An idiosyncratic window well platform

A few years ago, I nabbed a large wooden filing cabinet off of Freecycle.  It was the kind with sideways drawers -- it looked more like a table or a dresser than a tall pillar.  I figured, since I would soon be retiring and would be moving files from my office to my home, I'd need it for storage.  

Did I need it?  Actually, no, not in the long run.  As I transitioned from office to home during my last official year as a professor, and then condensed stuff to make my home rentable for the year after that, I realized that the number of paper files I actually want to have on hand is much smaller than I'd anticipated.  This large chest for storing files was not only more storage space than I needed, but it was also taking up a lot of floor space that I wanted to free up. And--since I knew from trying to rehome file folders within the office that everyone else in the world is moving from paper to digital-- I knew I wasn't going to easily find a taker for this giant piece of furniture. 

So instead of putting it back on Freecycle, I disassembled it with my screwdriver into many flat planks of wood.

I'd read somewhere that one of the big clutter items that makes cleaning out houses a challenge is scrap lumber -- all those pieces of wood that "might be useful someday".  Whether or not scrap-lumber-as-hoarding is actually a broader reality, that concept resonates with me: I have all sorts of wooden odds and ends in the basement, and I try hard not to let them take over the space . . . but I don't always feel like I succeed.  I didn't want to add this lumber to the basement stash.  Could it find new life?

Sometimes I slice up scrap lumber and offer it to friends with burn pits.  Much of this old cabinet was laminated: not suitable for burning. And I didn't want to do a project that would lead to a new piece of clutter -- I didn't want to make yet another Something-that-could-be-useful-someday.  

Here's a side rant: you know how sometimes you'll read gushing articles about how we're saving the planet by turning soda bottles into something like park benches?  The tone of those articles irks me.  It's not saving the planet -- we're postponing the inevitable hazardous waste problem that plastic bottles impose on our finite planet.  It's not like the world was saying "Hey! We need more park benches and have no idea of how we could make these from wood or stone or other non-toxic materials".  I say that to note that this cabinet-deconstruction project is in much the same category.  I know that whatever I do is just postponing an inevitable  disposal problem. 

What on earth (or in my home) could this heavy
block of wood be useful for?

I had a solution in search of a problem, that's what I had.  And so I let these boards sit for a while, to give me time to cogitate, and then one day an actual solvable problem just zinged into my consciousness.  Huzzah!

Here in the "Kitchen of Many Delights", one of the oddities of architecture is that the sink is in front of a window, but not right next to the window: the counter wraps around a window well. Why? I think the people who installed the counters and such didn't want to cover up the bottom of the window for some odd reason.

So behind the sink, there's a deep well that's basically inaccessible unless I climb up onto the counter and reach way down.  

I've learned to live with this -- I find it so odd that it's kind of amusing.  But I realized that instead of letting stuff fall down into the well and having to get out the ladder to clamber around to rescue it, I could create a platform to house my new plants.  (This window gets some of the very best afternoon and evening sun, after all).

The space is an odd shape, but I traced out a template with newspaper, and then used the template and my circular saw to cut the heavy, laminated cabinet top to size.  I used some of the other boards from the cabinet to create an "I"-shaped support underneath the platform, to raise it up.  

And now I have a platform I can reach, a platform that's washable, and that is actually useful -- instead of taking up space, it makes formerly inaccessible space useable. 

The window well holds my new plants,
and has a lovely view of my neighbor's trash cans.
Memento mori, folks.

I still have a few pieces of lumber left from that cabinet, but they're mostly particle board I can deal with more easily.  The biggest (and most laminated) portions are doing useful service for me.  I'm totally counting this project as a success.

Returning pots; getting plants

Even though I don't really have a lot of potted plants, somehow I happen to have a bunch of plastic pots. Many of these are the kinds plants are sold in -- not the pretty kind you put on display, but the kind many people would toss.

However, of course, I try not to toss them if there's a decent alternative.  And in fact, most nurseries will gladly take these back again and reuse them.  (That's plant nurseries, not baby nurseries).  Discovering this a few years ago made me happy -- maybe that's why I have this small stash, because I rescued them from the curb and gathered them to take back to a store?  They don't take a lot of room, fortunately.

At any rate, sometime last week my college's greenhouse folks sent out an email with the subject line, "Semi-Annual Greenhouse clear out today!"

The Greenhouse has been abundant this summer, and we need to clear benches for our research!

This Friday, from 12pm-2pm, the student workers will be on the steps outside [our building] with a variety of low-light tolerant houseplants, ZZ plants, succulents, and cacti in need of good homes - all while supplies last.  Please consider stopping by, ask about the newest research endeavors we are kickstarting, and adopt a new friend!

Please consider making a donation of a dollar or two per plant to cover the cost of materials - we also accept donations of used pots, medium or large nursery containers, soil, and might even be interested in some gardening equipment. 

Trading pots for plants?  Yes, please!  I gathered up those pots and headed over; I'd intended to pick up one or two plants, but (a) the folks there were super happy about the little pots I'd brought them and (b) they were also delighted to foist several kinds of plants on me, so I got four little plants.

Here are my new plants, awaiting their transplanting (!)
into terracotta pots.

