An August side quest

I always have a lot of projects on the go, some big and/or important, and a lot that aren’t—actually, most of them probably aren’t even remotely important. However, some of them end up being useful, making my life easier. This is one of that kind.

For a long time now, I’ve been using liquid hand soap (among other products) from a New Zealand company called Ecostore which makes soaps, cleaners, etc., made using plant and mineral-based ingredients, instead of chemicals derived from petroleum (back in July 2018, I talked about why I started using the company’s products). Over time, the company changed their packaging, moving from small bottles for use at sinks/basins to a larger size. This mattered to me because the larger size didn’t need to be refilled as often—but they still need to be refilled, of course.

The photo above shows the current pump bottle in the middle, and the refill bottle on the left. The small bottle holds 300ml, and the refill holds 800ml, and so, refills the pump bottle two and two-thirds times, which frankly is a bit odd (I wonder if users tend to under-fill the pump bottle and get three refills?). At any rate, since I use the pump bottle in the en suite to most of all, I need to refill that bottle the most frequently. The bottle on the right side was my solution.

I refill the hand soap bottle at the kitchen sink (in case I spill… and because I use the refill method I talked about back in October 2021)), and then I wash out the empty refill bottle before putting it in the recycling bin. I recently had a pump mechanism from an old bottle laying in the kitchen bench, and I thought, “Hm, that looks like it would fit in the refill bottle.” Since I had an empty refill bottle, I tried it and it worked (I didn’t try the original pump bottle’s pump mechanism because the plastic tube that sucks up the soap would be way too short).

The next time I needed to refill the bottle in my ensuite, I tried putting a large pump mechanism into the refill bottle, and it worked perfectly! I should emphasise that IT worked, however, I grabbed the wrong pump mechanism and use one that had been in a bottle of Leo’s dog shampoo, and I hadn’t cleaned it after I took it out of the bottle. This meant that for several uses, the soap was lavender-scented dog shampoo, then an odd mix of lavender and citrusy scent of the actual handsoap. Oops. It didn’t take long to come right.

I’ve had a couple weeks using it now, and I would’ve probably needed to refill a regular-size bottle by now, and it turns out that I really do appreciate a (very) small improvement in the amount of time that my routine household rituals take up. I thought it would work, and I’m glad it did—but I probably wouldn’t have mentioned it if it hadn’t worked. Possibly.

This was obviously a very small, largely insignificant project, but it’s still nice to see it work out the way I thought it it would. I think the actual larger lesson I take away from this is that if I can find ways to improve even common things, why not try it? They won’t always work, but there’s only one way to find out, and I’m glad I did.

And, it also turns out that I’m still a helpful blogger. Nice.

I’m still a helpful blogger

Everyone figures out ways to make everyday life easier for ourselves, and some folks share what they do so others can learn from their experiences. I often do that, too, but it’s been nearly three years since I last published a post specifically about shortcuts (so-called “life hacks”) to make life easier. It’s time to add another hint.

Just like my 2021 post, my first stand-alone helpful hints post was limited to one topic back in 2019, and dealt specifically with something to help dog owners. Today’s post is about a cleaning “hack”. First, though, some background is needed.

As I’ve documented here on this blog, New Zealand has been banning more and more consumer plastics, the most noticeable beginning of which was banning single-use plastic shopping bags in 2019. Since then, the New Zealand government has banned more plastics, and industry has joined the efforts, both of which I mentioned in a post last year. All of this has been awesome to see, and yet, some personal changes have proven harder than others, like doing without plastic bread bag tags.

I finally came up with a workable solution.

Of all the things I re-used those plastic tags for, the most common (and useful) was as small scrapers. In particular, I used them when scrubbing cooking pots, roasting trays, etc. (or cleaning up after painting), any time I wanted to scrape off something that had become stuck on something else. By using the tags, I could avoid using, and possibly damaging, my fingernails or scratching whatever I was trying to clean.

In 2022/3, those plastic tags started disappearing. At first, and sometimes still, they were replaced with brown cardboard, which are not only paper and too flimsy to use as scrapers, they’re also too small to recycle, so I cut them into small pieces and put them in my compost bin. Other companies have used other cardboard or hardened paper, which also don’t work as scrapers.

My solution was to use a cheap plastic paint scraper (example on the photo). Ordinarily such scrapers are used when using chemical strippers to remove paint or some other finish from wood (personally, I prefer metal ones for that work because they last far longer and removed the gunk better). What I use plastic scrapers for are using plaster filler to fill holes in the wall (life nail holes or whatever) because the plastic won’t scratch the paint. The one in the photo is part of a small bag of such scrapers that Nigel bought to use with his 3D printer, so I have plenty.

I only thought to use the scraper recently, and I’ve only had a couple chances to use it a couple times, but both times it worked really well. The fact I can grip it with my whole hand gives me more control and power than I ever had using one of those little bread tags. I highly recommend this method.

And there you have it: Another short, very specific tip to get small household jobs done better. What can I say? I’m still a helpful blogger.

A busy day taking care of stuff

Yesterday was a very busy day filled with errands and taking care of things, one of which was too long delayed. My excursion made this an even more active week than it already was.

My first—and most important—stop was the barber shop at the base, the place I’ve been going to ever since I shifted to Hamilton (I talked about the barbershop in a blog post in April last year). This time, I had my hair cut by the young dude (who I briefly mentioned in a blog post in in May 2022). The guy takes his time and is very good, while the older guy always makes me feel uncomfortable for reasons I can’t explain (I ordinarily get the female barber, partly for that reason; the young guy is seldom there when I am).

I thought he seemed a bit low yesterday, almost sad even, so we didn’t have a conversation. However I got him to smile twice: The first time was right after he asked me how I wanted my hair cut, and I asked him if he could trim my eyebrows, too. He said he could, so I added, “I haven’t learned to do it myself, and I’m now getting ‘old man’ eyebrows.” He smiled broadly and chuckled a bit. I used a similar tactic at the very end when he said he just had to shave the back of my neck and he’d be finished. I said that was another thing I couldn’t do myself, because I have to do it with my back to the bathroom mirror, another mirror in my hand looking back at the bathroom mirror. He agreed that was hard, and then I told him about the time I accidentally shaved off part of my beard, and he laughed, and said, “yeah, that’s the sort of thing people do only once if they’re unlucky, twice if they’re careless.” I said, “and after three times, I’d probably have to go into a home”. He laughed a bit and said, “probably not that—just time to put the clippers down.”

