the curse of the corner block

when we bought our house I was on the fence about buying a corner lot. I'd always thought it was a bad thing to live on the corner, but really had no idea why. what really sold me on this place though was the size of the block at over 7300 square feet (683 square metres). that's a pretty big plot of land in suburbia!

it's also a pretty big space to water - even with most of it covered in concrete... I turned our automatic sprinklers off a few months after we bought the place as I just couldn't justify watering a grass lawn every second day... it really didn't need all that water anyway. in July, it started to turn brown and not look so great, so we turned the sprinklers back on - until I got our water bill! it costs us $50 per month to water that front lawn! not to mention the gallons of drinking water being poured onto the grass...

we've been planning on making the front lawn a meadow and decided we should make a start on it and get rid of that water sucking lawn!

I have been collecting photos for inspiration and Julie drew us up a plan. we talked about putting in a fence, but Bryce was dead against that. if it were up to me I would build a 12 foot hedged wall around the whole property and create a private oasis - but he thinks that's weird... so we decided on a grass covered berm or a mound if you will.

we started ripping out the old bricked garden edging that is all broken and rickety and have been using that to build the base of the berm.

to create privacy on the corner

and then we're going to cover it in this beautiful green carpet of green fescue, which doesn't need much water or even need to be mowedbut you can cut it back every 6 months or so just to tidy it up

and then on top of the berm we will add this mexican feather grass to create a feature and also more height (privacy). this stuff needs zero water and turns greener in the winter when it gets rain.

we bought these little baby fescues a few weeks back and planted them in a temporary location so that they can get bigger, while we do the prep

saving us money by buying the smaller plantsand I've been find it hard to find mexican feather grass, but grabbed these 2 about a month ago
here's a photo of the 2 of them together. I love the great contrast of the green and the yellowy brown

your hair could save the planet

when I saw this post this morning on happenstance, I was so excited and had to share it with you, as this is such a simple way we can all make a difference to save the planet, specifically help clean up the oil spill in the gulf of mexico.

while watching the valdez oil spill on tv in the late 80's, stylist Phil McGory realised that the reason the oil was sticking to the otters was because of their hair, which gave him an idea - so he collected some hair put it inside a stocking and tried his theory out, and guess what it worked! the hair inside the stocking soaked up the oil from the water - just like that! In fact 1/2 a kilogram (1 pound) of hair soaks up 4 litres (1 quart) of oil.

so some good people at Matter of Trust have been collecting hair from hair and dog grooming salons all over to create hair booms (sausages made from hair and fur stuffed inside a stocking) to send to the gulf of mexico.

here is where you come in - please call your hair dresser and dog groomer and ask them if they are sending their hair clippings to the gulf to help clean up the disastrous oil spill, and if not why not - it's garbage to them. every box of hair helps! and if you have any old nylons, tights, stockings (whatever you call them) you can send those too!

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composting fences

yesterday while driving home from wine country we drove past this house with a fence that looked like a really skinny compost heap, so of course today I googled it and it really was a composting fence! Here are some photos I found on digginfood blog of one.

this has got to be the most practical fence I have seen... the construction looks pretty simple and much cheaper and so much greener than most fences.

plus, imagine the variety of things you could put inside it, which would change the look. imagine it filled with autumn leaves of gorgeous colours...

bag it up

who knew that grocery bags could be so pretty? baggu make these gorgeous ripstop nylon bags modelled on the old school plastic bag but so much prettier, environmentally friendly and machine washable - what more could you want in a shopping bag? and because they are so lightweight, you can stash them in your handbag so you have one handy each time you go to the store. the hardest part is deciding which colours to buy...

buy them here

Look what I found

while shopping for paint the other week I saw these cool paint trays that made me think 'duh, why didn't someone come up with this sooner???'

blame it on the rain

I am so happy to see these rain water tanks have made it to the USA! and love this great idea for multi-purposing these tanks as a fence. Check out Home Design Find for more information about these rain water tanks.

hopenhagen

please go here and sign this UN Climate petition there are only 32 days left

the grass is greener

with all this rain we've been having our front lawn is getting nice and green, and needs mowing... we've kind of been neglecting it as we still haven't come up with a final plan for the front yard - but we do know that the grass has got to go... we're thinking about making it into a meadow but there is just something so lovely about a gorgeous green grassy lawn...

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Nerd Alert/Green Alert

Couldn't decide if this was pure nerdiness or pure green brilliance, but OMG I love this Nature Mill composter and think I need one for my house.

You just plug it in, add your household scraps (up to 54 kilos or 120 pounds) and every 2 weeks you get beautiful composted soil.

Go here to learn more.

Did you know???

...that you can recycle your compact fluorescent light bulbs? I had no idea, until I saw this little bin at Home Depot the other day. I guess I have never had one burn out on me yet (since those suckers last forever...)

time to paint

Last weekend while visting several hardware stores (because that's what you do when you are about to buy a house that needs lots of work...) we checked out paint colours for the house. We know we want to paint the ceilings first with a semi-glossy white to highlight the gorgeous exposed beams that are currently green, but are still deciding on the rest of the house.

The walls will need some work before we paint (ie removing that lovely wallpaper etc) but after some research on paints we decided that we really want to use something that is zero VOC and environmentally friendly too. We have looked at a couple of brands and for about $4 more per gallon you can buy paint that doesn't make you and the planet sick. Which sounds like a great idea to me especially since the 3 of us Bryce, Coop and I all have allergies...

There are a few companies out there and so we have options.

Yolo Paints, a company from Oregon (scores points from Bryce) make zero VOC paints, and their colours, though limited, are nice earthy tones and look like something we'd like - we couldn't take samples to see them in the house though unless we paid money, which I think is the main reason they were not selling in the store we visited.

Olympic Paints was the next one we found at Lowes, and the unhelpful guy in the paint section said it was good, but the darker colours were harder to cover (which is pretty usual anyway I think)

Then I came across this great article in Dwell about just this topic and they had done the ground work for us and compared 3 different brands of paint Yolo, AFM Safecoat and Benjamin Moore Natura. Natura won as it emits the least amount of VOC's and still has great coverage and range of colours. Now we just have to choose the colour we want :)

water works

The company I work for took away the free bottles of water and soda today. They have been threatening for a while due to the 'current economic climate', but today I went to grab my bottle of water so I could make my quota (hate drinking water) and the fridge was bare... then I thought - I'm thirsty, but there is nothing to drink here. So I walked over, turned on the tap and drank a glass of tap water, which tasted just as bad as the bottled stuff... but what a novel idea in this day and age.

A friend recently sent me an email with some facts about bottled water which were quite scary and it got me thinking how glad I am that my company did this. There's the cost to our pocket, the cost to the environment and oddly enough the cost to our health with the chemicals that can leach from the bottles...

What better excuse do I need to buy this funky decanter for my desk? :P