We have 2 large (8 feet wide by 4 feet tall) windows in our living room.  Nice, but they’ve actually always been an eyesore since we moved in a year and a half ago because the previous owner apparently ran her sprinkler and let it hit the house.  Here in Likely, this causes horrible water spots on the windows and you couldn’t even see through the bottom half of those windows!  We’ve tried cleaning them with normal window cleaner and a few other solutions, but those didn’t take it off, and we kind of just gave up for now because we knew we needed something better.  This has been driving Glenn’s dad crazy…almost every time he stopped by (he’s a UPS man so that is often!) he would say something about a product he heard about or asking us if we’ve tried something to fix it.  Like I said, we pretty much ignored the problem and just kept the blinds closed!

Gross, right?  We thought they were ruined and we had to live with them like this!

Now a few weeks ago Randy (Glenn’s dad) dropped off a little white jar of ‘stuff’ to clean windows, and we really didn’t think much of it.  He does things like that all the time.  We didn’t jump at the chance to try out this product or anything, it pretty much sat on top of our refrigerator for a week or so.  So one Friday morning I’m making our bed and I stop to admire the view out of our sparkling-clean brand new bedroom window, wishing it was the same in the living room and then I remembered the little white jar.  So I went out to the kitchen and found it, read the directions on the back, grabbed the materials I needed and went outside.  I put some water in a stainless bowl, then you dip a sponge in to get it wet, dip that in the jar of white powder, and then go to work on the windows.  I scrub a little circle, then grab a damp rag to wipe it off and in my amazement IT WORKED PERFECTLY!

Isn’t that a great view?  We were seriously missing out and now we open the blinds every day!  Our windows look brand new with very little effort and no harsh chemicals, thanks to a $4 jar of ‘magic’ powder! It’s called ‘Nothin’s Better Water Stain Remover’ (I’m not making this up) and it is worth its weight in gold!!

For you locals you can buy it at Carsten’s!    Check out these results…before on the left, and after on the right.

See our little jar of the stuff out there?  Love it!  And to do both of our 8-foot windows and the storm door glass, it didn’t even take the whole 4 oz. jar.  Next up is the camp trailer windows!  You can use it on all kinds of surfaces (Glass, chrome, porcelain, tile, fiberglass, aluminum and stainless steel will shine and sparkle as new.  Removes water, mineral stain, rust, scum, paint overspray, oxidization.)

I promise that I started the job, but as soon as Glenn noticed me out there working on the windows he came out to see how it was going.  And took the scrubber from me because he had to try it.  And he finished the job.  Strangely, he does that a lot.  I’m not going to complain. 

Magic.  Seriously.  Go buy some now!

Do you have water spots?  Do you have a ‘magic’ cleaning product you’d like to share?  Please tell us!!

File this post under “Things That Catch My Eye So I’m Going To Share It/Save It Here.”  As usual, I just couldn’t help myself.

Because I could totally live here.  Exactly how it is.  Black paint, cement walls and floors (if they’re heated, of course), giant windows, an amazing patio space, giant beds, built in bunks, a view to die for.  We even love that it’s underground.  It is located in a little odd place – I’d rather be out all alone in the middle of nowhere, but my husband and I completely agree – we could move into this house just how it is and live perfectly happy.  How about you?

Is that a heated outdoor tub I spy? (Above.)

The living room furniture even looks somewhat comfortable, which is a necessity in my house.  But where is the TV?

I had to double check for a bathroom picture, just to make sure I liked it all, but it did not disappoint.

If not to live in then to vacation in…right?

I’d love to see a floor plan…

What do you think?  Are you attracted to the slightly quirky, modern aesthetic of this Swiss Mountain House, or does this look do nothing for you?  What style of design would you categorize yourself as your favorite?

{Images courtesy of Trendir via SeARCH and Christian Muller Architects via Gizmodo, via Abitare}

As my little growin’ girl is now 16 months old, I thought I’d share how things are going on the cloth diapering front.  I posted my last update/how-I-do-things guide here in February.  Now that I’ve been using them for over a year now, I’ve learned a few new tricks and tips to keep things running smoothly.  To do a little summarizing from before, here is what I recommend:  Pocket diapers rock. And by ‘pocket diapers,’ I mean PUL (Polyurethane Laminate fabric) diapers that look like a disposable, not those pieces of cloth that you have to pin.  PUL is a waterproof fabric, so you don’t have to put a cover over the diaper.  And they’re called ‘pocket diapers’ because you stuff the cloth diaper shell with absorbent liners, usually made with microfiber, terrycloth, or bamboo fleece.  You stuff them to customize absorbency (I stuff them with 2 liners, 1 big and one small), and also to cut drying time after washing.  This is a pocket diaper (by BumGenius).  I have many of these, but in a few different brands including BumGenius.

