Make your own envelope liners with recycled paper

Giving gift cards to your favorite local boutiques or restaurants is one of the most sustainable gift ideas, not to mention a wonderful way to support small business. But thoughtful as they may be, gift cards aren’t exactly the most exciting gift to open. Jazz them up by making your own holiday card and envelopes. Or, reuse an envelope you already have and make a fancy liner by reusing a pretty piece of scrapbook paper (or similar). You simply cut it to size and paste it into the envelope. It’s a seriously easy way to make cards unique and special.

Add dried flowers to your gift boxes

I’ve been known to save every last bit of ribbon I have, even when the piece seems too small to be useful. But they can totally come in handy for accessorizing your gift wrap, like putting together a cute little dried flower bouquet! The dried flowers pictured above are from a variety of sources I collected over the previous months. I know one came from a strawflower bouquet from Pike Place Market, and I’m pretty sure I plucked that fern from a neighborhood shrub and used it in a fall centerpiece before it made its way to gift wrap. There’s no need for big un-recyclable bows or tons of environmentally harmful glitter when you can create something as naturally beautiful as this!

Make your own gift tags

I’ve always loved making my own gift tags from the scraps that remain after my holiday card making sessions. Crafting can often leave you with scraps of paper under 3″ in size, which means it is too small to recycle, so why not give it another life as a cute tag? If you’re good at hand-lettering or calligraphy, you can make a tag that looks just as pretty as store-bought ones. I usually go through my craft stash to embellish each one in a one-of-a-kind design, which eliminates the need to buy anything extra for this little project.

Choose gift wrap that can be recycled or composted

Most traditional gift wrap contains elements that keep it from being recyclable, like glitter and foil etc. I don’t know all of the rules on this, honestly, and recycling programs vary in cities everywhere, so you’ll want to check with your local service. I personally don’t buy new wrapping paper often just because there’s enough of it going around during the holidays, and whenever I receive a gift I am 100% that person carefully stripping off the tape, folding it up, and putting it aside for its next occasion.

But I have a few tricks when I do want or need to buy more. For one, I love to check my local Creative Reuse shop (as well as thrift stores) for unused gift wrap that has been donated. I’ve gotten some lovely gift bags and embellishments from Seattle ReCreative in the past. Secondly, I love the look and feel of handmade paper (photographed above). It’s so special. Not far from ReCreative, there is a shop called Of The Earth that offers handmade & recycled paper, seed paper, and hand dyed ribbons. Paper Source also offers a selection of imported handmade papers using different plant fibers that make them sustainable to produce and easy to dispose of. Here’s a sheet of Shibori paper made of Lokta indigenous to Nepal.

Add a vintage ornament to gift bags

Another one of my favorite eco friendly ways to elevate gift boxes or bags is to attach a beautiful ornament. Clearly I love to give presents on presents. I love finding old ornaments at thrift shops for my collection. A lot of times they’re sold in those little baggies, so I’m pretty much guaranteed to have more than I need (for about $3). I’m usually only gifting for family and close friends, so it’s fun to choose which ornaments or decorations I think each person will love and actually want to display the following year.

The post 5 Eco Friendly Ways To Level Up Your Holiday Gifts appeared first on Eco Club.

Keep reading for the DIY from Zuahaza, as well as photos of my own results of the tutorial.

diy onion skin dye – what you’ll need

ONION SKINS

Store your onion skins in a dry place for at least a week. If you see mold collecting, you can move your onion skins to your fridge. Try to get them as dry as possible before you freeze them. The number of onion skins will vary, but as a rule-of-thumb, collect as much as your fabric weighs. A 1:1 ratio is always a good place to start.

Note: Onion skins are extremely lightweight when dried, so you might need to collect more than what you think.

Tip: If you can’t collect enough onion skins from your kitchen, head to your local farmers’ market and ask them for a few. They generally peel onions and throw away the skins, anyway!

FABRIC OF CHOICE

If you are planning to store 200g of onion skins, then you’ll need your yarn skein or your cotton t-shirt to weigh at least 200g. We encourage exact measurements.

ALUM POWDER OR AN ALUMINUM STONE

Some great websites sell natural dyeing materials. You can order alum powder from Dharma Trading here. If you are using powder, you will need only 1 tablespoon of powder per 100g of fiber. If you are in Colombia or in other countries outside the US and Europe, I recommend buying an aluminum stone, which you can easily find in pharmacies or online. You just need one or two for this project.