I always try to be nice to people who serve customers all day because times have changed and too many customers choose to be awful to people just doing their jobs, but yesterday I kind of wanted to cheer him up a bit. I think maybe I did.

At any rate, my haircut could’ve easily been a month late because school holidays just ended, and I never go to The Base (where the barbershop is) during school holidays or public holidays. On the Saturday of Easter weekend, the traffic to get to the base was unbelievably awful, reminding me why I made the promise to myself in the first place (I was just trying to get across the road that leads to the base in order to go to the other side of the city).

Next, I went to to The Warehouse to check out their (apparently) new range of storage products. Specifically, I was interested in an acrylic turntable with sides (in the dual photo up top), which are good for storing bottles of things like soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, aioli, etc., in the fridge. I put a turntable with no sides—basically a small lazy suzan—in our fridge at least 8 or 10 years ago, and it’s been great—but it works best for jars, not bottles. The bottles I have on it are constantly falling to one side, making it hard to rotate the turntable to get in the back. I’ll use that old turntable on the other side of the shelf, and just for jars. The new turntable is something I don’t need, but it’ll make my daily life much easier.

While I was there, I picked up two pairs of slippers partly the price for two was lower than buying one pair each on two different days. Also, The Warehouse has a long history of dropping products, so when I find products that I like and will use, I’m better to buy extra. The slippers are replacing a pair I bought around 15 years ago that are now falling apart. I got them at The Warehouse, too—and that particular one was discontinued. Of course. Maybe they lasted too long.

I also picked up a pair of what I call “house shoes”, basically lightweight shoes I wear only in the house to protect my feet and keep them warm. That’s because a stubbed toe can cause a gout attack, and also because when my feet get cold, I feel cold all over. They’re replacing ones that are so worn out that I think they only stay on my feet through stubbornness and bravado. I don’t wear slippers other than first thing in the morning because—well, wearing slippers all day long seems too old-mannish to me. Yes, I’m over-sensitive. I don’t care.

However: I also looked at a couple things I want, but definitely don’t need, and I talked myself out of buying any of those things, including one thing I really wanted, and have wanted for awhile. That’s because due to the current tough economic times I adopted a policy of “buy nothing I don’t need, and make due with what I have rather than buy new” (while still allowing myself some treats, though I’m slowly cutting back on those, too). I’m really lucky that I can weather the bad economy fine at the moment, but it’s prudent to live more frugally when there’s no way to know when the economy will stabilise, let alone improve.

On the surface, that fridge turntable may look like it conflicts with my pollices, maybe even that it’s frivolous, and it probably is. Or, maybe it’s actually somewhere in limbo land—it’s cheap, but not a true need, but also something that’ll make my daily life better. In normal economic times, I’d never feel conflicted about buying a damn fridge turntable. On the other hand, I figured out an alternative for one of the things I really wanted using something I already have. So, I didn’t completely abandon my policies.

My final stop was the supermarket for my weekly shop, which was mostly top ups of pantry staples (like dried pasta), and a few things that I didn’t need quite yet, but that were on special. The are certain things that I buy only when they’re on special (like the brand of margarine I use), and that means I sometimes buy them before I need them in order to save money.

So, it was a productive and busy outing yesterday. That night, I planned to have leftovers for dinner, because I’d made extra on Wednesday specifically for that. When I was younger, my mother used to say, “they’re not ‘left’ overs, they’re planned overs!” It took me awhile, but I think I finally understand what she meant—and I’m now doing the same.

The two photos up top are from The Warehouse's site (linked to in the blog post), and are included here for clarity and explanation. I was not compensated in any way for mentioning the product or The Warehouse. The right side of the photo features items from The Warehouse's expanding own-brand grocery products called "Market Kitchen". I was particularly interested in trying their aioli and BBQ sauce, but I couldn't find it at the closest The Warehouse store to my house. I hope to eventually include them in a future post about own-brand grocery products vs. name brand ones.

I’m a helpful blogger

There’s no sense denying it: I’m a helpful blogger. Whether it’s my “AmeriNZ Test Kitchen” posts, in which I try all sorts of products and recipes, through to my “Projects” posts, where I talk in detail about things I’ve worked on, I talk about things I do so that others don’t have to. There’s another (sadly neglected) category of posts, “Household Hints”, in which I shared specific information to help with everyday challenges. Today I revive those posts.

Among the many things that I personally find the most annoying about chores associated with daily life is refilling the liquid soap dispensers next to all of my sinks. It’s something I have to do more often than ever, thanks to the frequent handwashing required by living with Covid, but even before that it was always annoying and even frustrating—until I thought of a workaround.

The photo up top illustrates the tip: How to refill a liquid soap dispenser quickly, easily, and with no waste or spills.

To to use this tip, you’ll need the empty soap dispenser, of course, a funnel that will fit inside the mouth of your soap dispenser, and a twist tie. That’s it! Well, a bottle of soap to pour into the bottle, too.

First, wrap the twist tie around the threads of the bottle, making sure it’s within the groove of a thread (so it doesn’t slip). You can twist two twist ties together if your soap bottle has an extra wide opening. Twist the ends of the twist tie together. That’s shown in the left photo in the bottom row.

Next, bend the twisted ends into the mouth of the bottle (middle photo), and insert the funnel (right photo). Don’t push it too hard—it’ll be askew and that’s what you want! Then, pour the new soap into the funnel and let it drain in.

The point of this is that it allows air to enter the bottle around the base of the funnel, and that speeds up the funnel emptying. Without the twist tie, the funnel will form a seal with the bottle opening and it’ll drain slower than maple syrup on a Vermont winter morning. This tip saves a lot of time.

There’s an important warning: You need to know what the capacity of your bottle is so that you don’t over-fill the funnel. In my case, I already knew what the capacity of my bottle was, and I’d measured how much the funnel holds, so I knew how far to fill the funnel so I don’t spill any soap. This can take some trial and error.

The point of this process is to speed up filling the bottle, of course, but there’s also another goal that others may or may not share: Until I came up with this, I always spilled some soap because pouring it into the bottle without a funnel meant I always misjudged the flow rate (or whatever it’s called) and the soap would gloop out and onto the bottle. When I started using a funnel, I had to leave it for ages as it slowly drained into the bottle. Now, it’s over in minutes, and with no spillage.

