Ikea Karlstad Couch Hack

March 23, 2015

Design

...pf noted, I would have been better off just getting a sheet of plywood and making the arms from scratch, which is what I ended up doing. To make the new plywood arms I put the project in Sketchup to figure out the dimensions. I’m a big believer in Sketchup. It has helped plan a lot of projects and prevented waste. It took just a few minutes to figure out the arm dimensions. I don’t have a table saw, so I used my circular saw and some guides to cut...

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Grief is the pathway to action

Mrs. Homegrown

April 9, 2015

Back to the Garden, Thoughtstylings

28 Comments

...ut these things because we don’t want to be a downer. Nor do we want to be labeled morbid, pessimistic, impractical, oversensitive or even (gasp!) a tree-hugger. (FYI I was reprimanded in kindergarten for repeatedly arriving at school covered in sap because I’d been hugging trees all the way to school.) But the grief is there, the endangered elephant in the room, which we walk around and talk past, and do our best to ignore by making our lives eve...

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043 Growing Vegetables with Yvonne Savio

Mr. Homegrown

April 15, 2015

Gardening, Podcasts, Vegetable Gardening

4 Comments

...vegetables. How to harvest vegetables. How to prepare a vegetable garden. Making compost. The problems with municipal compost. Raised beds vs. growing in the ground. Where to buy soil. Testing soil. How to irrigate vegetables in a drought. Buried buckets for watering vegetables. Seeds vs. seedlings. Succession planting. How to plant seedlings. The website and calendar that Yvonne is putting together. Grow LA Victory Garden Program You can reach Y...

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Party in the Bathroom!!!!!

Mrs. Homegrown

June 5, 2014

Animals, Cats

24 Comments

...I do lock the door, she scratches on the other side in protest–tirelessly– making a noise so annoying that I have to submit and let her in. The boys, Buck and Trout, being handsome but sadly thick, can’t even begin to open the door without her. Phoebe is deeply bathroom obsessed, though, so the boys will never be locked out. Wherever Phoebe is, she comes running when she hears me entering the bathroom. Maybe she doesn’t hear me–maybe she’s set up...

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Kintsugi: Creating Art out of Loss

Mrs. Homegrown

May 15, 2014

Age of Limits, Design, Domesticus

9 Comments

...od as new, as if it had never broken, but acknowledging that breakage, and making something new and beautiful out of disaster, via the practice of mindfulness. Perhaps we can learn something from this. Please do check out the video–it’s short and beautiful. In it, a young craftsman explains the rising popularity of this 400 year-old art form in Japan, says, ” …people are realizing that chasing after money and new stuff and new technology will not...

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