These have been so great so far.  Easy to use, great quality and my little monkey looks so adorable in them!  You can see one in action in this video, to refresh your memory. 

She is rocking a diaper that I purchased from Monkey Snuggles on Etsy.  A little cheaper than BumGenius, and the quality is just as great!  Plus they have sales and deals, and for every $10 you spend you get a ‘Monkey Buck’ towards your next purchase!

I have 12 cloth diapers (that I use regularly), but I always feel like I could use more.  I am slowly adding to the collection, and after my last purchase, I have realized that I will no longer buy cloth diapers with Velcro – I am a snaps girl now!  For two main reasons: 1) the Velcro simply wears out.  It is still working, but a lot of random fuzz gets stuck in it, and the edges start to curl.  Plus sometimes you pull a diaper out of the dryer and you get a train of about 5 of them that you have to un-stick.  And the second reason is (#2) that as she gets older, she learns how to un-stick the Velcro and can take her diaper off!  Little stinker.  That is, if she’s not wearing pants.  If she’s wearing pants, it’s fine, but she can get out of that diaper quicker than you can say ‘pee-puddle-on-the-floor!’

And so that is why I recently bought this little number (below) for my little ninja-baby and so far I love it!  It comes with 1 bamboo insert, but I stuff it with another one as my girl seems to be a heavy wetter.  You might be able to see on the tag that it is “One Size.”  Almost all of my diapers are ‘one-size’ which means that you can snap them to be smaller or let them out all the way depending on how big your baby is.  This way it will grow with your little one!  Or you can buy them in different sizes, depending on their weight.  I’ve bought a few specific sizes, but it was mostly depending on a sale or special price.

That’s why, when I bought the little ninja diaper (above) I also snagged this little purple number (below) because it was on sale.  Apparently the diaper ‘wings’ are thinner than normal, so they offered them at a lower price and it doesn’t affect the quality in any way so score one for me!  And Harper, of course!

I actually like the trimmer fit, so it doesn’t rub on her little leggies.    So anyway, that is my new revelation about cloth diapering.  I have also tried using cloth wipes (when I ran out of disposable ones) and they work great!  I just haven’t invested in enough yet and when I buy wipes, I buy them in BULK and they last for MONTHS!

Also, I want to note that I have been using disposable diapers exclusively for overnight, as she always wets through her cloth one and having a cloth one on that long is how we’ve gotten a couple of nasty diaper rashes.  So I stick with those overnight.  It just makes it easier and I really try to stick with only using 1 per day (overnight).

**This is what I get asked about the most:  How do you wash them? To wash my cloth diapers I simply throw them in the washer on hot and dry them on medium.  Nothing special.  You don’t even have to ‘un-stuff’ them first.  They’re supposed to come out in the wash; sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, but I’ve found that they’re always clean and don’t get stained.  I use my regular detergent (powder), and I dry them without fabric softener.  Sometimes I use a fabric sheet if they need a little ‘refreshing’ but otherwise I don’t.

Isn’t she cute?  Harper at 11 months rockin’ her Monkey Snuggles One-Size diaper. 

I always dump the poo into the toilet, and it’s nice now that she’s eating solid foods it all just comes right out.  If for some reason the poop is sticky or absorbed into the diaper, I scrape as much as I can into the toilet and then use my washing machine’s ‘Soak’ setting before I wash them like normal.  Easy peasy.

Any questions? Feel free to send them on my way – I love talking about how easy cloth diapering has been for my little monkey.  Do you know of any other favorite Etsy cloth diaper shops?  Let me know!  But I really love my Monkey Snuggles…

Have you ever wondered where those chilly drafts are coming from?  If your windows are sealed tightly?  How well your walls are insulated?  Or if you have a moisture leak somewhere in your home?  Maybe you should try having an Infrared Energy Audit done on your home.

‘What is an Infrared Energy Audit?’ you may ask…well, a qualified and trained professional (such as David, shown in the pictures below) comes into your home and uses an infrared camera to capture temperature differences in various areas throughout your home. Throughout their training, they learn the key areas to look at; appliances, corners, windows, etc. He or she will take infrared pictures of your home, compile them, do the research and create a detailed report to send back to you. They’ll give you tips on how you can fix inefficiencies that they find, and make recommendations on the next steps that you should take. It might be as simple as caulking a seal around a window, or they might recommend that you upgrade appliances (only a recommendation, though, but they can really tell how much energy that fridge is draining!).