Note: I (Angela) used alum powder, and Tatiana used a stone for hers.

A LARGE STAINING STEEL POT

HEAT-RESISTANT GLOVES

A WOODEN SPOON

I had collected these onion skins in my freezer for many moons before the tutorial. It was a pretty big pile!

before dyeing, mordant your fibers

First, we are going to prepare your fibers to soak up and adhere to the color as much as possible. I prefer to mordant all my fibers with aluminum before dyeing because it makes the colors stronger and even more long-lasting. It’s a simple step that helps guarantee your color won’t wash off after dyeing.

Boil enough water in a medium-size pot. Just enough to cover your fibers.

1. Introduce 1 aluminum stone or 1-2 teaspoons of aluminum powder (based on the weight of your fibers)

2. Mix thoroughly until dissolved.

3. Wet your fibers. Make sure your fibers (t-shirt or yarn skein) are fully wet before introducing them.

4. Introduce your fibers to the hot pot and simmer for 1 hour.

5. Move your fibers around every once in a while. Do not let the fibers sit. This will avoid having uneven color and help you get nice even results

6. Remove and wash with cold water.

diy natural dye tutorial – how to dye onion skins

1. In a medium-size pot, bring water to a boil and then keep it at a simmering temperature. How much water you might ask? This is not as important as the exact measurement for your dyestuff and dry goods. Enough water to cover your fibers is good.

2. When the temperature is simmering, add your dry onion skins to the pot. DO NOT let the water get to a boiling temperature as this might burn the dye and you might get results that end up brown.

3. Keep at a simmering temperature (medium to low heat) for about an hour.

4. You can either filter out your onion skins in this step or keep them in the bath, is up to you.

I read that some people do not mordant silk before use (it is good at keeping color naturally), but that it is possible to do so. So I used the mordant for one of the two scarves – the darker one was treated with the mordant before dyeing, and I skipped that step with the one that came out lighter. Love them both!

5. Introduce your fibers. I recommend always washing with water your yarn skein or fabric before introducing it to the dye bath. This opens up the fiber molecules to receive the dye better and avoid uneven dye spots.

6. Move your fibers around constantly. You can use metal tongs, wooden spoons, or heat-resistant gloves to move it around the dye bath. This is crucial to getting even colors.

7. Leave your fibers between 1-2 hours in the dye bath and move around constantly.

8. Carefully use your heat-resistant gloves to take out your fibers and wash with water until water runs clear and discard your onion skins in compost or organic material waste.

As for my cotton yarn, the onion skins produced a very light peachy-orange dye, like a faded creamsicle hue. It looks a bit more orange-y in real life, but my phone didn’t capture it perfectly.

This DIY onion dye recipe is actually the same one that Zuahaza uses to produce their own yellow hue on their textiles! Just look for the one with the Pitaya Yellow shade.

How that you’ve seen MY results, head to Zuahaza’s blog to see Tatiana’s! She dyed a towel and a t-shirt, and got a much more mustard color! She also reveals what happens when you add iron and other modifiers, as well as more tips and tricks for successful dyeing.

The post DIY Onion Skin Dye – Natural Dye Tutorial for Cotton & Silk appeared first on Eco Club.

As a brand dedicated to revitalize the craft of weaving and naturally dyeing, we are invested in learning and teaching the beautiful and ancient art of natural dyeing. Natural dyeing is the practice of using natural ingredients such as plants and food waste to obtain colors to dye fabric with. However, with the invention of synthetic dyes, the entire textile industry has relied heavily on petroleum-base substances to dye our fibers, contaminating our water sources, soils and affecting the health of the people who directly interact with these dyes. Natural dyes on the other hand, are biodegradable and cause minimal environmental impact when used with safe mordants. For our business, using natural dyes instead of chemical ones is a way we can directly minimize our environmental impact, creating products that can be 100% biodegradable at the end of their life cycle.

We also love how fun this craft can be! It makes for a great science and art project for families and kids learning at home during this season of quarantine. You only need to save some of your natural waste material and/or find local plants to dye some old cotton t-shirts or new wool yarn to knit with. We decided to start with a very simple recipe many people can do at home because all you need is your avocado pits and skins! We will be sharing more recipes over the next months, but we though this one was an easy one for those who have never dyed with food waste material before! Let’s get started.

