Urban Homesteader

2008 begins with a terrific improvement here at the Urban Homestead - a new bamboo floor in the office!

Our journey started when I read Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan’s compelling book, “Apartment Therapy: The Eight Step Home Cure.” Along with some great ideas for simplifying one’s home environment and paring down one’s possessions, the author suggests indentifying the room in our house that bugs us the most; he then gently guides readers on how to “cure” the space. In my case, the room with the most problems happened to be the space where I spend at least 50% of my time — my home office. For starters, the floor was covered with the grungiest, worn, dog-hair and lint-laden, impossible-to-clean shag carpeting. Think I’m exaggerating? Take a gander at THIS:

When our professional carpet cleaner said he simply couldn’t get the scuzzy carpet any cleaner, I decided to have it removed and install a strong, clean, sustainable floor of bamboo. Bamboo is harder and stronger than most hardwoods and is a highly-renewable resource; bamboo is one of the fasted growing plants in the world, and it can be harvested in 3 to 5 years, versus 10 to 50 years for trees. Bamboo also generates 33% more oxygen than trees, and I loved the look of the 4-inch planks.  I ordered the flooring and installation services from my home-away-from-home, Lowe’s.

However, like so many home improvement projects, we soon discovered that this one wasn’t going to be simple. When the carpeting and floorboards were removed, the installer showed me that due to the ground under the house settling the floor had “dropped” several inches on two sides of the room. (No wonder the filing cabinet always opened itself!) What’s more, there was a sizeable gap between the subfloor and the adjacent garage floor, which was leaking cold air into the room. (No wonder my feet were always cold!) To deal with the gap, I lay on my stomach on the floor and carefully sprayed expandable insulating foam in the gap:

Next, Dino from Focus on Floors (who has to be just about the Cutest Floor Guy on the Planet) mixed and poured a leveling compound on the floors. He had to do this process twice, allowing some time between applications for the mixture to dry:

Finally, the subfloor was ready. The new bamboo flooring was installed, we let it dry for 24 hours and moved the furniture back in. This change has absolutely transformed the room, and now I don’t have any excuses — it’s time to get busy and productive in the office!

Were you bombarded with mail order catalogs this holiday season? One of my biggest ongoing challenges is managing the stack of paper that accumulates in the mail basket — which, truth be told, is overflowing to two additional stacks on the kitchen counter. The average consumer receives 41 pounds of junk mail annually, according to the group 41pounds.org, which will remove your name from dozens of organizations for a fee. Here are a couple of free measures you can take:

Go to www.optoutprescreen.com to have your name removed from the mailing lists used by the three major credit bureaus. It takes just a couple of minutes, and should reduce the number of credit card and insurance offers you receive. 

Visit www.catalogchoice.org to cancel catalogs you no longer wish to receive.

Don’t forget to recycle the unwanted catalogs!

Years ago, I had heard that turning your computer on and off used more energy than just leaving it on, and it also wore out the computer faster. Did you hear that, too? It turns out that’s outdated information. There’s a great article on the Microsoft web site that sets the record straight and explains how to change your settings to maximize your energy savings.

If you run a newer version of Windows on your computer, you don’t even have to remember to turn your computer on and off. Just go to “Control Panel” and click on the “Display” option. Then go to the “Screensaver” tab and there should be an EnergyStar icon at the bottom of the page where you can choose your settings. You can choose from energy-saving options like “System Standby” or “Hibernate.”  I changed my settings this morning and there is no inconvenience at all…just energy and money savings!

One of the light bulbs in the overhead light of the garage door opener burned out this morning. These bulbs are a real pain to replace; I have to move the car and climb up on a ladder to get to the fixture. It’s the perfect time to swap out the incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents. A package of three GE Soft White 60W-equivalent bulbs costs about $8, so the up-front cost is higher, but according to the package I’ll save $38 per bulb in energy costs. Wow! Also, they’re guaranteed to burn for at least 5 years, so I won’t have to drag that ladder out any time in the foreseeable future. I like that!