there was.  It's almost like buying in bulk.
 
Now we just have to wait 2 weeks to let the wood acclimated to our house and the local weather before we can install them.  I hope the fact that it's been drizzly for a couple days doesn't matter.

Peace,

Stacey

How I Became A Bowling Ball Today

I love craigslist because here's what I got to do today!

Yep, that's me on top of a bowling alley out in a field!

I guess you'd like the back story.  We've decided to remodel our crumbling kitchen.  Yikes!  I know.  I'd rather not need to because it's impossible to ignore all the materials that go into a project like this... and come out from the last remodel that happened in 1994.  We know that because it is printed on the bottom of our counter top.  Our old counter top that is.  Take a look at that beautiful bowling alley lane up there.  You're looking at our next kitchen counter.  One day in the not so distant future that will be in my new "old" kitchen!  I know!  Awesome, right?

I had this crazy idea to have reclaimed gymnasium floors in our kitchen, which led me to the idea of having bowling alley floors.  Well, did you know that bowling alley lanes are more than 2 inches thick?  It makes sense but I had no idea.  Clearly, that would be way more work than I could do.  Then I thought, "hmmm... what about counters?"  And the idea started to grow.

This week, I found some old bowling alley lanes for sale on craigslist and with a lot of help from an amazing, adventurous, and uber-green friend, two 10 feet sections are sitting in my garage right now!  Yes, she's that cool!  And now I know that her husband is equally as cool because he's really the one who did all the work.  He hooked up the trailer to his monster truck, packed the cab with people, and drove us around for 7 hours. Oh, yeah, and loaded and unloaded these babies!  He's the only one smart enough to wear gloves.

Who knew bowling alley lanes were so heavy??

Yep, all that for bowling alleys... that I don't even know how to turn into counters.  I'm pretty sure I've never "built" anything before.  Ever!  Nothing like starting big, I guess.

I love that new life is being given to these old lanes.  The guy I bought them from said the bowling alley has been closed since 1992.  I'm surprised how great they look after 20 years of being ignored. 

Oh, and before you ask, I know almost as little about bowling as I do about counter tops.  The bowling alley in my hometown was hit by an airplane when I was a kid.  Regardless, I'm pretty sure I'm going to start learning a lot more about bowling or at least bowling alleys!

Now does anyone know how I can get my hands on any old high school gym floors?  I'd love to hear some ideas for flooring or any other reclaimed products in your home.

Peace,

Stacey