Green Cleaning - DIY Laundry Detergent

This DIY cleaning series I've been planning on writing for the past couple of weeks has really been an eye opening experience for me. I've always been a closet label snob, I instinctively reach for the more expensive brands and have to force myself to buy value brands of things, like shredded cheese and butter. In my opinion, some cheaper products just aren't right, like bread and ketchup; but I'm just starting to realize that all products, cheap and expensive, just can't compare to homemade.

I've always had a problem branching out to the cheaper products for fear there's some flaw hidden by a fifty cent discount, there's always a small part of me that cringes over the irreversible damage these mystery ingredients are bound to create. That's what's so great about these green cleaning products, there are no mysteries or dangerous chemicals and it actually works well. The little pessimist in my brain has nothing to say! Plus, it opens a whole new range of possibilities; I can make my own shampoo and conditioner, soap, body scrubs, lotions, glass cleaner, all-purpose cleaner, "febreze" copy, carpet powder, laundry detergent, and more, I'm sure.

I was pretty nervous about the laundry detergent before we made it; I love soft, clean-smelling clothes and I wasn't sure these ingredients would be able to deliver. I used my search engine to find some recipes and after deciding I'd rather have a  powdered version, I gathered my ingredients and got started.

The recipe I used as inspiration was recipe #4 from this website.
http://tipnut.com/10-homemade-laundry-soap-detergent-recipes/

2 cups bar soap (finely grated)
1 cup Washing Soda
1 cup Borax
1 cup Baking Soda
Mix well and store in an airtight plastic container.
Use two to three table spoons per load.

I altered it a little by adding baking soda and I used whatever soap I had lying around, call me lazy, but I'm not interested in buying special products to make my "quick and easy" green recipes, thanks. The recipe says to avoid heavily perfumed soaps and suggests using Fels Naptha Soap, but I ended up using my husbands Old Spice bar soap and it works great. I'm hoping to eventually start making our own soap, so that'll solve that problem.

It's not a very messy job, but it is a pain to hand-grate the bars of soap (I used a bar and a half, one Old Spice and half of one Dial.). I would like to dedicate our current blender to non-food projects and upgrade! I'm hoping Santa, or hubby, figures out I want a Vitamix for Christmas.

The only gripe I have about this detergent is when I washed my large comforter with it, it left little balls of powder in places. I'm pretty sure I could solve that by putting the detergent in before the comforter or just washing smaller loads. I haven't seen any residue on normal sized loads. Also, this particular recipe makes a pretty small batch, as you'll see in the photo, so I'll probably make a triple batch so it will last for about three months. I'm guessing we'll use this much in about a month, but I may be way off, I've never been good at estimating. 

I know for a fact that this detergent works like a charm. It's amazing how when you want a batch of really dirty clothes, it seems like everyone must have wrapped themselves in bubble wrap and hid in a corner! Well, I found my super dirty clothes in the form of towels. Towels that were put underneath a leaking duck container. If any of you own ducks, you probably don't need any other description than that, but let me tell you, ducks are not clean birds. They like to make a little duck swamp of poop, food, and water. Imagine that soaked into three or four towels and your bathroom carpet. Yuck! We have since moved them to a different room with a different container, thank goodness! One wash and dry cycle later, those towels were good as new, and I'm totally sold.

Check back soon to see what we use for stain remover! I've been looking for set stains for weeks now, I even tried to create them by pouring chocolate sauce on old onesies, but they've all gone missing. I just need to pop that bubble wrap.

Grand Tour - Interior

Since winters get cold here in the Midwest, we chose to do the outside work in the summer hoping that we'd be able to continue on the inside work during the wintertime. It hasn't been going as quickly, but we've done a lot of really important things.

The previous owners and builders of the property cut a lot of corners when they initially made the house, so most of the work that we've done on the inside is repair work. When we first got the idea to remodel, D.Burnett started by painting the upstairs bedroom. The walls were covered in so many layers of wallpaper, the corners of the room had rounded!




Our first big project indoors was the downstairs bedroom. We started with this room because when they were installing the sliding door upstairs, we saw the decking they had added wasn't properly sealed, allowing water to get in and seriously damage some boards. But, when we opened up the walls and ceiling, only one or two boards actually needed to be replaced due to rot. We did find that the weight of the upstairs had basically been caving in on the downstairs bedroom and bowing the boards underneath. So, we jacked up the second floor; added LVLs, a man-made material, to help support the top floor; and lowered it back down. Also, the studs were set at 24" instead of the standard 16", so we added one in the middle, making it a 12" interval.

They also replaced the sliding glass door and demolished the closet between the office and the bedroom.

There were mice climbing through the sloppy construction before our remodel. Yuck!

The electrical was pretty screwy, so we decided to redo and improve the electric wiring. We went pretty custom, adding extra outlets and things that go way beyond my level of understanding. D.Burnett has tried explaining it several times, but apparently it's not my strong suit. He says the contraptions below are called ballasts and if I tried explaining it, I'd be making it up.

This is the electrical voodoo (and a heater) that runs our plant room.

Wiring in the bedroom.

We noticed the house seems to be shifting, so investigating into that issue we found that the foundation was pretty flimsy, set on a hill made of sand, so D.Burnett framed and poured concrete slabs in the basement to help reinforce the foundation. We're not done with that particular issue yet, we still need to take off the siding in our living room to see just what the issue is with our load-bearing structures.

