Some of my most popular posts are in relation to cleaning. Who’d of thunk it?! I mean, I know I love me some baking soda, but I didn’t realize the adoration was so widespread!

Next up in our continuing saga of do-it-yourself cleansers, a perfect pair of recipes to meet your dishwashing needs. And, if you already make your own laundry detergent, you should have all the ingredients on hand! First up:



Sayward’s Homemade Dish Soap

1 cup liquid Castile soap

3 tablespoons water

a few drops essential oil (if using unscented Castile soap)

Combine in a vessel of your choice (I use an old vinegar bottle with a metal spout), mix well, and use.

No really. That’s it. TOO EASY.

And for those with gizmos:


Sayward’s Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

1 part borax (see description of borax here)

1 part washing soda (see description of washing soda here)

distilled white vinegar

Combine the powders in a bowl and mix well, breaking apart any clumps. Transfer to an airtight container to store. Use 1 tbsp of mixture per load. Fill your machine’s rinse indicator with white vinegar, for that extra sparkle. Again, SO EASY.

I’ve been using both of these for a while now, and of course they’re working wonders. It’s just so satisfying, knowing that I can accomplish all my cleaning without bringing any strange or nefarious products into my home.

BONZAI!

If I were to write a love ballad, it would be all about baking soda. It might go something like, 

“White as snow/ and powdered fine/ clean anything/ to make you mine

I didn’t know/ we’d never start / ’cause vinegar/ has got your heart“

But seriously, this stuff is out of control. Baking soda and vinegar are the foundation of DIY cleaning. Don’t be fooled – it really is that simple.

And this recipe is easy enough, but I swear it works like a charm. You don’t need complex, carcinogenic compounds lurking around your cabinets! Baking soda, baby, and a liberal splash of vinegar.

That’s powdered gold, my friends, white gold from cleansing heaven.

Drain De-Clogger Recipe:

1/2 cup baking soda

1 cup vinegar

1 gallon boiling water

Carefully siphon all the baking soda down the drain. Pour in 1/2 of the vinegar, covering the hole so the fizz is forced down, not up (omit this for toilets, please!). Add the second half of the vinegar, following the same procedure. Allow to sit for 15 minutes or so, and then flush with an entire gallon of boiling water.

I have used this method in my shower and my toilet, and it has never failed me. For particularly troublesome stoppage, you may have to administer multiple applications. For instance, I recently had to go three rounds with my janky bathtub drain. It was a mighty battle, but my baking soda came through for me!

The magic is in the fizz.

Enjoy, and happy green cleaning!

Aren’t these just the cutest? I was lucky enough to have one of my bestest girlfriends stay with me last weekend, and she brought a very special treat: incredible looseleaf teas, direct from Alaska! We spent one lovely evening-and-well-into-the-night testing tea combinations, chopping cheesecloth, and twisting these adorable little baggies into existence. Full disclosure: there was probably beer involved, too.

Like so many DIY projects, this is actually really easy. It just takes a little planning, a little preparation, and a nice block of time. This was a great ‘group activity’ (unlike some others, which are less exciting in their assembly), and would make an excellent gift. Here’s what you do:

First, get your hands on some unbleached cheesecloth (widely available – check your local ‘healthy market’), some pretty embroidery thread (color to suit your fancy), and some of your favorite looseleaf tea. We used a smokey black lapsang souchong as the base, and lightened it up with spearmint, rose hips, and a vanilla rooibos. Next time I’m going to try my own blend of chai!

Then, get your hands on some cookies. Cookies are part of the process.

Now, you need to combine your teas to find the right ratio. You’ll need a big bowl for the final recipe, and some smaller bowls for test runs. This can become quite a process of mixing, steeping, tasting, modifying, remixing, steeping, tasting, etc. That’s where the cookies come in! Because it’s really rather impossible to get an accurate read on the taste of tea, without an accompanying cookie. Don’t you think?

When you’ve found the perfect ratio, mix a big batch in your big bowl. Then, snip your embroidery thread into 8-inch pieces. You’ll also need to cut the cheese . . . cloth (oh HA! right?) into 6-inch X 6-inch squares. Cheesecloth is sort of a pain to cut, because it’s so darn flimsy. You’ll need very sharp scissors.

