Everything Must Go Part 4: How to Fold Your Clothes

January 15, 2015

...may seem a little extreme, but this simple change in behavior seems to be making all the difference in our dresser drawers. Very simply, KonMari politely insists (while flicking her pink glitter cat o’ nine tails) that we shape our all of our foldables into neat rectangular packets and stand them cheek-by-jowl in our drawers, rather like file folders in a standing file. As someone who has always folded clothes into squarish shapes and stacked the...

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Will 3D Printing Save Us From Bad Garden Sculpture?

Mr. Homegrown

February 13, 2015

Gardening, Thoughtstylings

2 Comments

...s are plagued with bronze, smiling, hyper-realistic statuary. For me these things evoke a visceral uncanny valley horror response. Perhaps 3D printing is the answer. In 2012 artist Oliver Laric approached a museum in the UK and proposed scanning objects from their collection and making the files available for free. You can see those scans, which include Dante, Roman and medieval objects and a few 19th century British mayors here. You can also see...

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The Theme of a Great Garden

Mr. Homegrown

March 21, 2014

Garden Design, Gardening

6 Comments

...den it would be useful to toss around a few abstract words and ideas to help unify the design vocabulary of the garden. Picking a theme or several related themes could make it easier when it comes to making plant and hardscpaping choices. Of course, the current theme of our garden is “Skunk Encounters.” We’re going to have a bunch of stinky school groups this spring . . ....

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How to Keep Skunks Out of the Yard

Mr. Homegrown

March 11, 2014

Gardening, Pests

17 Comments

...der decks. (Design tip: avoid creating skunk habitat in the first place by making sure these types of spaces are not accessible.) I suspect that there may be a skunk or two living under our back shed. This shed is as old as the house (almost 100 years) and can’t be skunk proofed on all sides due to its setting. I’m going to have to drive it out. The most common method I’ve found of evicting skunks involves playing a radio all night (finally, a goo...

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Did Kelly follow her 2012 resolutions?

Mrs. Homegrown

December 31, 2012

Miscellaneous

11 Comments

...this month: switching banks, upgrading my RAM, getting a new passport, and making appointments for a physical, a dental exam and an eye exam. (In terms of engaging with the medical establishment, I prefer to behave as if though the zombie apocalypse has already occurred, thus I’m well overdue for a complete overhaul.) This I did. All of it. Yay me. -Organize the labels or tags on Root Simple so our dear, somewhat abused readers can find informatio...

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