A Fresh Coat of Paint

I’ve wanted to repaint the trim boards & staircase in our house ever since we repainted the walls 2 years ago. Babies and lack of time always seems to intervene. Lately my neighbors have been working on revamping their homes and I am reinspired. So….. I went to grab our handy gallon of trim paint left over from our builder. I found a beat up/dried up ¼ gallon of paint. The builder used Duron paint on both the inside and outside of our house. We had a local Duron paint store close to the house, but it closed about a month ago. I’m guessing due to the housing market and economy crash. So I called our local Sherman-Williams to see if they could match our paint. They said to bring in the gallon and they’d match it. All of our builder paint is “custom” with some sort of chicken scratch code on the top of each can that only paint people can decipher. Sure enough I went to Sherman-Williams and they said it was a white semi-gloss with a shot of black. They could match it. Since Jon and I have been going as green as within our budget I asked about their new eco-friendly paint “True Green.” I figured if it was anywhere near the $45 I spent on the last gallon of custom builder paint then it was a go. After the paint guy quickly set us up a store account for 15% off he told me the total. He said it was $43 while he made a “this is too expensive grimace.” Whooohooo! I thought to myself. I wanted to try it out when I got home. Lucky for me both boys passed out in the car on the way home from the store so I quickly painted a section of trim while they napped. I must say it looks just as good as our previous paint and I can’t even tell where it ends and the builder paint begins. The best part is it doesn’t smell. You would never know I just painted in the house. I think this paint is great. It also goes for LEED certification points as well. Only time will tell how well it holds up to wear and tear and cleaning though. The next time you are looking to paint your place, go and check out the True Green paint at Sherman-Williams. It’s pretty awesome!

Reusable and Plastic Bags

OK I’m not going to preach to you why plastic bags are bad. I want to focus on what you can do to be better. I’ve been using reusable bags a lot this past year and I’ve learned a little bit about what I like and don’t like. I’ve purchased a few store brand reusable bags and they worked fine, but I kept thinking there must be another way. I’d always leave them in the car. They were these big bulky things dangling off my shoulder in addition to the diaper bag I’m always carrying these days. I found some bags I truly love. Everyone I know that has them LOVES them and I’m not kidding. I get comments every time I’m in the grocery store from one of the checkout attendants. My favorite reusable bags of all time is the Olive Smart Sack. It is 6 bags in 1 stuff sack. The Smart Sack that holds the 6 bags is smaller than the size of a water bottle so it’s totally portable. I keep mine in the diaper bag, but they work great in your cupholder. That way they are always in your car reminding you to use them when you shop. Each Smart Sack carries 6 colorful bags. Each bag can hold 20 lbs. I have personally used it to hold milk and orange juice or 3 juice containers in the same bag with no problems. These things are made of nylon and are very strong. Another great perk is that if you use them to carry meat or if they get dirty you just throw them in the wash. They come out looking good as new. Each Smart Sack has 6 colored bags and they can hold an entire cart worth of groceries. Many times I only need 3 bags so I can just grab my Half Sack (also made by Olive Smart with 3 bags instead of 6). I just love these bags. I’m not trying to just push a product though. If you’ve got bags you like better please share them with me. I’d love to hear from you.

Now that I’ve sung the praises of my Olive Smart Sack reusable bags, let me tell you what you could do with the plastic bags you may already have. Let me first say I am not perfect. Occasionally, on my bolt to freedom to run errands (sans kids) I forget to bring my bags. Target plastic bags give you great ideas on how to reuse their bags. I personally reuse most of ours for litter box and dog land mines in the backyard. When we have extra bags I’ve run them to our local Wal Mart b/c they have a bin near the door or in customer service that will recycle them for you. Two weeks ago I worked the soup kitchen for my church in downtown Atlanta. We fed over 500 people that morning and they had to close the doors b/c we ran out of food. I have learned that the guests of the soup kitchen highly value plastic bags. They are like gold for them. So now I’ve been donating our plastic bags to our local soup kitchen. Whatever you chose to do, know that there are so many more options than just throwing them in the trash. We all can make a difference one tiny plastic bag at a time!