DIY Natural Avocado Dye: What You’ll Need

• Avocado skins and pits. I normally collect them over 2 weeks and place them in a bag and put them in the freezer to avoid them collecting mold. Collect enough to make up around the same weight as your fiber goods. For this project I recommend between (100-200g). Also, make sure to wash off the green remnants of avocado well. I recommend using the hass avocados instead of the bigger ones.
• 100-200g of any natural fiber fabric or yarn. Natural dyeing only works with natural fibers. Make sure that the yarn skein or cloth that you pick is made out of cotton, wool, linen, alpaca, any animal or vegetable fiber. That means no polyester or nylon fabrics.
• Alum powder or an aluminium stone. There are some great websites that sell natural dyeing materials. Dharma Trading sells alum powder, you can order online here. If you are using powder, you will need only 1 tablespoon of powder per 100g of fiber. If you are in Colombia or in other countries outside the US and Europe, I recommend buying aluminium stone, which can easily be found in pharmacies or online. They sell small packs of 1 stone in pharmacies and you just need 1 or 2 for this project. (I am using alum stone for this tutorial).
• A large staining steel pot.
• A pair of heat resisting gloves.
• A wooden spoon.
• Optional: If you wish to do some shibori (tie-dye) design to your piece then you’ll need rubber bands, cotton rope and/or wood blocks.

DIY Natural Yarn Dyeing: How To

MORDANTING YOUR FIBERS

Firstly we are going to prepare your fibers to soak up and adhere to the color as much as possible. Avocados have a great advantage over other dyestuffs and is that they contain tannins. Tannins are found in wood, bark, leaves and fruit of plants as various as oak, rhubarb, tea, walnut, cranberry, cacao, grapes and wine. The purpose of tannins is to protect the fruit or plant from animals eating them before they are ripe. But most importantly, tannins are natural mordants for dyeing fabric. In other words, avocado dyeing has an advantage and is that it already contains natural mordants to make sure the color won’t wash off. However, I personally prefer to always mordant all my fibers with aluminium prior to dyeing because it makes the colors stronger and even more long lasting. Is a simple easy step that helps you rest asure your color won’t wash off after dyeing.

1. Boil enough water in a medium size pot. Just enough to cover your fibers.

2. Introduce 1 aluminium stone or 1-2 teaspoons of aluminium powder (based on the weight of your fibers)

3. Mix thoroughly until dissolved.

4. Wet your fibers. Make sure your fibers (t-shirt or yarn skein) are fully wet before introducing.

5. Introduce your fibers to the hot pot and simmer for 1 hour.

6. Move your fibers around every once in a while. Do not let the fibers sit. This will avoid having uneven color and help you get nice even results

7. Remove and wash with cold water.

EXTRACTING DYE FROM AVOCADO PITS AND SKINS

After mordanting your fibers, you can leave them inside a bowl or hang them to dry while you work on extracting the dye from the avocado pits and skins. For these next steps you are going to need the avocado skins and pits you stored. Some dyers will use the skins and pits separately and you can also do that. In this case I am using both together to see what shades and depths of colors we get. As a rule, I normally use a 1:1 Ratio. With cotton, colors tend to be less strong, so I would recommend using the same weight of your fibers and dyestuff to get as much depth of color as possible. You will get deeper shades with animals fibers like wool. So, In this case for 150g of fibers I will use 150-200 grams of avocado stones and pits to make sure we get as much color as possible.

1. In a medium size pot, heat enough water to cover fibers until it’s simmering. It’s very important to NOT boil the water. If you do, you can burn and “brown” the dye and only get brown shades.
2. Add your avocado skins and pits.
3. If you decide to add baking soda, add 1/4 to your pot and dissolve.
4. Stir occasionally and leave simmering for an hour and a half. You will start noticing the water changing color from a light peach to a dark orange and finally to a dark red/purple within the 1st hour.

DYEING THE FIBER

1. Add the wet mordanted fiber and stir to make sure you get all the fibers evenly dyed.
2. Leave simmering for another 2 hours and stir occasionally.
3. Leave your fibers in the pot for 24 to 48 hours. (Colors will get darker the longer you leave your fibers in the pot) Natural dyeing is a SLOW PROCESS! You will notice the dye getting darker the longer tome you leave it to sit.
4. When you are ready to take your fibers out, wash off until you see clear water running. This will ensure your cloth won’t run anymore dye when you wash it next time.
5. With a strainer, separate the remaining bits of the avocado stones and skins. You can dry them and try extracting more dye out of them a second time. You can also store your liquid dye and try to use it for another dye bath. It will probably be good to use one more time but you might get lighter shades.

