Paper Bag Floor

Our friends have been asking for an update on how the paper bag floor turned out. We are very happy with how it looks. Here are a couple pictures of the process. I will post final pictures as soon as we get the baseboard on. All-in-all we got a nice looking new floor for the cost of 150 used grocery bags ($0) and 5 gallons of good floor polyurethane (about $125)!

-Bob



Lori Working on the Floor






Almost Done

Trying something New

Bob and I have been trying to refinish our basement for quite some time. We were trying to figure out how to redo the flooring while staying within the confines of our compact. Well, we figured it out!!! We found out about a process where you can paper the floor with grocery bags recycled from neighbors etc. We will keep you up to date on how this turns out and post some pics of the finished product and possibly the process. I know it sounds a little crazy, but the pics we've seen are quite extraordinary. So, if you happen to have grocery bags you need to get rid of, give us a call. We figure we will need about 150.

If you want to see pictures from someone who has done this just click here.

-Lori

A Used Shower Curtain Rod?

Bob and I took out the old shower doors in a bathroom in our home. We had decided it would look better if we got rid of them and just had a shower curtain hanging instead. We had no problem finding a used shower curtain at our favorite store, Unique. However, we were stuck without a used shower curtain rod to hang it on. I used all my usual search engines to no avail. We started asking friends if they had a shower curtain rod hanging around their house that they weren’t using. Low and behold, Bob’s Mom had one. So, we had found our used shower curtain rod. We didn’t, however, feel it went against our compact to by a new liner.

Bob went to get a new liner and picked up some shower curtain hooks also. Neither of us gave it a thought as to whether buying new curtain hooks was acceptable. In my book, it was not. The issue was, neither of us had given it a thought until a couple weeks later. After being interviewed by the Catholic Spirit about our compact, we were discussing portions of it on our way home. At one point we talked about our shower curtain rod hunt. As we replayed the conversation, we realized that, sure enough, we had bought a used curtain rod and curtain, but, without even thinking, we had bought brand new hooks to hang the curtain from.

Buying nothing new is at the forefront of our minds most of the time. But I guess it will take a while longer for us to totally incorporate the concept into our lives. It is just too easy to run out and buy something without giving it much thought. I guess that is one of the reasons we are doing this; to get us to think more about what we buy and how much. For the most part, Bob and I have been doing that. But as you have just read, even after doing this for 3 months, it is so easy to slip back into our old ways of buying.

-Lori