I’m being thoroughly tongue-in-cheek in this post, however, I really do use this method and highly recommend it. I’m absolutely certain I’m not the first person to come up with a way (in fact, this is my final, refined method) to make sure that the funnel doesn't form a seal, and so, make the bottle fill slower. However, so far this is the first place I’ve seen anyone spell it out.

This public service of mine is all the more remarkable given that I’ve never received a single cent in payment, nor any other form of compensation, in the entire 15 years I’d done this blog. What can I say? I’m a giver. And today is no different.

In all seriousness, though, I do swear by this method.

A trick for (living with) dogs

For quite a while now, there’s been a popular subject on the Internet called “lifehacks”. There are all sorts of memes, blog posts, articles, YouTube videos and probably more devoted to what are really nothing more than helpful hints. Some people loathe the term for the implication that it’s about “cheats”, but that’s not actually possible. Instead, it’s really just about finding shortcuts through daily life, better and more efficient ways doing things, and there are plenty of them. Like how to deal with dog registration tags.

New Zealand recently went through the annual dog registration process, and part of that involves putting a tag or strip on the dog’s colour, both as proof of registration, and to make it easier to locate the dog’s family if it gets lost. Since July 1, 2006, all dogs newly registered in New Zealand (except for working farm dogs) have had to be microchipped. Dog Control officers often have a microchip reader, but chips do fail, and ordinary people won’t have one. So, the tag is manual back-up (as well as a visual sign to others that the dog is registered).

Most (maybe all) local governments in New Zealand offer a choice between a plastic tag and a plastic strap. We’ve used both over the years, but I prefer the tag. One of the main reasons for that is that I can reuse it as part of a key chain. For example, I have an old one on my house keys—yellow so I’m more likely to see it if I drop the keys on the ground, especially if it’s in the grass. I also put them on spare keys that we might give to a guest. It’s at least theoretically possible that if I lost my keys they might be able to find me though the dog registration number on the tag—although, so far I’ve never lost my keys (still, I’m only 60½, so there’s still time…).

The problem with this is that the tag and its little metal ring arrive taped together onto the letter acknowledging the registration—but the rings and tags are separate from the each other. So, first the tag has to go onto the metal ring, and then that has to go onto the ring on the dog’s collar. Neither task is easy.

In the past, I always tried to open the rings using my fingernails, often breaking my nails. Then I found a lifehack that said to use an ordinary staple lifter to pinch open a ring like that. It worked—and my fingernails now remain intact. Even so, it’s not easy to open those little rings—it’s just that it’s definitely easier with the staple lifter.

One problem with the plastic tags is that they often have little nubs on them left from the manufacturing process. Because the tags are made from a hard plastic, those little numbs can be quite strong, and can easily scratch. I don’t want to be scratched when I’m giving my dog a scratch, so the first thing I do is cut off those nubs using an ordinary fingernail clipper (funny how often fingernails enter into this process…). After that, I swing out the little nail file to make sure the edge where the nub was is smooth.

Then I put the tag onto the little ring, which sometimes takes a little manoeuvring. When I put them onto the much bigger ring on the dog’s collar, I have to open the little ring the tag is on much wider—in fact, it’s more open than the staple lifter can manage. So, my solution is to insert the file from those fingernail clippers (again with the fingernails!) to keep the ring open to I can gradually slide the staple lifter along as I slide it over the ring on the dog’s collar. Eventually I get the little ring completely onto the dog’s collar.

I don’t always succeed in my first attempt: The ring the tags are on is quite small, which makes the whole process very fiddly. I once tried using a larger metal ring, one from a previous year’s tag, but it turned out it the hole on the new tag was too small (or the ring was too thick, depending on your perspective). Personally, I think that if the metal ring merely had a wider diameter it would be so much easier to work with.

Despite some quibbles with the size of the ring, this process nevertheless allows me to eventually succeed, while keeping my fingernails intact (again!). And it just goes to show that not every blog post has to be about a serious or important topic.

Though keeping nice fingernails obviously is.

The photo above is of this year’s tag before the lifehack was applied.

Footnote: I originally intended this post to be for last week, since I knew I’d be too busy with work to create new posts, but I ran out of time to finish it. I was trying to pre-plan posts, like Roger Green does so well, and I, um, I don’t (except for our trip to Australia in 2017, when I wrote and set-up several blog posts to publish automatically). Best laid plans, and all that. Still, if I’m now free to resume blogging, why not start with a lighter topic? So, that done, I now need to go trim my fingernails.

More Internet wisdom that worked

These days, whenever we need to find something out, we probably turn first to the Internet. We can learn many interesting things that way, and sometimes we may even find effective ways to do something we need to do, like how to fix something we don’t know how to fix. Today I tried a repair method I read about on the Internet, and it actually worked.

The problem was that our en suite basin, which is made of plastic (or maybe it’s fibreglass), was stained with my beard dye (don’t judge). It happened because the dye’s applied with a little brush and it’s possible to flick the dye without even seeing it until later. Left too long, it stains the basin.

So I turned to the Internet and the wisdom contained thereon was that nail polish remover would remove it (it was also supposed to work on removing the printing from those little plastic tags used to close bread bags).

We had some nail polish remover that we used as a solvent in our old house (maybe it was another Internet answer—I don’t remember). So I tried it and—nothing. I remembered that the instructions specified nail polish remover with acetone, which, apparently, they don’t all have. In fact, it didn’t smell anything like the stuff my mother used when I was a kid. So, I decided to buy some acetone and try that.

I’ve never bought acetone before, and I assumed I could get it at a hardware/home centre, and Google confirmed that. So, I headed out today to get the groceries, stopping first at the nearby home centre, and I bought the smallest bottle they had.

The acetone worked. I had to rub the spots, especially the darker ones, but it did work. I was kind of surprised, to be honest. The photos up top show the before and after, and I do realise it’s kind of hard to see. The shadow of the tap handle at the left edge of both photos is the point of reference.

There was one small (literally) failure, though: I tried the acetone on a bread tag, but it broke apart as I did. Maybe straight acetone is too harsh (it can strip paint, after all), or maybe I was pressing too hard, or maybe it was just a fragile tag. I'll try again another time.

It’s been awhile since I’ve had a chance to talk about trying something I learned about on the Internet. Sometimes the method works, and other times it just doesn’t. As it happens, I have another one to talk about, something that’s been in the works for a couple years, actually, and it's still not ready because the trial isn’t done yet (I read about a variation I haven’t been able to try yet).