DIY NATURAL AVOCADO DYE: THE RESULTS

Thank you, Tatiana!!! Be sure to stop by Zuahaza’s blog for the full DIY avocado dye tutorial, including even more tips + tricks for a successful batch of avocado dyed yarn! And if you can’t get enough, she also has a DIY natural dye with red cabbage tutorial here!

The post DIY Natural Avocado Dye with Zuahaza appeared first on Eco Club.

We shared these eco friendly Friendsgiving ideas (a mouthful, I know) last year right before our rebrand to eco club, so they didn’t get circulated very well, which is a shame because, well, they’re just so pretty and EASY to pull off.

Charity and I, along with many of our friends and just lots of people in their 20s in general, have moved about a zillion times since college. This year’s Friendsgiving was at a completely different house! So this is a great way to remember a cute little corner with all the light.

About flowers. Wide, low floral arrangements require assistance to stay in place, unlike a lot of taller vases. The foam-free floral movement has really taken off even since this last post (which was my first and only time using foam). This is great news since floral foam, while easy and convenient, is not biodegradable or reusable, which is a real bummer considering the beautiful natural stems we stick in ’em. Check out this, then this, post from a florist in Chicago for a little more info and how to get this look in a more environmentally conscious way.

Most of what we added to this scene was secondhand, but two brand new elements were a jute table runner and accompanying placemats from eco club member Will + Atlas. Jute is one of the most sustainable materials for homewares, and it’s incredible durable. The intricate patterns in these gave the tough material a more delicate feel and I use them for pretty much all my entertaining, not to mention as photo backdrops, whenever possible!

The dahlias came from Pike Place Market, leaves from the backyard, and dried plants and strawflowers were also purchased at the market in one big dried flower bouquet that I’ve reused like 1000 times. I am not kidding. They come in giant sets for $20-$30 and yes my friend, dried flowers are SO VERY reusable. I have used some of these very same pieces in every single season since getting them. All from one single purchase. I used them for this year’s Friendsgiving, too. And then? I took ’em out of the vases and put ’em back in my stash for safekeeping. (Are you starting to sense how my apartment looks yet?)

I shared this + more sustainable flower tips here with a springtime bouquet.

Another member, Ten Thousand Villages, provided the marble serving board and knife. They have a few different options now too. Another piece that we’ve used again & again. And of course, would be perfect for a veggie spread too, or fruit + chocolate, like we did last summer.

We first used all this thrifted glassware for Charity’s wedding and have since used them in oh, about 100 shoots. I swear, they will live on forever, whether in our homes or someone else’s. We also thrifted the candlestick holders and vases. Our friend and talented calligrapher Rachel Johnson designed + made these paper goods with little eucalyptus sprigs.

Another favorite Friendsgiving idea: If you serve chocolate, try Seattle-based jcoco, which has unconventional, culinary inspired flavors. They’re a woman-owned company that gives back with every purchase, and is committed to ethically sourced ingredients and sustainable practices. You can learn more here.

One last note. If your area provides a compost service. DO IT. The City of Seattle collects compost and I could go on for hours about how grateful I am for this service. But some cities have this available and are just awful at promoting it. We have neighboring areas with such services that many people don’t even realize is an option. Be sure to check what’s available in your area!

So! This is our blueprint for a successful Friendsgiving. Eco friendly and secondhand wares and decor, supporting companies we love, making things by hand… Oh, and going around the candle-lit table to gush over how thankful we all are for each other. No matter what your Thanksgiving looks like, you’ve gotta do that last one. It’s good stuff.

The post Eco friendly Friendsgiving ideas with DIY fall flowers appeared first on Eco Club.

Writing for the wedding industry didn’t curb my floral obsession, but inspired me to learn more about creating arrangements myself, so I could bring these blooms into my own little corner apartment. Working from home can be drab, and I don’t take for granted what the peonies blooming by my side as I write this have done for my mood. Beauty is important.

Flowers can be a frivolous thing, especially when thinking of the environment. Why not leave them be? I understand this argument, but as a crafter, DIYer, lifelong learner, and lover of beauty, there is something really fulfilling to me about creating something new with these small miracles in life. And luckily in my DIY flower adventures, I’ve found, there are many ways to create more sustainable florals.