To construct your tea bag:

• Lay one 6-inch square piece of cheesecloth on top of another (so it’s doubled up)
• Place a generous tablespoon of your tea mix on the cheesecloths, centered but closer to the edge nearest yourself
• Roll! Roll the tea up in the cheesecloth, just like you would a sushi roll. The more times it folds around over itself, the better. Try to keep the mass of tea centered, so that both ends of the roll are empty and free to move about
• Grab both ends of the roll and fold them up over the mass of tea, so they meet each other above it
• Holding the two ends with one hand, grab your length of embroidery thread and tie it tight around the two ends, binding them together
• Voila! Tea bag!
• Now you can knot your two thread ends together at the tip, or you can make a little tip topper like we did. We just used card stock cut into little squares
• Don’t forget to trim the frayed cheesecloth, so it’s all neat and purty-like!

And that’s really all there is to it! Special thanks to my awesome friend Amber, who actually did the majority of work here. I mostly just took pictures. And ate cookies.

Happy Steeping!

Just 3 months back I wrote the very first Itty Bitty Bonzai about the dangers of bleach, and included a simple recipe for a homemade substitute.  Since then, I’ve been sort of obsessed with diy, non-toxic cleaning solutions.  I’ve tinkered and tested and mixed (and messed) so much, I feel like a modern alchemist!  But the work has paid off, and so finally I’m proud to share this, the first of my many concoctions:   Sayward’s Homemade Laundry Soap

This stuff works great! It’s so much safer than synthetic chemical cleaners, and it’s also quite a bit cheaper than pre-made ‘eco-friendly’ detergents. It’s just five simple, all-natural ingredients.

White Vinegar – Vinegar is simply acetic acid: diluted, mild, and edible, but acid nonetheless.  As such, it will dissolve dirt, mildew, mineral build-up, and soap scum.  Vinegar is something of a wonder cleanser, and you’ll be seeing a lot more of it around here in the near future.  Available everywhere.  

Baking Soda – Baking soda is another amazing all-purpose cleaner, but it’s also an excellent deodorizer.  As well, it softens water and helps to maintain neutral pH so that detergent can work more efficiently.  It keeps your colored clothes from fading and also gets whites brighter.  Available everywhere, but check the bulk bins at your local co-op. 

Washing Soda – Baking soda’s badass cousin.  Washing soda is much more alkaline and cuts oils like a pro, so it’s great in the laundry.  It also helps to deodorize, but fighting grease and stains is the primary purpose.  Look for it in the drug store or supermarket, in with the laundry and cleaning supplies. 

Borax – Borax is awesome!  It’s a natural stain remover and an excellent alternative to bleach, because it’s an anti-fungal/anti-mold and all-around disinfectant.  Coupled with regular soap, it greatly increases cleaning power. Look for it in the drug store or supermarket, in with the laundry and cleaning supplies. 

Castile Soap – ‘Castile’ isn’t a brand, but a type of soap: one that is made using only vegetable oils (as opposed to most soaps which render from animal fat).  So not only is it vegan and cruelty-free, but it’s much easier on the environment as well.  Castile soap is a superior gentle cleanser, and quickly biodegrades.  I use Dr. Bronner’s lavender scented soap, and I absolutely adore it.  Available at most ‘natural’ stores, and many Trader Joe’s. 

Recipe:

1 1/4 cups white vinegar

1 cup baking soda

1 cup washing soda

1 cup borax

1/4 cup liquid castile soap

Mix in a large, non-metal bowl. I re-used (and decorated!) my previous soap tub, which worked great.  Start with the vinegar and continuously stir as you add each powder.  Try to stir out and break up any clumps.  Finish with the liquid soap.  It will seem wet, like a thick paste, but keep stirring and it will begin to flake and crumble into a moist ‘powdered detergent’.  KEEP STIRRING! If you quit too early, you’ll find a very hard mass the next time you go to use it. So use them biceps and stir it to completion. You’ll end up with a sort of soft clumpy cake-y ‘loaf’, that will easily crumble off for use.

If you use plain non-scented castile soap, you may add a few drops of your favorite essential oil.

Store in a lidded container and use about 1/4 cup per load.

Enjoy, and happy green laundering!