Sometimes the Internet is pretty useless for telling us how to do things, but other times it actually delivers. This was (mostly) one of those times.

My summer project

It seems as if every summer has to have some sort of project. It makes us feel like we’re accomplishing something with the long, mild days, or maybe to make up for hibernating in the winter. Either way, summer is a great time to get things done around the house. This year, my project has been painting.

The photos up top are the before and after photos of our toilet (the room, not the throne), the first room I painted. The before and after photos of the main bathroom, the second room I painted, are below. It turned out to be more of an adventure than I’d expected, but before getting into that, first the why.

The house is what part of a line of a special type of home called “Initial Homes” (and usually stylised as “1nitial Homes”). The homes were a more budget-friendly version of Lockwood Homes, and while the Initial Homes brand has disappeared, Lockwood now has a range of home styles available.

Lockwood Homes use a special system of solid wood married with polystyrene and locking pins. The long sections are manufactured into chunky plank-like things, which are then assembled into a house on site. The somewhat modular nature means that there are numerous modifications that can be made fairly easily and relatively inexpensively.

Traditionally, the houses featured varnished wood finish on the walls (visible in both before photos), and, of course, the varnish slowly yellows over time. A whitewashed look was also available, and now they have a range of finishes/colours available, too. However, for many years, varnished wood was king.

Lockwood Homes generally had solid wood roofs/ceilings, in addition to the walls, and Initial Homes had conventional roofs and gib (plasterboard) ceilings. Some people love the all-wood look, and others hate it, which is all a matter of personal taste. The solid wood roofs/ceilings make for a very strong roofing system, however, it can mean being surrounded by a lot of wood.

Personally, I think they’re great for a holiday home, where the sort of cabin-like feel just seems appropriate. But being surrounded every single day by all that wood everywhere, including inside the wardrobes (closets), is just a bit too much. This was especially true in the toilet, bathroom, and en suite (also known as a “master bath”; I haven’t painted that room yet), which were quite dark and just didn’t feel fresh. In fact, the toilet felt a bit like an outhouse to me.

Before we could do anything, some prep work* was required. In addition to removing things like towel rods, the toilet paper holder, and picture hooks, I also needed to wash the walls. This was for two reasons. First, it got rid of the dust in the grooves between the boards, and second, because it’s good to wash walls before painting: Because they were still in their original finish, they might have dirt/grime/grease after all those years, and the best way to make sure they didn’t was to wash them. I used sugar soap, which is commonly used in this part of the world, the specific brand being Selleys. I followed the label instructions, which included the advice that it wasn’t necessary to rinse/wipe down the walls after washing them with the sugar soap. This was important.

Next, it was time to paint. After doing our research, we chose to prime/seal the wood with Zinsser Bulls Eye 1-2-3 by Rustoleum* because—in addition to being recommended by folks who’ve done what we were about to do—it had several important advantages. It’s water-based (easy to clean up), dries quickly (one hour, though it takes 7 days to fully cure/harden), and it can go over any surface without it being sanded first, something that was important for our use—who’d want to sand all those walls?!

The label says that two coats usually aren’t necessary, and in our case we wanted it to prepare the wood for the paint, not to prime the walls. So, I only used one coat. Our top was a primer and paint in one, in a colour called “Black White” which is a white, but with a bit of black to tone it down a little bit, making it sort of alabaster-looking (as paint experts put it). It took three coats of the paint to fully cover the wood.

Because the original surface was smooth, I’d intended to paint the room with foam brushes and very low nap rollers. However, there were areas where sap had bled through and hardened, and there were some saw marks that couldn’t be seen, and they all made the walls rougher than they looked, especially near mouldings around the doors and windows, it seemed. I ended up using brushes exclusively for the whole job.

When I painted the toilet, I laboriously taped all the wooden mouldings, which I thought was a waste of time. But when I went to paint the bathroom, and discovered how hard it was to paint without hitting the mouldings, I stopped and taped them all up. Lesson learned: Mask everything first.

All of which fit our goal: We weren’t trying to hide what the house is or made of, and we wanted it to be obvious it was wood (the outline of the knots can still be seen). Similarly, the fact that some of my brush stokes could be seen, despite all my caution and attempts to do, long, gentle, feathered strokes, meant that it ended up looking like old wood that someone had painted. In a sense, it made the rooms seem kind of vintage, farmhouse-like, even, which is all the rage. It also made those yellowed-varnish walls look like shiplap, which seems to be used in a lot of the American home improvement shows I watch. If we hadn't wanted any of that, and wanted smooth walls, we would have gibbed over (put plasterboard over) the walls, which some people with these homes choose to do.

We decided to leave the mouldings in their original state, varnished wood, rather than painting them, for two reasons. First, they match the rest of the house, and we felt that would add continuity to the look—the difference wouldn’t be so jarring. Second, it provided some contrast with the white walls to help break it up a bit. I think the result did both.

Overall, the rooms ended up looking as we wanted them to, though somewhat different than I’d originally thought I wanted. While I originally wanted perfectly smooth walls, after I realised how rough the walls actually are, I think the result I got is more authentic, for lack of a better word, than a totally smooth finish would have been. Painting the two rooms white brightened them both up, of course, and made them seem fresher and more modern. But they also reflect light into the hallway they both open onto, brightening up what is often a dark space.

Most of the tips I’d give anyone doing a similar project are covered anywhere painting advice is given—like making sure the paint is well stirred, that dropcloths cover the floor (and cover them well…), and that things not to be painted are well masked (and take time to get it right; I rushed too much and should have worn my reading classes. Sigh.). However, I have some specific tips that don’t often get mentioned.

First, if it’s a small room, take the door off its hinges. I didn’t do that with the toilet, and nearly passed out from the heat (not entirely joking about that…), and had trouble painting the moulding behind the door in particular (in this style house, there’s usually very little room, maybe the width of a pencil, between one or both walls near a door and the mouldings around it). I learned my lesson, and took the door off its hinges when I did the bathroom and will do it again when I paint the en suite later this month.

Second, and most important of all, sit on the toilet—literally. Also, stand in a shower, at the vanity, and sit on the edge of the bathtub. Then, look around for any spots you may have missed. People will have the most time to contemplate the quality of your labour when they’re spending time in one place, so it makes sense to quality-control your work from those perspectives. I found small areas I missed that way. Criticism averted.

