New safety deposit box is a two-fer

It was nice that moving our safety deposit box contents from a bank to a credit union saved us 40%. It was a fun bonus that we're no longer doing business, even if indirectly, with Diebold..

Rug mats--nonskid but slippery

Getting back to rug mats. My hardwood floor guy hadn't seen anything on the "made with 100% plant based. . ." mats, so wouldn't  say yay or no. Only that bigger holes for breathe-ability was key.

I ordered two anyway, from an established natural rug company. I have to say, they are quite sticky--I mean that rug is not going to slide one bit, and making a shift on purpose is a hands and knees fussy chore. (February 2013 update:  I pulled up the runner to clean the floor. Had to get  down on my hands and knees to scrub off a residue left my my new mat. So I really don't recommend them now!  And when I politely wrote to their salespeople to let them know my experience--I owed them that--they didn't give me the courtesy of a reply. So now they shall be named: "Natural Area Rugs")

I like better the older one I already had, which had been given to me (re-use!). And to me the info on the package of the new ones (and the info from asking the dealer) to be unsatisfactory. "Made with" is not saying what other ingredients were included, implying 100% plant based without actually saying so. Made in China is what it was.

So, I don't think it is worth paying more to get a "green" but slippery label.

Green backfirings--re-use and more

Re-use goof-up
I guess I re-used that talcum powder shaker one time too many. And yeah, I guess I knew that the bottom plug no longer fit tightly. I guess the housing was cracked.

Still, what a surprise when that cloud of powder flew. Onto pantleg and shoe and sock, onto the toilet seat, the rest of the toilet, the bath rug, the linoleum, into the little trash can. And into the air. Whew!  Is that why they call it the "powder room?" One more reason to switch to cornstarch--isn't talcum unsafe to breathe?

Took me a day to decide how to clean it up. I could picture the vacuum cleaner bag emitting white puffs in future vacuumings. The alternative of a wet rag sounded like a pasty mess. I ended up using a bit of rag I could just garbage afterwards. And I washed the trash can (the smell was lingering).

Natural soil improvement--or not
While I'm thinking of it, we've had an apparent backfire in one garden bed. The green idea of applying compost on top of poor soil and let time and worms and microbes make a good soil structure. I think it is still a good idea, but not in every case.


The dirt that was turned up for the patio excavation and placed behind the retaining wall was kind of OK along one portion of the wall, but at the end it's been a bed of death for a succession of plantings, even with the planting hole well amended. I didn't listen to the contractor who suggested we could haul away the dirt-- he'd just shaped into place!--and bring in fresh topsoil.

Even the native deer ferns, our last attempt, died or look bad. But the hardy geranium that crawled over from the neighbors' garden is doing well. Go figure. We know we  messed up on one shrub--when a buck pushed it over we failed to get it re-planted in time to prevent substantial root death. And we didn't have quite enough sun there for native lupine. But the lupine didn't even make much attempt the year after we planted nice big ones.  It's the soil. Maybe the original contractor put some nasty stuff into what he buried under the original deck, and we brought it up unawares. We'll never know.

But most times, greener actions are working out fine, so I will plow forward, so to speak. And try to retain my sense of humor.

Halloween is like real life

There was a “For Better or For Worse” cartoon strip in which Michael is all set for trick-or-treating with his friends. He’s a WWI flying ace. With helmet, goggles and, of course, the flowing white scarf. Even better, a cardboard biplane replica hangs from his shoulders, putting him in the cockpit. He is so cool!

He and his plane are almost out the door when Mom tells him to take his little sister Lizzie along, just until Mom can get out. Michael thinks it is a disaster that will cramp the boys’ style.

But at door after door the homeowners exclaim how nice it is to see the little one out with the bigger kids, and they dump extra candy in the group's bags. So when Mom arrives as promised to take Lizzie, Michael says, “Never mind, Mom—we’ll keep her!”

Michael has learned something new, and so can I. 

I can enjoy the creative masks and costumes of businesses and political campaigners looking for candy for themselves or their sponsors. And then, reward those who are looking out for Lizzie, whether she is our sister, our community or our beleaguered planet. 

Hardwood flooring leads to rugs which. . .

. . .which lead to rug pads or mats. Another choice to make, not that I should complain!  Mr. W has secretly saved up for nicer wool rugs and they are going to be great in the hall and living room.

The floor care information left by the installer calls for an open weave mat under rugs. I find vinyl with tiny air spaces, and I find a nice-looking flat mat made of PVC material. Hmm.

I also found an "Eco Hold Non Slip" rug pad online. Says it is made from plant oils. So I've called my floor guy and will let you know what he says.

70-year old dining chairs

It hadn't sunk in how old this dining set was when I bought it. They were marked 1942, still with the label of the manufacturer, Showers Brothers. One looked like a throw-away, braced as it had been with plywood. The rest seemed sturdy, that's all I went by. That, and that the label underneath indicated "mhg" for mahogany, and we were enamoured with the idea of expanding our "Duncan Pyfe style" (we have lugged around a drop leaf table for 30 years) and we have mahogany (we thought) china hutches.