Also, D.Burnett did some work in our plant room, which I've already told you about. He took out old, nasty insulation and used new spray-insulation to fill in all the gaps in that room. Before using the spray insulation, once you had taken out the old, nasty pink stuff, you could see straight through the back of the house to outside. Needless to say, the room is a lot warmer.

Now we're waiting for the weather to warm up so we can get the bedroom put back together. We're also tearing down the wall in the living room to see if there are any load bearing issues. I'll be doing several posts soon; I still need to show you our property, I want to tell you about the chickens we ordered and how we're going to take care of them, and I need to show you some of D.Burnett's chainsaw carvings!

So, since there's still a lot of house that we haven't seen, I'll take you on a visual tour of the place.

Top floor.

Main floor.

Here's a quick sketch of the house to get your bearings.








When you first come into the main entrance on the side of the house, you have the living room to the right.

The kitchen is on the left of the main entrance.

Our roasted chicken dinner, yum!

The laundry room is to the right of the stair case and the hallway to the bedroom and bathroom to the left. We keep the bathroom warm with an extra heater! So warm, in fact, this is where we'll be keeping our baby chicks when they arrive in a couple of weeks!!

Downstairs bathroom with baby tub.

Upstairs we have three bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms. I decided it was too messy to take pictures of yesterday, so you'll just have to imagine. Thanks for stopping by and stay tuned for everything we have coming up!

See you soon,
B.Burnett

Grand Tour - Exterior

In 2011 or 2012, my parents had the idea that they wanted to do something more with their property. They started fixing up the house and exploring their hobbies and talents to see where that would take them. We seem to have found our category, and several others in the process; for the time being, we're calling ourselves a Nature Resort.

We don't have an exact definition for Nature Resort. We chose that specifically so we might have some wiggle room on the final verdict of our focus. It fits us because we believe in being close to nature, simple. A vague list of our plans include growing our own vegetables, having farm-fresh milk and eggs, hunting and fishing, carving, wine and beer and cheese making, green and organic living, co-existing with the local wildlife, bee keeping, etc. Besides the nature part, we're also committed to enjoying life. We often entertain ourselves with river sports, golfing, outdoor sports, cooking, baking, sewing and knitting, etc. I will admit, that as your narrator, you'll likely see a lot more of my specific interests, which means you'll also hear about my daughter. But, I promise, in advance, I won't talk about baby diapers or anything. This blog is not only meant for women, but for a variety of people that might share the same curiosities as us. We want to have a life that's close to self-sustainable and independent living and still be able to enjoy all that life has to offer. A natural resort experience.

So, today I'm going to show you some of the things we've done on the outside of the house and maybe around the yard. I may stick to the exterior depending on how long this post gets; I wouldn't want to bore you to death with home repair talk. That's not a good way to repay your interest.

First things first, we re-did the siding on the house. My dad, D.Burnett, took off all the original white pine siding and replaced it with cedar and used gigantic redwood for the facia boards. He added the green board and Tyvek, because apparently they hadn't used it in the original construction of the house. We've messed with the siding so much by now with sanding them and adding batons and resanding them and adding clear stain to preserve the wood, cutting them to add trim, etc. etc.; D.Burnett could probably do it with his eyes closed, so if you would like a more detailed post on this topic, please let me know.

He also replaced the glass panes of our bay window and rocked the bottom.








He added genuine railroad lanterns. Back when railroads were the best way to travel long-distances, the station workers would hang lamps that had significant meanings to the train conductors. The more you know, people! I'll have a separate post with more information on this later.




He had a crew help him replace and re-frame the sliding glass door in the upstairs bedroom, which was only the beginning of our problem, which I'll tell you about soon.

Replaced all the soffit and facia, with those huge redwood boards, I told you about. He also found hundreds of wasps nesting in there! D.Burnett is terribly allergic to bees and wasps. "I had swollen to the size of 6-month pregnant lady in two hours." - D.Burnett. Amazingly, he was only stung once, we're all in awe of his wasp/bee prowess.

And the last job he did before moving inside, he replaced the roof with new cedar shakes and added skylights with a couple of hired guys to help muscle things around.







There's more work to show you on the inside, but I titled this "Exterior," so that's what I'll stick to. I'll continue with the Grand Tour soon, so please, feel free to follow along.

See you soon,
B.Burnett

"Hello, world."

Hello! Welcome, all, to the Twin Bridges Nature Resort blogspot. We're currently under construction, with major renovations to our home and land; we're searching for our little niche out here in the great Midwest, creating our own little paradise in the middle of nowhere. We hope you'll join us on our adventures, participate with our experiments, celebrate our successes, and help us learn from our not-so-successful ventures.

First, I believe introductions are in order. I, your narrator, am a young mother and wife. My daughter is an eight-month old toddler. My husband coaches basketball at the nearby Junior High. My mother and father are the owners, operators, and basically the "men-behind-the-curtain" that make all the magic happen with Twin Bridges Nature Resort (TBNR or the Nature Resort). You can call us the Burnett Family.

Our family is a talented bunch with widely diverse interests, we embrace new experiences and thrive on variety. Over the coming week(s), I'll do a series of posts to help us get better acquainted, to let you in on our current projects, and the grand tour around our little Nature Resort.

See you all soon,
B. Burnett

Birds swarm the feeders all through the year. Here are finches in early fall.

Turkeys throw their weight around sometimes, but squirrels aren't afraid.

If you look in the upper left you'll see a turkey in the tree. They can fly, but not far.