My greatest challenge was at the beginning: The small size of the toilet made it cramped and too tight to use a stepladder, though I was able to use my small step stool. It was hard painting over my head, and it left my upper arms very tired. That was also the most active I’d been in months, and I felt it. Near the end of the second coat in the toilet, I thought to myself that I wished we’d never started the project. Things got better, though, and the bathroom went better. No doubt part of that was that I’d become just enough fitter that it didn’t bother me as much; I can only imagine how much easier it would have been had I been completely fit.

There was, of course, some inevitable overpainting (for example, when I painted the toilet, and left the door on its hinges, I sometimes hit the hinges or the doorframe when trying to paint behind the mouldings around the door. I also dripped a bit on the tile floor, and a little on the carpet. The carpet spots, which were light, came out easily with the same wet vacuum we use for pet accidents and spills. The overpainting on the mouldings came off with a damp rag and a little rubbing. The drops on the floor I was able to scrape up with a plastic bread bag closer, or, if it was really stubborn, a razor blade. Some tweezers also came in handy for removing little bits of masking tape that stuck to the wood, after I first sliced through the paint with an X-ACTO knife. A photo of the tools I used in my clean up, without the damp rag, is at the very bottom of this post.

Finally, a blogger’s notes on the photos: I took them in as near-identical states as possible. Many times I’ve seen “before” photos that show a terrible room, and the “after” photo shows it all finished and dressed and looking magazine worthy. I wanted to be able to show a more direct comparison of the projects, so neither room has any unnecessary adornments or anything. However, the “before” photo of the bathroom had the photos still on the wall, so the “after” does, too. Also, Nigel had attached the heated towel rail to the bathroom wall before I was able to take the “after” photo (it still has to be connected to the power by an electrician). So, the photos show the rooms in nearly the same state before and after…

And that’s what I’ve done on my Summer Holiday: A Summer Project.

The bathroom, before and after.

My clean-up tools.

*The products listed and their names are registered trademarks, and are used here for purposes of description and clarity. No company or entity provided any support or payment for this blog post, and we purchased the products at normal retail prices. So, the opinions I expressed are my own genuinely held opinions, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the manufacturers, any retailer, or any known human being, alive or dead, real or corporate. Just so we’re clear.

*Update: After I published this post, I realised that I accidentally left out information about the prep stage, and it is an important part of the process. I added the paragraph on prep work for full transparency.

Repaircycle?

There are many useful and interesting things to be found on Pinterest, from ideas, to “how to” instructions, to inspiration, to trends. There, as in home magazines, there are plenty of buzzwords, too, like “upcycle”, “repurpose”, and more. But what about when something is basically just repaired and returned to use? What should we call that? “Repaircycle”?

The photo above is of some metal canisters I bought years ago for coffee, tea, and one for biscuits (cookies). I liked them because they were metal, the paint was red (at the time, one of our accent colours), and the anodised finish gave it a retro look I liked.

I had two smaller canisters, two larger ones, and one large one. We hadn’t had them all that long before, one after the other, the ring on the lid broke off, all except one. We retired the canisters (bought new ones) and moved on—but they were boxed up, waiting for a new use. I found a way to use them again.

In the photo above, the canister at left (currently used for Bella’s food) is the only one left with an intact ring on the lid. To the right is a taller one as repaired. In the foreground is an unrepaired lid, plus the knob I used to repair the lid (at far left) and the underside of the broken ring pull next to it.

I decided to find a solution at all because the lids were well made: There were rubberised rings on top and below to protect the glass, and the flat washer-like think on top was separate from the ring pull.

So, I decided to buy some drawer pulls to replace the original rings (the broken-off rings were thrown away at the time, since welding them back on wasn’t something we could do ourselves, and I didn’t think it would last, anyway). I found some pulls I really liked, with bases big enough to replace the original base of the ring, BUT, they were plastic. Not a starter.

So, I bought some metal drawer pulls (pictured), and took out the original base of the old pull. The base of the pull sits in a little depression, which, at first, I didn’t like, but which I now think looks good.

I replaced the broken lid for the canister I had (canister on the right), which I used for Leo’s food. However, even after 18 months in this house, we still haven’t found all the canisters/lids. So, I still haven’t repaired them all, though I bought enough knobs to do so.

The thing is, once broken, the canisters were difficult to use, so we put them away. Repaired, they’re usable again, but we bought new canisters to replace them when most of them were broken. We’ve re-purposed a couple of the old ones so far, and I have a use for another. I have no doubt that once they’re all found and repaired, I can find uses for them all. I do still like them, after all.

But what do we call this? This is not “upcycling”, which is taking something old and worn out and giving it a new look, a new life and, quite possibly, an entirely new use. It’s not recycling, which means discarding them, and it’s not merely reusing them—though there is an element of that.

Basically, this is merely repairing them, replacing worn/irreparable parts rather than literally repairing them. We have no trendy name for that—how about “Repaircycle”? Or maybe, “Uprepair”? Sometimes these days it seems that the only way to get people interested in time-tested solutions—as, in this case, repairing something so it can be used again—is to give it a trendy name. I don’t know what to call this, but I certainly wish more people did it.

Meanwhile, I have a set of old canisters I still like that are functional for the first time in years, and that’s a good thing. They cost me very little to fix, and, since I still like them, it’s money well spent.

But, how do we make something old-school like repairing things we already own trendy again?

Nuclear scrambled eggs

Last month I blogged about an unexpected power outage, and mentioned in passing that I “made myself some scrambled eggs in the microwave”, the relevance of which was that the power went out shortly afterward. It turned out, that small point wasn’t as beside the point as I thought, and I realised it’s a good idea to share my modern magic.

In a comment to that post, Roger Green said:

You make scrambled eggs in a microwave? I have NEVER done that – wouldn't know how to – and I've been making them for at least 5.5 decades.

Today is your lucky day, Roger! (and anyone else who hasn’t done it). This is how I make scrambled eggs in the microwave.

You will need:

• Eggs (eggs in New Zealand are almost always brown)
• Something to shake them up in
• A microwave safe bowl
• A fork (not pictured above)

The important thing to note is that time matters: Too much microwaving and your eggs will be rubbery; too little, and they’ll be partly raw. Stirring is also important.

Take your eggs and crack them into something you can shake them up in (I used an old jam container with a tight-fitting lid). Add some water (not milk), put the lid on tightly, and shake vigorously to mix thoroughly. Pour into a microwave safe bowl and place in the microwave.