These first 2 images are both sides of the brochure for the company that David works out of — feel free to download it and check it out. It might answer a few more questions, or it has the contact info. for The Rider Group, who was great to work with.  They are based out of Reno, Nevada.  Download the PDF of the brochure here. I should be receiving their detailed report any day now, and I’m excited to share those results with you as well!

The overall process took about an hour and a half (our house is approximately 1400 square feet), and he looked at every window, corner, closet, doorway, appliance and wall – and he even went outside to take infrared photos of the exterior, roof, and windows.

He even let me follow him around to take pictures of him and ask questions.

I was very interested to know how much of a difference our new windows were making, how well sealed our doors were, and if there were any leaks around the wood stove that he could see.

This window (in my office) is not new…brr.

Harper’s closet has the trap door to access the crawl space underneath the house, plus it’s back to back with the bathroom, so I wanted to make sure things were nice and clean there.

“What is this stranger doing in MY room?!?!”

Lots of moisture, even on our new windows…but I don’t think it has anything to do with the windows themselves.

The color differences account for temperature changes, and there is a handy little scale on the right side of the screen that can tell you exactly how hot or cold something is.

See the studs in the walls? Very handy (but expensive) stud finder.

He also measured and counted all of our windows to account for the proper ratio of heat loss that we should be having in our house (square footage/area of windows). Again, I’m very excited to see the results that he’s compiled and I’m sure I’ll share them next week. To read more about Infrared Energy Audits, click here.

Have a warm and toasty weekend! And Happy Thanksgiving!

And here they are!  I can’t wait to paint them.  Or take the sticker off of the bathroom window.  You know how that goes…just haven’t had a chance to get the gooey stuff off yet!  But the sticker has some useful info:  We purchased them from our local Ace Hardware and the brand is MI Windows and Doors (the company is in Pennsylvania).  They are Energy Star Qualified in all U.S. zones.  They are vinyl windows, double paned low-e glass.  It lists the energy performance ratings, beginning with the U-Factor, which is 0.34.  The Solar Heat Gain Coefficient is 0.31, and the Visible Transmittance is 0.59.  The +DP is 30.0 and the -DP is 30.0.  What does this all mean?  If you click over to EnergySavers.gov you can find out all of this handy information.

The U-Factor is the rate at which a window, door or skylight conducts non-solar heat flow.  The lower the U-Factor, the more energy efficient the window (ours is 0.34, which is pretty low).

The solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) is the fraction of solar radiation admitted through a window, door or skylight.  The lower the SHGC, the less solar heat it transmits and the greater its shading ability.  This means that it won’t fade your furniture.  Ours is 0.31.

Visible transmittance is a fraction of the visible spectrum of sunlight (380 to 720 nanometers), weighted by the sensitivity of the human eye, that is transmitted through a window’s, door’s, or skylight’s glazing. A product with a higher VT transmits more visible light. VT is expressed as a number between 0 and 1.  Ours is 0.59, so it transmits more than half of the visible light through the window.

DP stands for design pressure and are rated by testing the window to pressures equal to 1.5 times the DP requirement. So if a window is rated to DP40, then it is tested to 60psf. If a window is rated to DP20, then it is tested to 30psf.  Ours are rated DP30, so they are tested to 45psf.  Design pressure actually applies to wind speed, and a DP15 can withstand wind speeds up to 95 mph, so I think that DP30 is pretty good!  {Info. via replacement-windows.com}

The brand new pine trim is very pretty, but we can’t wait to get painting! Check back with me next week to see how our painting went over the weekend…or how it didn’t go. Have a wonderful Friday and a great weekend! xo, L.

{Info. via EnergySavers.gov and Replacement-Windows.com}

As you might know, I try very hard to do my part in saving the planet.  I know I could be better at certain things…i.e. I rely on my car waaayy too much, purchase more organic food options, compost, buy more organic clothing, etc., but I think I do pretty well in other areas.  For instance, I use eco-friendly and chemical-free cleaning options (99% of the time – sometimes you need the chemical power, but not too often), I cloth-diaper my daughter, the disposable diapers and wipes that I do use are eco-friendly versions, we recycle as much as we can here, I buy organic food when the price is comparable or when it’s something that I feel I should purchase the organic version (with some foods it’s more important to buy the organic version and some you can relax with), but I really do a lot of research on eco-friendly product options how to live greener.