Now I have a new set of little plastic pots to return to the greenhouse, but the overall plant-to-plastic-pot ratio has greatly improved in the house, so I'm happy.

Things nobody wants (pushbutton landline phones)

Way back in the the early 2000's, I helped organize a summer residential workshop in the college dorms. This was before everyone traveled with cell phones, and the usual dorm phones provided to students were stored away for the summer.  So we bought about 20 landline phones for our workshop participants to use.  We used these for all six years of the workshop.

Since I've recently retired, I was helping our new-ish department coordinator clean out the storage areas in the department and came across this box of phones.  

Corded landlines phones, in excellent condition.
Not like anyone cares, though.

One the one hand, they're in great condition: they've been stored away in ziploc bags, so they're clean -- no dust. They're all pushbutton, hardly ever used. They can go on a table or be installed on a wall.

On the other hand, no one wants them.  In particular, these people don't want them:

• The Facilities & Operations folks at our college refused the phones when I offered.  I figured F&O got first shot, since the phones were bought with grant money for a program on our college campus. But they basically said, "Ha, ha, ha; no."
• Habitat Restore said no.  (Really? I figured the local Amish/Mennonite population might be potential customers, but the guy at the donation drop-off said, no, they all use cell phones).
• Posting them on Freecycle netted only one person who was interested, who took three of the phones. 

Phones feeling unwanted.

I've just finished reading the book "Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of your Trash", which has an entire chapter devoted to discarded cell phones that go to Ghana for reprocessing/burning/dumping, and of course I didn't need to be reminded of how our throwaway culture is degrading our planet and our communities.  These landline phones, from a different era, were designed for much longer lives. (Could you imagine using the same cell phone during 6 years of workshops? Or pulling them out of a box a quarter century later and having them be just as functional as they were when you bought them?). 

The sad irony is that our throwaway cellphone culture has now made these other, durable phones worthless.  And, a quarter century later, I see even more than I did back then how these objects are, in fact, worse than worthless.  They're conglomerations of plastic with possibly useful metal pieces that are hidden away inside, inaccessible for simple reuse/recycling.  

So, while I try to find places where these phones would actually be used -- possibly even helping to avert a new purchase for someone -- I'm starting to switch my head over into thinking about how to dispose of them in the least environmentally irresponsible way. 

super glue ceramic fixes

Fixing a plant pot with super glue is hardly dramatic, but I've been distracted with family stuff and need a nudge to get back in the blogging habit, so I'm plopping in this quick-and-easy fix . . . although I am not sure it's fair to call it a "fix", because cracked ceramic remains cracked looking, even with super glue.

A pot that I think is pretty tipped over and cracked, and I super-glued it back together.

Voila!

Thoughts:

• One of the advantages of it being a flower pot is that crinkly cracks look organic, and they don't detract too much from the aesthetic.  A re-glued serving dish would be decidedly less pleasing to look at.  
• Piecing together ceramic is a little bit like jigsaw puzzles, and therefore a fun activity in and of itself.  It's not like I think I should break other pots just for the entertainment of reassembling them, mind you.  But the reassembly is enjoyable.

While I was at it, I used the glue to reassemble the handle on this mug.

The handle isn't a handle, at least not in this configuration.

The mug arrived in the mail for me today, a surprise thank-you gift from my professional association for serving on a committee.  I happened to find that particular committee fairly annoying, and full of crackpots, so I see a deep symbolism in that this mug arrived cracked -- flown off the handle, so to speak. Inside the mug was a set of helpful instructions: don't give this to children when it's full of hot liquid; don't drink boiling liquid until it has cooled sufficiently; hand-wash the mug.  

A hand-wash-only mug with a cracked handle -- a gift that I didn't even ask for -- hmmmm . . . I think some day I need to write a blog post entitled, "Top Ten Gifts for the Environmentally Conscious Minimalist".   That would be a really fun list to compile!  (But this mug would not be on the list). 

Since I had the super glue out anyway, I did the jigsaw puzzle thing and reattached the handle.  Maybe I'll turn this into another planter; not sure yet.

The wooden lid for the mug fits a wide mouth canning jar.
A small redeeming feature!

Big and little frugal tools

As my campus was gearing up for the beginning of the semester, one of our department coordinators announced that a departing professor had abandoned shelves in the hallway: did anyone want them?

I said, yes please: my husband's books are overflowing the rag-tag collections of homemade shelves I'd assembled.

So she put a post-it note on the shelves with my name on it. Even better, she arranged to have a hand-cart sitting next to the shelves.  So I walked the shelves four blocks along our neighborhood streets, from the campus building to my house.  Hurray for hand-carts!

 

A couple of days later, I passed by a free pile of clothing that included a top that is exactly the kind of thing I like to wear.  Well, almost exactly: when I put it on, I realized the tag in the neck was super scratchy.  So I spent a pair of minutes with my trusty seam ripper, removing the threads that stitched the tag to the shirt,  . . . 

. . . and now it's exactly exactly the kind of shirt I like to wear!

Ahhh, tag off!

When I was overseas for nine months, I really missed the free piles that grace the streets of my neighborhood here back home.