Sustainable Floral Tips for DIY Flowers

1. Don’t buy fresh cut flowers at the grocery store. Purchase from your local market instead. Most blooms you’ll find at the store are imported. Thinking about the environmental effects of transporting them (and their need for refrigeration) from a top exporter like Colombia alone, is enough to make any eco-friendly DIYer uneasy. Then there’s the question of where they’re coming from, how they are grown (and with what chemicals), and how the growers are compensated (and treated). Perhaps we can dive deeper into this later, but just know that there are many reasons to go local when it comes to fresh flowers and plants.

I created these bouquets during early spring’s daffodil season, so all the daffodils and tulips here came from a market from farms in nearby towns.

2. Supplement with foraged and dried blooms. In Tin Can Studios book Handpicked, Ingrid Carozzi mentions times she would gather greenery or flowers right outside or at the event venue, to round out her arrangements. Often weeds and overgrowth can contribute to more undone, wild-looking arrangements (just make sure you aren’t taking from a delicate habitat that needs them to thrive.)

I love to add a few dried flowers from my personal collection in DIY arrangements. Some dried blooms are ones I’ve dried on my own (like these carnations), and others were purchased at a local farmer’s market. (During the winter here in Seattle, a lot of farms depend on sales of dried rather than fresh flowers, so it’s easy to get.)

Tip: Preserve or purchase a big bunch of dried flowers, then carefully deconstruct the bouquet so you can pull from individual stems when you create a bouquet. For example, eucalyptus is hard to find here, so the time I was able to buy some at the market, I saved a few sprigs. They do get dipped in water since I pair them with fresh flowers, so I trim the stem when I’m ready to save it for a next time.

3. Arrange and rearrange. Some flowers last only a few days in vases, where others (like ranunculus, can you believe it?!) can last up to a few weeks! Whenever I make big arrangements to enjoy at home, I rearrange them every two or three days, picking out anything that can’t be salvaged. Then I rearrange what I have, trim the stems, and replace the water.

I think I used this bunch of baby’s breath in three arrangements before it stopped looking fresh! No need to throw them out when its initial arrangement went… there was plenty of life left.

4. Take care of your cut flowers! It’s important to get to know the kind of blooms in your DIY flowers, so be sure to ask about them when buying at the market. They are the experts! Most flowers live longer if you trim the stems and replace water regularly. Different types of flowers also like different temperates of water, so there’s a lot of details to consider. Learning about the flowers you love, rather than just heading to the grocery store and grabbing a bouquet that will wilt in a couple days, will get you so much closer to truly sustainable florals.

If you’re looking to learn more about sustainable flowers, I recommend the books Handpicked and Foraged Flora.

How do you keep your hobbies as sustainable as possible? Let us know if you try any of these sustainable floral tips for your DIY flowers!

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I’ve spent the last year slowly renovating a traditional plantation-style house in Hawaii, an endeavor that’s been both fun and frustrating, and promises to yield a nice profit. I have another year until it’s finished, a timeline established by my work schedule and by the fact that my husband is more often at sea working as a submariner than he is home, so I do most the work myself.

Fixer-upper homes are common investments these days (thanks, Joanna Gaines!), but I’ve been around them my whole life. My parents own a home-building company, and in their spare time, they flipped homes. We lived in and renovated some rough-looking houses during my childhood. Once they pristine and polished, they’d sell and buy a new one.

As a kid, this used to embarrass me. Now, it excites me.

Over the next few months, I’m going to share some of my renovating stories. I’ve built interior walls to add a new bedroom, rewired my kitchen, laid flooring, and done a lot of painting (seriously, it never ends). For now, I’m going to share what my family taught me about how to pick and renovate the perfect project home.

You want a fixer, not a fiasco

The key to a good flip house is finding one that has the cliché of the industry: good bones. As I was searching for this house, I found one intriguing property that had foundation and roof issues—and I wasn’t about to mess with that, so I moved on.

The house I settled on was an older, plantation-style home with gross carpet, an inexplicable wall blocking the fridge from the rest of the kitchen, and no driveway. I often say that if the owners had simply given the place a coat of paint before they’d listed it, I couldn’t have afforded it.

The house needed a lot of cosmetic work, but it didn’t need anything structural. I found a reliable, well-reviewed inspector who told me what to worry about, and more than that, told me what was solid. Inspectors can’t catch everything, but they can catch a lot, so make sure you get a good one, and research the list of problems they give you. Stay away from the huge problems and stick with the cosmetic, or budget for the larger fixes.

Keep it classic

It’s so easy to look at Pinterest and follow everything you see. Shiplap! Gray and navy cabinets! Butcher blocks!