Well…there is one area of my life that made me feel so guilty in how I do things, so I decided to do something about it.  Ready to hear what it is?  It’s gonna blow your mind.  Here we go.  PRINTER INK. Yeah.  If you’re like me, you go through a lot of printer ink with your projects.  In design school, it was horrible.  I would always have to make sure to have a few cartridges on hand, because when you’re printing all of the photos of products and reports/schedules for a project, I’d always go through a lot of ink.  I go through a lot now with photocopying and printing projects for clients.  And it can get expensive.  But you have to have a printout with perfect colors because otherwise it really looks unprofessional.

I have a simple Hewlett Packard printer/scanner/copier that holds 2 cartridges; a black one and a tri-color.  It has served its purpose well for me, but each cartridge is about $15.  And they really don’t last that long.  Plus keeping a big stash to recycle is a pain.  So what did I do about?  I finally decided to dive into the world of refilling my own printer cartridges.  With anything you search for on Google, there are videos and how-to instructions about accomplishing this task.  Looked easy enough.  Then you can shop and compare prices.  Like most of my office supplies, I bought a set of refills off of eBay; I do this because the prices are almost always lower than anywhere else, and they seriously arrive within a day or two.  No Staples or Office Depot for me to pop in to around here – I use eBay.  I’ve bought clipboards, file folders, hanging folders, pens, scissors, and now printer ink refills on eBay. If you click on the pictures you’ll see who I bought them from.

A black-ink refill kit and a tri-color refill kit, specific to my printer cost $10 with shipping and everything.  I saved $20 and some plastic right there.  Yes, I know that having things shipped to your house isn’t so eco-friendly (shipping truck emissions, etc.), but I try to buy in bulk whenever I can to help with this.  I didn’t this time – I wanted to make sure it worked first – and I am very happy with how it all turned out, so I will be purchasing more kits in bulk next time – at least 3 or 4 of each.  But I did buy both cartridges from the same eBay seller so that they’d be shipped in the same box.

Anyway on to my “Adventures in Saving the Planet.”  The videos make refilling your own ink cartridges look easy peasy.  It is, but as with most of my projects, my rookie attempt goes awry.  My cartridges come in the mail, and I finally have a chance to sit down and get it done.  I cut the packaging open, and cut right through the directions.  Not good.  I piece them back together, and realize there is a perforated tab on the back to prevent this.  Oops.  I finally figure out what I’m supposed to be doing and start with blue (or cyan) on the color cartridge.  I pull the stopper off the top of the syringe and blue ink squirts all over my desk and all over my hands.  I look down at my clothes…I’m clean – woo-hoo!  Do not squeeze the bottle while taking the top off.  I run and get some paper towels and clean up my desk, but my hands are now covered in blue spots.  Oh well.  I put the syringe into the correct hole and squeeze.  Nothing happens.  I pull it out a little and no ink will go into the cartridge.  After trying for a few minutes I decide to let my handyman try it with his magic touch instead.  I take the baby from him, put her to bed and when I come back I have a fully-inked cartridge – all 3 colors (cyan, magenta and yellow are done!) woo-hoo!  Thanks, honey.  He thinks that I was pushing it too far in.  Who knows!  I replace the sticker on the top with the new one that they provide (you gotta cover the holes) and the other plus is that there is still ink leftover in the refills.  So technically I saved at least $50, not $20.

I try my hand out with the black one and I get it done – ALL BY MYSELF!  I run the printer diagnostics on the computer to clean the cartridges, line them up, etc….I hadn’t done this for awhile (if ever) anyway – just to make sure they’re running smoothly.  I print a test page with something I had to print anyway.  Black prints great, but the colors don’t look right – mostly the greens.  Hmm…I run another test page and it still isn’t right.  Here is where I’m cursing that I wasted money with this and now I can’t print what I need to, and give up and go to bed.  The next night, I run a couple a couple color copies of some things I needed, but I stay away from the ones with green in them.  They look great.  After trying the non-green ones, I get the courage to see how the green looks.  Crossing my fingers and… it worked perfectly!!  I’m assuming it just needed a little time to saturate itself or something, but my first attempt at refilling my own ink cartridges was definitely successful!!  Except for the blue fingers.

Am I late on this one, or do any of you refill your own printer cartridges?  I love that I saved so much money and plastic…plus I love a little DIY project – even if it does take a couple attempts to get it right.  What else do you do to help reduce waste???

(images via eBay seller, linked to sources)