The amount of time you’ll need will depend on the power of your microwave, the number of eggs, even if they’re from the fridge or at room temperature. For this example, I’m using a 1000 watt microwave and two refrigerated eggs, and the high power setting. Some people microwave 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each go.

Nuke the egg mixture for about a minute (unless you're using the 30 second burst method), then remove from the microwave and stir with a fork:

The eggs after one minute in the microwave.

Put the stirred mixture back in the microwave. I nuke for about 50 seconds more, though you can adjust this up or down to fit your tastes, etc. (as above). It looks really puffy when you open the microwave door, and then settles down rapidly:

Stir/chop-up the eggs with a fork. If you’re by yourself, eat out of the bowl. If not, or you're particularly civilised, then put on a plate.

Fluffy eggs at the end (left) collapse when you take them out of the microwave (right).

There are two main advantages to making eggs in a microwave. First, it’s fast. My two eggs take less time start to finish than it usually takes to toast bread. Second, it uses no added fat, unlike conventional scrambled eggs made on a stovetop. But, like I said, timing is important to avoid the eggs becoming rubbery, and that will take trial and, yes, error.

The eggs can be doctored: I often add some dried mixed herbs before I nuke the egg mixture, and even some grated cheese (all of which can also be added afterward). Usually, though, I add nothing except some (low sodium) salt and pepper. However, I’d advise against adding raw vegetables (like onion, green onion) because they may not be cooked through. Best to nuke them separately and add them to your egg mixture. Tomato is probably okay to add before nuking, though.

Scrambled eggs aren't the only thing I make in the microwave, but they’re what I make the most often. Easy, fast, no added fat—what more could I ask?

The plated scrambled eggs, with no garnish or anything. I like them firmer, which is why time matters.

Back to it?

All summer holidays must come to an end, sooner or later. In New Zealand, time was nearly the entire country shut down from Christmas until the end of January, but those days are over. Mostly. And not for me.

As it happens, I don’t go back to work until the beginning of February, thanks to the arrangement of dates and the fact the project I work on every month skips January. It’s a good chance for me to get some projects done around the house, and every year I set out to do that. Sometimes I even succeed. This has already been one of those years.

Last week, I talked about my office reorganisation project, and the barriers to completing it. I didn’t mention one weird obstacle: I couldn’t find a Sharpie, and I knew we had at least four—somewhere. Today I went and bought a different sort of marker (only because the store didn’t sell Sharpies), and I was ready to finish that part of the project.

I wanted the marker so I could write on a scrap piece of paper what years were in the plastic box, which I then folded and faced outward so the signs could be read theough the transluscent plastic. So today I finished the re-boxing of all those receipts and statements I’d sorted, and I even wrote down the destuction date so I don’t have to do the arithmetic later on (because, reasons).

Now, I have little bits of detritus to box up, something I started this afternoon. These are things I want to keep (like political ephemera, for example, something I’ve collected for decades, though I have virtually nothing left of what I had in the USA), but that I don’t need close at hand. That’s a small job, really, and something I’ll complete tomorrow.

In the first few days of the new year, a friend mentioned on Facebook that he was seeing a lot of stuff about decluttering in his newfeed and he wondered why. I pointed out that he was probably seeing it because getting organised is a common New Year’s Resolution. But, in truth, decluttering has been popular on various Internet sites—especially Pinterest and YouTube—for a long time now.

There are a lot of different approaches to this sort of thing, such as, some people merely want to be better organised, as they define that, others want less “stuff”, among other things. As a 22-year-old, I was intrigued by Henry David Thoreau and his talk of people possessing no more than they could carry on their backs. He also coined, “simplify, simplify”, though I think most people wouldn’t take that to mean eat only once a day or have only five plates as he did. Still, the ideas are interesting, if somewhat difficult to achieve in the modern world.

Today I saw a somewhat extreme variations on this “simplify” riff. Called “Swedish Death Cleaning”, it’s basically about getting rid of more and more stuff, starting around age 50, so that our children don’t have to spend hours after we die going through stuff that means nothing to them. I had two completely different reactions to this notion.

First, I frankly resent the assertion I have a moral duty to live like a monk in order to make things easier for my survivors. I have no children, so chances are that if I’m the last one to go, it’ll be some company hired by my estate executor and paid to come in and look for things of value to sell, everything else going to the tip. How is that my problem, and who am I inconveniencing? It’s not, and no one.

My other thought was that—up to a point—this makes some sense. It’s always good to get rid of truly useless stuff, and a good idea to leave explicit intructions as to how to get rid of anything for which we have very specific wishes. If anything. Mainly, though, I want to get rid of stuff and simplify for MY sake.

I often think of the quote from William Morris, a Victorian textile designer and artist (among other things…) who said: “If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

I often think of this when I see home renovation/decoration stuff, whether on TV, the Internet, or in a magazine. I think about it most frequently when I see the artwork used, often chosen for colour alone, and I think, why?! Sometimes useful things can be beautiful (however we define that), but what we personally think is beautiful is all that matters. To me, Morris’ Golden Rule is always useful when decorating, and also when deciding what to keep and what to discard.

Except when it’s not.

I often remind Kiwis that when they need to connect with earlier phases of their lives, especially childhood and young adulthood, they can easily do so: They can visit the town where they grew up, the schools they attended, the houses where they lived. I can’t do that without spending thousands and thousands of dollars and days—maybe weeks—of my time.

Instead, I have three boxes and bit more.

In this reorganising I’m doing, the stuff I’ve accumulated in the past 22+ years is fair game, but anything before that? Out of bounds. Forbidden. Getting rid of stuff and reducing the weight (literal and figurative) of that stuff is a worthy goal, but life touchstones do matter to most of us, and for me they’re contained within three boxes (and a very few books)—three boxes that aren’t going anywhere. Some day my executors can worry about them.

I’ve actually—What? Enjoyed?—this process of getting rid of stuff. It’s liberating. I can see how my office space, once emptied of junk, will make it easier for me to feel creative and to do something about it. These have been goals for years, and they are now within reach.

And the best part is that my summer break isn’t even over yet.

The drawer project

There are ample resources to help people organise their homes, from commercial products, to stores that specialise in such products, and on to an endless stream of advice all over the Internet. There are useful things amid all that, and a whole lot of useless noise. Recently, I sifted through all that and discovered some solutions that worked for me, and it ended up being a blend of all that.