In 2007 my partner and I accidentally bought a townhouse.  Um, oops.  We did not mean for this to happen; this is not the palace we had planned for. But, being young and savvy, we wanted to be close to the heart of the city.  We dreamt of walking to the best pubs, hitting all the museums and art galleries, getting around without relying on a car.  But of course, being young and struggling, our finances limited our choice of urban dwellings.  Portland has plenty of amazing houses right in the thick of city activity, but unfortunately these were out of our price range.  What we could afford was a lovely downtown condo, but this was out of the question for aspiring farmers such as ourselves.  Or, we could afford a bigger place on a plot of land outside the city proper, but of course that took us out of optimal urban range.  And so we searched and we schemed and we weighed all our options, until one day we stumbled upon an end unit row house.  It was not offensively big, and not uncomfortably small.  It shared the block with a pub and a coffee shop, and had a nice usable yard.  It was tall and slender, just like us!  And so it came to this: for what we could spend, sharing one wall got us decent square footage, 20 blocks closer to downtown.  We pounced, and this little compromise has become our castle.  We certainly didn’t mean to end up in a row house, but this fortuitous fluke has ended up meeting all of our needs, and exceeding them.  Living here at HQ, I have come to believe that townhomes are the forward-thinking approach to progressive residency.  Here’s why:

First, let’s get clear on language.  Townhouse is the most general term for what is sometimes called a row house or row home, sometimes called a terrace house, and sometimes called a brownstone.  These titles vary by region and do denote minor differences, although all of them share a fundamental set of common characteristics.  For the purpose of this article, I use the words interchangeably.  So, essentially townhomes consist of three or more units sharing side walls only (called ‘party’ walls), and having multiple levels creating a tall, skinny space.  Ownership of a townhouse includes ownership of the land it sits on, which deviates from apartment or condo ownership.  Aside from that, townhomes are as variable and customizable as their freestanding cousins. 

A townhouse is an ideal dwelling for a number of reasons.  Firstly, they are always built up as opposed to out, which means that they leave a very small footprint.  As far as city planning is concerned, this means that more people are able to comfortably occupy a single city block, without sacrificing personal space or privacy.   This then decreases the need for sprawl and keeps urban development within city limits.  Clearly, when houses are built closer together and each house takes up less land, there will be less need to encroach on wild lands and natural spaces.  And seriously, who could argue with less Suburbia?

A small footprint also creates a contained space with definitive boundaries – there is simply not room for expansion.  For residents, this means consumerism and consumption must be made in moderation.  My space is limited, so I only buy what I need, and I no longer have the luxury of hording!  This may sound scary at first, but in fact it has meant that I am able to invest in fewer, but nicer, choice items.  It has allowed me to identify what is actually important, and what is, indeed, just fluff.  This has been an incredibly empowering exercise for me.  Although truth be told, there are three levels here at HQ (as in most townhomes), so really there is plenty of space.  By comparison, according to the EIA the average American floor plan of a detached home includes roughly 2500 sq ft, while an attached home (row home) includes roughly 2300 sq ft.  So, if you don’t mind stairs (and boy, my ass has never looked better!), it’s not terribly too much sacrifice.

Speaking of spatial scaling, shared walls actually have their own set of benefits.  For one, construction simply requires less raw materials, when common walls are included.  Less raw materials means less environmental strain, and translates to cheaper overhead for contractors.  This may motivate the builder to use higher quality finishes or more expensive, and eco-friendly, products.

And then, of course, there’s energy.  Did you know that according to the EIA, residential buildings account for 21% of our overall energy usage?  That is almost as much energy as we use for transportation!  One of the greatest advantages of townhomes is their energy efficiency.  This is simple physics – it takes less energy to heat a group than a series of individuals.  It’s the reason we naturally huddle together for warmth – cuddles conserve heat!  And in simple terms, row homes are just super snugglers.  Each unit acts to insulate the others, even ‘sharing’ heat between them.  For example, I live in the Pacific Northwest, but this winter I didn’t have to turn my heater on until December.  You just can’t beat that!  It also helps that nearly all townhomes place the bedrooms on the top (usually third) floor, where the heat rises and gets trapped.  During the winter we have no problem keeping our bedrooms toasty warm.  And in the summer the same principals apply, and each unit acts to insulate the others against overheating.  As well, the natural shape of most town homes allows for easy energy-free cooling.  Because the home is shaped like a corridor with the windows and doors at the front and back, all you need to do is open them up to get a nice, mildly breezy ‘wind tunnel’ blowing through.  This is how we keep air circulating in the summer months; we have no need for an air conditioner.

In my experience, a townhouse has meant having my cake and eating it too.  I get to live in the city and take full advantage of all that metropolitan life has to offer.  This means that I rarely need a car, which saves both money and energy as well.  I also get the benefits of living in an actual house, as opposed to an apartment or condo.  HQ feels like a real home, with enough space to accommodate dogs, children, working from home, and overnight guests.  I have a yard big enough to keep chickens and raise a bountiful garden.  Best of all, I get to sleep easy at night knowing that I am actively minimizing my impact on my environment.  It truly is the best of both worlds, and right now, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.