If you’re planning to flip the house in only a few months, following trends isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, if you plan to buy and live in a house like I am, consider what you say when you look at houses: “Ugh, look at that recessed wall for a TV.” “That sponge paint.” “That carpet over hardwood!” The audacity!

All of those things were trends not too long ago. So when you two-tone your cabinets or spend a nice chunk of money herringbone tile floor, remember: In a few years, people might look at your house and call your reclaimed wood accent wall so 2019. They might wonder if they can negotiate down the price because of all the updates it needs.

My solution? I keep things classic with the expensive things, like counters and flooring, and follow the trends with décor. I once took a “Millennial Apartment Bingo” quiz from Apartment Therapy, and I checked almost every box—my house is decorated according to what’s in fashion, but the home itself is classic. The flooring, paint, and kitchen fixtures I chose are timeless, and won’t date the house. If people can tell when it was renovated, every passing year is a liability.

Location, location, location

Okay, it’s cliché. But it’s true. Every market is different, but on Oahu, traffic is a way of life. I’ve been stuck in traffic jams at 1 a.m. on multiple occasions. So, when I was looking for fixer upper homes, I made sure to find a house that was centrally located. In addition to its central location, my fixer-upper has ocean, city, and Diamond Head views, which will always be valuable. Sure, I could get a bigger house with fewer needs in the ‘burbs, but I bought my home two years ago, and watching how property has appreciated, I know I made the right choice prioritizing location over size. Do research to determine what matters in your market, but no matter where you are, location will always be important.

Don’t get emotionally attached

This is the hardest for me. Here comes another cliché, but when you pour your blood (literally), sweat (hello, it’s Hawaii!), and tears (of anger) into a house, it’s hard not to get attached. So, when you’re looking at finishes for your home, it’s easy to want to go with what you want, not what is rational and financially sound.

In my house, there have been times when it made sense to go high-end (as with our floors or countertops). There have been times when it made more financial sense to do something mid-range (keep an eye out for an article about how I rehabbed my custom-built cabinets!). When you’ve put so much time and money into something, it’s easy to get caught up in what you personally would like, but it’s important to always focus on your return on investment. Great floors will increase the value of your home. Expensive baseboard trim? Probably not.

Know when to DIY and when to call the pros

As I mentioned, I’ve done the bulk of my renovation projects myself, or with my husband when he’s here, but it’s important to know your limits and when to call in a professional.

My dad once told me you aren’t a homeowner until you wonder what the homeowner before you was thinking. He’s right: I’ve never been so annoyed as I was when I tore down some wallpaper and discovered someone hung the drywall in our living room wrong. You’re supposed to hang it 1/2” off the subfloor to avoid moisture issues, but there it was, brazenly perched right on the subfloor with the telltale discoloration of water damage.

One of the reasons my renovation is taking so long is that I spent months fixing incorrectly installed drywall left behind by our previous owner, and it’s thankless work because fixing it yields no cosmetic difference.

I’m all for tackling a project yourself when you can. In fact, tons of people warned me against hanging my own drywall when my husband and I were building our interior walls, though I considered that a challenge. However, I spent countless hours researching how to do it right, and when it got monotonous, I didn’t cut corners, even though mudding drywall takes forever to do right.

If you don’t have the time or desire to be so meticulous about important projects, it’s better to hire a pro. I’m grateful I caught the drywall issue when I did, because that could have been much more expensive in the long run than the cost of professional drywall installation would have been in the first place.

My parents, my professional advisory, have been very encouraging in all my DIY home improvement exploits, but they’ve also told me when I should call someone in for help. Certain things are better not done at all than done poorly.

So far, my experience with fixer upper homes has been positive. Renovating has been frustrating, and a bit more work than I anticipated, but it’s also been oddly empowering completing these projects on my own. As I mentioned, my husband is often at sea or deployed, so I’ve done a lot of the work on our house myself, with a business to run and a baby to raise. Knowing I’m capable of these things has created confidence that’s hard to describe.

Our home’s value has increased, too. We are confident in our investment and our greatest worry about the house is whether we should keep it and rent it or sell it and take our equity. Buying a home is always a risk, and not one to be taken lightly, but with work ethic, a penchant for hard work, and some vision, a fixer-upper can be a rewarding, difficult, and prudent investment.

In the coming posts, I’ll be sharing progress along with my tips for doing DIY right, keeping things eco friendly whenever we can, and as affordable as possible too.

Do you have any questions about tackling fixer-upper homes? Find more green living ideas here!

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