Since me moved into our current house, I’ve installed a new wardrobe system to increase storage in the master bedroom’s wardrobe, added small shelves (tiers, really) in the pantry and other cupboards to increase their storage, and added some plastic boxes with lids to hold things we don’t need very often. I also pared down some stuff—that’s a project in itself.

Our kitchen drawers were the glaring exception to all my organising efforts because they were nothing short of a disaster. There are four drawers in our small kitchen, and the top one had a plastic insert to separate cutlery, but the other three drawers were just drawers.

Organising has long been one of the things I searched for on Pinterest, and some of the solutions were reasonably good—but nothing was quite right. One day I was at Storage Box, a chain of stores that sells all sorts of storage items plus a lot of other homewares. Run as a cooperative, the chain’s stores are all independently owned. At the store I visited, I found different solutions for each of the drawers.

I was familiar with the sort of drawer liner that was already there: A rigid plastic thing with wide edges giving room to cut it down to fit a particular drawer (not necessarily easy to do, but it's possible). The problem is that those wide edges waste space, and the one we had wasted a lot of space (plus it was too narrow, so it slid around). My solution was the most expensive solution for any of the drawers: a Madesmart Expandable cutlery tray with eight compartments. I chose this because I could adjust the side compartments to fit our drawer, and I already knew the depth was about right. In the end, however, to get any decent size compartment on the outside, I took the one on the right side away entirely. Who knows—I may need that in a different kitchen some day. Here are before and after photos:

The cutlery drawer before (left) and after (right).

This particular tray also has “non-slip base” in each section, which makes the drawer quieter (it cutlery rattles a lot). There was one other problem, though: It was a little too short. The solution was provided by some little foam rectangles that were originally part of the packaging for some curtain rods we bought, so I re-purposed them by putting them firmly at the far end of the drawer (not visible in the photo). This had the added benefit of increasing the noise dampening in those drawers—a bonus, and a solution that was free.

Next up was the worst drawer of all, the utensil drawer. I didn’t want to get an insert because I’d put one in our previous house and didn’t like the results: The compartments weren’t quite right, and there was the usual problem of wasted space.

So, I bought a set of three expanding drawer dividers. I’d seen similar ones on Pinterest, and I decided to give them a go, even though I was a little worried they might slip. They ended up working really well, though they do slip a bit over time. I can live with that so far. Before and after photos:

The cooking utensils drawer before (left) and after (right).

The final drawer I did was the drawer that mostly has serving utensils of one sort or another (separated form the cooking utensils mainly so there’s more room in the cooking utensil drawer). The truth is, I wanted to use expanding drawer dividers in this drawer, too, but the store only had one set.

Instead, I bought three plastic basket-like trays that had dividers. I ended up not using all the dividers because I didn’t need them, but they’re all in the drawer in case that changes in the future. The trays are a little shorter than the drawer, so I used a couple more of those little foam rectangles to secure them side to side, and they now stay firmly in place.

Before and after photos are below, and it’s worth noting that the plastic container on the right holds clips for bags of chips or whatever, and it has a broken lid so we can pop a clip we’re not using at the moment back into it without having to take out the container and open it. Sure, I could have cut a hole, but at least this way nothing falls out. And, the container, like those little foam rectangles, were free.

The serving pieces drawer before (left) and after (right).

I haven’t done anything with the bottom drawer yet because it’s the deepest and I’ve been considering a two-tiered approach. But first I want to see how it works to see what solution is best. Besides, at the moment it mainly has tea towels and dishcloths in it, so it’s not a high priority.

This project was a LONG time coming, and in the end it amounted to looking at what was readily available, and what would work for our particular drawers. I had to modify those things slightly to make them work, but doing so didn’t cost me anything extra.

I might have been able to make dividers out of wood, as I saw somewhere through Pinterest, but I didn’t trust my woodworking skills. My path seemed the best for us, and, so far, it has been. And that’s the real point of this endeavour: Because of the Internet, I found various potential solutions, and that meant that when I found things in the store, I knew how I could make them work because, in a sense, I’d already done that. In this case, the Internet didn’t provide THE solution, but it definitely helped me find solutions that worked.

Full disclosure: I purchased all the products mentioned at retail. Neither Storage Box nor the particular store provided any sort of compensation, special pricing, or anything else. Or, to put it as I do in my standard disclaimer: I have not received compensation of any kind for this post—not that I’m above that or anything, it’s just nothing’s ever been offered to me. So, the opinions in this post are entirely my own sincerely held opinions.

Dawn of an Internet constant

There are all sorts of things one can find out in the Internet, but one of the things it’s particularly good at is delivering instructions on how to do things. Just as in real life, the quality of the suggestions we get can vary widely, but at the very least, they can provide a starting point. Sometimes they also raise more questions, even about dishwashing liquid.

One of the things I searched for on Pinterest were recipes for homemade cleaners, not just because they’re often less harsh than commercially manufactured products sold in the supermarket, but also because they don’t use chemicals made from petroleum. They can also be cheaper.

One of the things I noticed immediately was how many—maybe even most—homemade cleaner recipes that use dishwashing liquid as one of the ingredients specified a particular brand, namely, Proctor & Gamble’s brand Dawn. Naturally, I wondered why.

It turns out it has to do with a particularly famous event: The Exxon-Valdez Disaster, when 10.8 million US gallons (which is 260,000 barrels, 40,882,447 litres, or 41,000 m3) of crude oil were spilled in Prince William Sound in Alaska when the Exxon Valdez ran aground on March 24, 1989. People who worked to rescue the wildlife found that Dawn worked the best for removing crude oil (See: “Why Dawn Is The Bird Cleaner Of Choice In Oil Spills” from npr).

There were more than a few eyebrows raised at that, since Dawn contains chemicals made from petroleum. While many of us might see that as ironic, others felt that using such products helps to perpetuate demand for petroleum that led to the oil spill they were fighting with petroleum based cleaners. I get the argument, but I almost needed to draw a flowchart to follow it.

Okay, so maybe Dawn really is the best for cleaning crude oil off of birds and other wildlife, the origin of its ingredients notwithstanding. Most of us just don’t need to do that around our homes, so maybe we don’t need those particular miraculous properties in our homemade cleaners, either?

A big issue for me, though, was that Dawn isn’t sold in New Zealand (technically, it IS available in NZ from specialist retailers selling to Kiwis, sometimes actually overseas, and I’ve seen it offered at three to ten times the price someone would pay in the USA). I knew that if I was going to try mixing any of the cleaners I was reading about, I’d need to substitute the dishwashing liquid for something I could actually get.

