apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

completely unrelated: Jonathanb, are you the same Jonathanb who posts and reads over on AT: New York? Did I miss them hiring you as an editor?

Eliza, confusingly, we're different people -- you can see the difference in my signature line below.

Not only am I terribly behind, but I'm going out of town this weekend. Luckily, the only really substantive thing that needs to be done is the floors. Getting rid of something will be cake, and I'll buy flowers on my way back into the city on Sunday.

I'm a warm person, as I know from a previous cure last year. Which means half the battle is Purge, and the other half is Organize/Make Functional. Unfortunately I don't lack for knowledge of my own taste, or "general aesthetic direction this room is going in" -- though I predict a few tweaks in that department.

Hi, I asked these questions on Monday but I guess you missed them, as you were busy vacuuming and mopping your apartments :-)

Two questions as I start the tasks from Week One:

- What environmentally sane wood floor waxes do you like? Our old varnished wood floors require wax and the only product I've found so far is noxious stuff (wax dissolved in petroleum naptha). I understand that Murphy's works great as a floor cleaner, but the varnish on our floors is thin enough that it needs the additional protection of wax.

- I like having fresh flowers, but we frequently have guests with allergies, so I avoid keeping them around the house. Does anyone know which cut flowers are the least allergenic? What substitutes for cut flowers do you recommend to work on Heart?

Oh, yeah, I'm a warm person. That bit was obvious as soon as I read this descriptions. But I don't know much about my style. Luckily I figure that I'll be so busy cleaning and decluttering this week that can come in the future.

chenoameg -- regarding your second question, live plants, of course! non-flowering cut plants might be nice, too (eucalyptus leaves, greenery, maybe bouquets of fresh herbs?) Anything that isn't usually flowering is probably non-allergenic (I'd guess most people allergic to flowers are allergic to the pollen).

Hey, wende, when you did the Fall cure last year and couldn't find fresh flowers in Phoenix, what did you end up doing?

chenoameg, could you use some branches instead of flowers? Hmm, that sounds kind of "dead" for a Heart fix, but they're interesting to look at and bring an element of nature inside.

chenoameg - instead of flowers, what about using cut branches or leaves? especially if they haven't been sprayed with chemicals to keep them shiny or something.

For me, I am warm person. We moved in June, so I have filtered everything 3x already. I did, however, clean up a tottering pile of books that has been in the same place since we got here.

For flowers... what I did this week was make a small purchase of autumn-season decorations, since we don't have any. Rather than buy flowers I think I will do this. It will have a leaf-balling effect and help the place look great for Thanksgiving.

For cooking: I cook from scratch daily. My 'not cooking' the other night was scrambled eggs for dinner; last night ( a cooking night) we had homemade pizza. It's not unknown to have to kick me out of the kitchen, so I think we are fine in that area lol.

Opo, good to see you again... I did the last Fall Cure too (posting as Tara in Va then)

I had a big deadline yesterday, so now I am ready for curing! I have already put something out on the sidewalk (easy in NYC). Will purchase flowers this weekend from the farmer's market (hopefully they will be more environmentally friendly than the ones from the deli).

Does anyone have a homemade solution for mopping painted wood floors, especially ones that get pretty dirty? I tried using Dr. Bronner's sal suds, but even a teeny bit dissolved in a bucket of hot water made it pretty darn sudsy, which was sort of a pain. Ideally, I could just mop without having to rinse. Ideas?

Oh, and Jennifer, your living room looks fantastic! I don't think you need much curing in that room.

Hey, wende, when you did the Fall cure last year and couldn't find fresh flowers in Phoenix, what did you end up doing?

Other than wringing my hands? Eucalyptus branches, potted plants, and one surprise "bouquet" of cut green branches from Safeway.

betsbillabong -

regarding farmer's market flowers -- they're usually environmentally better than deli or supermarket flowers. Even if they're not grown organically, they tend to be varieties that thrive locally, and even if not, at least they haven't been flown in from South America or New Zealand. Go for wildflowers or local specialties rather than hothouse orchids, obvs. The only thing is that they don't last nearly as long as conventional flowers do. I can keep a deli bouquet going for more than a week, but the bunch of zinnias I bought at the greenmarket last week were done in after only 3 or 4 days.

Regarding homemade floor mopping, vinegar cuts dirt and grime amazingly. A half vinegar half water solution will probably do you fine and not need a rinse. I believe the cure book mentions Murphy's Oil Soap as being both eco-friendly and good for floors.

thanks a lot the info opoponax,

yeah, i assumed that the farmer's market flowers would be much better than the deli flowers. thats a bummer that they don't last as long though. i can't afford to buy them twice a week. hmm.

i will try the vinegar and water, although it kind of brings up another issue: if i am supposed to mix the water and vinegar half and half, that will mean buying a new thing of vinegar every week - and also throwing out/recycling the vinegar bottle each week. thoughts? i've wondered about this anyhow in terms of using vinegar a lot for cleaning... is there any way to refill the same container with vinegar?

You can get a gallon jug of vinegar at your supermarket. Unless you have way more floor space than I'm thinking you have, I can't imagine you'd use a gallon a week.

Also, I don't recall that you'll have to mop every single week, Unless you normally do. The cure doesn't have you do the floors on a weekly basis.

Oh and regarding bulk vinegar use for cleaning in general, I'd guess that, unless you are an obsessive neatnik, there's no way you'll go through more vinegar than you would bottles of windex or simple green or whatever. A smallish spray bottle of vinegar and water lasts me at least a month, and I use it for almost all the cleaning I do. Of course, I don't really clean all that much. Also, as you can buy vinegar in larger containers than you can buy chemical cleansers, you'll be using less plastic in the long run than if you had a separate small spray bottle for each task.