I didn't know whether it was realistic to refinish them, or anything about the process. Once I had made the trip a hundred miles to look at the set, I pressed on and bought it. Not good logic, I know, but the price came down quite low as I examined each item closely, and before I knew it, a friend and I were placing and padding, bracing, strapping and bungeeing for the trip back home.

I went to a local furniture guy who fixed the table's pedestal leg. So far so good. But he wasn't a specialist at refinishing and I began to think there was more to this than getting a bottle of stripper and cans of stain and varnish. (I was right about that.)

The chairs came out very well--pretty color and finish to match the table, which my photo doesn't show. Also "well" in the sense of healed--they are almost new in their sturdiness and first-rate finish. What the photo really shows is the construction underneath the seat. According to Kelly at the shop, that cross-piece business is the main key to the chairs' longevity. They are relatively lightweight (some of the high-priced new chairs are heavy, not congruent with gracious living) and Kelly has seen almost new chairs in to his shop because they came apart, even at the $300+ price level.

I found the right shop. Kelly knew to glue the de-lamination I hadn't even seen, then strip (by hand, no dipping), then glue again and patch a couple of places, then sand, stain with a special stain you and I don't find. Then, because the chairs are mostly maple and very little mahogany, some "toning" to even out the color, and finally the varnish. Joyce, did I do right?  I didn't buy new. $1,000 in refinishing went into the local economy, including the sixth chair that wasn't a throw-away after all. 

Magogany?  Kelly said it's too brittle--that's why veneers and small bits are used, but maple for the main frame.

Dining set: buy new or refinish a used set?

It's been a "Be careful what you wish for" summer, with one thing leading to another. The desire to pull out the upstairs carpeting in favor of a wood floor kept me busy for two months. No, I'd say three. And we didn't even install the floor ourselves. There was packing and moving out, at least to the garage and downstairs. And then painting. And then the question, "Do we really want to put all this stuff back like it was?" That question generated weeks of work. And back and shoulder pain. Kick me if I ever propose to install pull-out shelves in an existing cabinet again. This was for music storage, and it's nice, but the manufacturer wasn't kidding when they rated the alternate installation on exact-sized uprights as "challenging."

How we arrived at swapping out our dining table and chairs, who can remember? Oh, yes. The rolling office chair that was more comfortable than the hard dining chairs now is a problem--non-rubber wheels that likely would dent and groove our new floor. Skipping the details, let's just report that I drove our pickup to Renton for a Craigslist 1942 table and chairs in the Duncan Phyfe style.

When I got there it was clear the chairs would need refinishing, the table a repair, and were they really the mahogany we had set our caps for?

What we didn't know about furniture! However, the instinct to stay with "old" seem to be turning out well, if our repair and refinish expert is right.

So unlike the patio set, I didn't buy new from a factory far away, and instead boosted the local economy (the refinisher's business). We'll know in a couple of weeks how this calculus turns out.

Energy audit today

I felt like a corpuscle gliding throughout a hospital patient watching the doctor at work. The house was the patient. Every fan had a tube dropping down from the small gap under the cover. The cold air return was sealed off, half with green tape and the other half by the "doctor" who clapped on a cap, it's hose running to some digital measuring device.

That was one small part of nearly five hours of an energy audit. Darn it, I forgot to get a picture to post. But next week I'll sit down for the consultation and learn what can be done to make the house more energy efficient and comfy. Meanwhile I'll follow the advice not to use the fan in the laundry room--my technician Levi was able to induce a backdraft, which could be dangerous. It seems it can really matter what water heater you choose and how it is chimneyed. We (and the plumber) apparently didn't choose real well, given the furnace we have, the gas dryer nearby, and the vertical climb of the chimney to the roof.

I'm happy I did this audit.

Deal or no deal?

Isn’t it funny how we characterize commercial offers? Depends on whether we like or approve of the seller or not. A great idea is an incentive, like our local private electrical utility’s current offer. Called Green Power, they’ll put 100% of what we pay for our electricity into renewable sources—either buying the power or investing. We then pay a surcharge of 10%. Agreed, that’s not a savings for us the homeowners. But that’s not the deal. The current deal is they are giving out a popular local coupon book, “Where the Locals Go.” Right away I save the cost of the book and $10 off my favorite groceries. And this is just for our lights and fridge, not for heating and cooking, so 10% isn’t going to be a big sacrifice to be able to do good. I like this offer.

On the other hand, Chase Bank wants to buy new deposits, including ours, and this offer I don't call an incentive but a lure. A lure into a game that forgets about the recent history of big banking. They are offering a $200 gift card (with a few strings attached) for a new account.

Now, this is one month after I went in to one of their branches with my three-inch deep pile of their direct mail pitches and asked them to take us off their mailing list. They seem very confident that money talks. It does, but no deal. What may benefit me a little today can bloat Chase and other big guys. Then when they fall on us, it's crushing. I am not calling it cynical or intentional how scandals develop. I like business. But it just seems clear that in letting such "deals" concentrate financial power, stuff happens. Often when there's a Goliath, there's no David around. I'll stick with my credit union, which demonstrates commitment to the community and treats me well.

Now in the news is the falling price for natural gas. Credited is the “success” of fracking. So, do I just shut up and take my part of the savings?