And that was why I looked into why so many people specified Dawn dishwashing liquid in their homemade cleaner recipes: I needed to understand why they were doing that in order to pick a substitute. I chose a replacement, and I’ll be talking about my experience and results in future posts. However—spoiler alert!—it turns out that pretty much any dishwashing liquid can be used in those recipes instead of Dawn. Quelle surprise!

There are often specific reasons why people do the things they talk about the way they do them. If we find out what those reasons are, we can decide for ourselves whether those reasons are sound, and whether we think that how they do the the thing is a good idea, necessary, or whatever. This was one of those times for me, but I sure wish that most of the time it was that easy to find out the reasons for stuff.

Still, I guess you could say this was the Dawn of a new adventure (thank you; I’m here all week).

Internet wisdom fails label gunk

Once again, I turned to the wisdom of the Internet to solve a problem. I always try to keep an open mind when I try a method I learned on the Internet, even if I’m sceptical, but this time it turned out my scepticism was well-placed.

Recently, I emptied a plastic—what’s the word? Jar? Container?—that used to hold fish oil capsules (photo at right). It’s reasonably tall and has a screw-on lid, so I realised it would be perfect for storing things in the garage, like nails or screws or something like that. I know that it’s always a good idea to first try using what’s already around rather than buying new when organising things—the Internet didn’t teach me that, it’s just common sense (though I see it repeated all the time on Pinterest).

To reuse this particular container, I wanted to remove the label and a sticker on the lid (promoting the fact it was an “economy” size). I wanted to do that in order to put on another label later, or maybe to just write on it. The original label was in the way.

First, as I usually do, I soaked it in hot water with dishsoap, and that allowed me to remove the outermost layer only: A mushy papery layer was still stuck to it with the glue underneath. The label on the lid wasn’t moved at all.

So, I turned to the Internet, and found many places that suggested rubbing it with a mix of equal parts baking soda and cooking oil (any variety). First, I soaked the container again, as before, then I tried rubbing the mixture on the container and rubbed it some more. It did nothing. I used the oily mix with a scouring sponge. It still did nothing.

Next, I took one of those plastic tags used to close the bag a loaf of bread comes in and used that to gently scrape the papery residue off. Basically, this is in place of using my fingernails: It’s stronger, has a square edge, and doesn’t let gunk get under my nails—a win all around. Once I had the papery stuff removed, then I tried the oil mixture again to remove the adhesive residue, and it still didn’t do anything to the adhesive gunk. I grabbed a scouring sponge and again tried the oily stuff with that: Still nothing.

Finally, I washed the oily stuff off with dishsoap, then got out rubbing alcohol and used it to remove the adhesive, using a scouring sponge in particularly bad areas. Then, I washed it all with dishsoap again. It’s now label-less and not sticky—ready to re-use, in other words.

The lid was much more difficult to clean (the label was an entirely different sort—more like a really strong sticker. Even so, the procedure was exactly the same, with two differences: Using the bread bag closer to scrape off the label was much harder to do, and even after all those treatments there’s still a little adhesive residue on the lid, something I noticed only after I’d washed it and it had tried. I’ll have another go with rubbing alcohol later.

So, I’d rate the cooking oil and baking soda method an utter failure. I think that baking soda with undiluted dishsoap would have had exactly the same effect (little to none, on other words), because the baking soda is a mild abrasive and the dishsoap, like the oil, could help make it easier to rub the container than, say, plain water would have. But, in the end, it just didn’t work.

I may try another, different method in the future, but I know that soaking off what I can of a label, using a bread bag closer to scrape residue off, and following that with rubbing alcohol to clean off the remaining adhesive gunk is an effective method most of the time.

Sometimes, clearly, the Internet does not know best.

Non-odoriferous

The Internet can teach us many things. While some of them are merely entertaining, like how to play a game, some are particularly useful, like how to remove odours, for example. Recently, a technique I tried before came back to help me again.

Back in February, I wrote about using a technique I’d read about on the Internet, specifically, using white vinegar to try to remove the fake coconut oil stench of sunscreen from clothes. It worked, and I decided to try it again.

The first task was the most urgent. I discovered that Bella had peed on a mat in the bathroom (Not entirely her fault: She was locked inside all day, and since she doesn’t have a litter box, she was caught short). So, I put the mat in a bucket of hot water and white vinegar, as might be expected, the resulting smell was, um, unique.

I drained the water, gave the mat a little rinse, and then washed it as usual. Being heavy, it took forever to air dry, but the smell was gone. I vaguely remember doing something like that years ago, with a different cat, but forgot all about it until recently (partly because Bella doesn't usually do that).

A week or so later, I had two t-shirts that smelled sour, like a kitchen cloth or sponge left too long without washing and disinfecting. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but it could be I washed them during one of our many rainstorms and then hung them up to dry in the airing rack in the house. That could have meant they were damp for too long. In any event, merely washing them wasn’t removing the smell.

So, I soaked them, too, in a bucket of hot water with white vinegar and then washed them like usual. They came out smelling fresh and clean.

I know that I might find something that this method doesn’t work with, but I haven’t yet, which is the main thing. But the other thing is that this gave me a passing thought that I ought to try more of these things the Internet told me about, and report back on what happened.

I actually thought that after I’d already tried something completely different that wasn’t as successful.

Something I found through Pinterest told me that a soft cloth with rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) would remove water spots from stainless steel. We have a stainless steel water pitcher that, I think, had been washed in the dishwasher and ended up with water spots. I’d washed it and re-washed it by hand several times, but the spots remained. So I tried the alcohol method, and it helped—didn’t completely fix it, but it’s much improved. Sadly, I didn’t think to take a “before” photo, so an “after” photo was kind of pointless (and in that way, a topic for a blog post was lost…).

The larger point here is that as long as the Internet advice isn’t clearly dangerous—like combining household chemicals that must never be combined—there’s often no reason to NOT try methods, even if they seem unconventional. I will, and I'll continue to share what I learn.

Right now, though, I can affirm that soaking clothes in white vinegar does indeed remove most unpleasant odours.

I wonder what would happen if there was a white vinegar rainstorm over the White House…

Related posts:

Weekend Diversion: Learning stuff (2010) – The first post, I think, where I shared a technique I learned on the Internet. I still use this technique.
Weekend Diversion: How to fold a shirt (2013) – I still use this technique, too.