Varnish does require a coat of wax to protect the varnished surface, and you're going to have to use solvent-based (i.e., not water-based) products for this. I don't think there's a way around the chemistry.

However, some products are better than others.

Briwax (www.briwaxwoodcare.com) has a new, low-odor blend. It's like the original formula but has no toluene. Keep in mind that low-odor doesn't mean no-odor, so it's still full of petrochemicals, but it may be the best you can do.

Really? I buy the big gallon-size vinegar bottles b/c I use it to clean so much stuff. It's a better deal but then I have the room to store it.

Thanks for all the info! I think I may be confused as to method here. In the past I've mopped with a bucket of hot soapy water with a tiny bit of Dr. bronner's sal suds thrown in. In order for the bucket to be significantly half and half, it would take a whole bunch of vinegar. And it's huge - around 2500 square feet.

Are you saying that I should just spray the ground instead with a spray bottle containing half and half vinegar/water? I was thinking of getting the target O-Mop or similar because our sponge mop gets filthy so easily. It would be nice to be able to throw the mop in the wash! (well, okay, not the handle...) Does anyone use something like this?

And unfortunately, I think I do need to start mopping every week. The place I live in, especially the kitchen, gets filthy easily. I think it's partly because I live in an old warehouse loft that has all kinds of cracks and leaks.

Still, it would be great if I could just go refill that half-gallon of vinegar each time I need to, rather than throwing the container out or recycling it.

As per varnish, I don't think there's any on the floor; I think it's marine paint which I believe is epoxy-based? At any rate, we've been mopping normally with Murphy's and/or Sal Suds and it's been fine... would water have done something funky to the varnish, if it was varnish?

I think I will tackle this tomorrow morning ;-)

Hey there! Just wanted to add something about the vinegar solution...you can sprinkle a few drops of essential oil into your mixture if you don't like the vinegar smell or simply want to impart some gentle scent into your rooms.

Hi Stephanie & Jonathan -- didn't get to talk to you at the AT meetup last week, but now that we've participated in a 'group therapy' session together you feel like family, lol!

I'm Curing over at the AT:SF site, but now that I know there'a a parallel Cure here I'll be checking in both places. Green is a big part of our life, so it's great to have y'all as a community.

Hey Jessica, thanks! So would you recommend just sweeping first, then spraying the small area to be mopped with the vinegar/water/essential oil spraybottle and mopping it up that way? So that it's just damp?

Jennifer, Your living room looks cured to me. :) Lovely! I will need to copy the list of ecofriendly cleaners and see if I can find them around here. Oh yes, and take all of my hazardous waste to the sanitation department. Opo, Wende, and Tara, I'm also an alumnus of last Fall's Cure. I'm hoping to keep up with this one.

betsbillabong - here is information from a great book called Clean House, Clean Planet by Karen Logan:

Fill a 16oz bottle with equal amounts of *white* distilled vinegar & H20. Add 15-20 drops of essential oil (this recipe recommends peppermint) and shake to mix.

Squirt directly onto floor and wipe clean with a rag or mop (I would do a dry/dust-mop first). If the floor is greasy/dirty, you can use some liquid dish detergent on it first.
If you need to clean up smudges/scuffs, sprinkle on a little baking soda, rub, and then squirt on the vinegar. Allow to fizz clean before wiping (I guess it's like a little volcano for your floors!).

She also says that this recipe can cut a light soap film, so can be used in the bathroom sink/tub/shower/soap dish.

Hope this helps!

I just wanted to weigh in on the "alternates to fresh flowers for people with allergies" question. The suggestions of alternates, which are definitely lovely things for those that can be around them, may still cause problems for people with allergies. Do eucalyptus leaves/branches have that distinctive eucalyptus scent? I know fresh herbs would... thing is, I have a lot of allergies and sensitivities (which really should be spelled scentsitivities, as far as I'm concerned), and things with fragrance really bother me. This would include fresh herbs, and other greenery that has a scent (like a fresh evergreen tree -- I had to quit using "real" Christmas trees, because I got so stuffed up)... I am able to tolerate carnations, but few other flowers. Potted plants that don't have a distinctive scent are usually okay, but different people are allergic to different things. I sometimes buy roses, but can't place them too near where I'll be sitting. (It's a pain in the neck, quite frankly)

That's probably much more information than you ever wanted, but...

(and, hey opo! It's good to "see" you!)

Eliza

as the second jonathanb explained, no we're two different people. Actually I applied for a post at AT, but was rejected. Since having two editors known as JonathanB/jonathanb -- with only a couple of uppercase letters to distinguish one from the other -- might be really confusing.

There's a post on the New York thread going into the history of why I post as JonathanB, if you interested.

Thanks for the compliments on my living room! I hope I don't make it worse in my attempts to make it better. My living room may not need that much curing, but my apartment as a whole certainly does. I struggle with keeping my apartment neat and tidy and as a result I don't have people over as often as I would like (I hold back invitations because my apartment is a mess). I'm really hoping the Cure will help with that!

By the way, it really is exciting seeing my living room on this website!

hey jessicat,

i never saw this till now. thanks for the info! that's pretty much what i ended up doing, although for the kitchen (dirtier by far than the bedroom) i wet-mopped with a similar mixture, which seemed stronger. the baking soda idea is a good one too.