rockfox's Profile

As another mentioned above, time is a key issue. Serious gardening can be time consuming. I'm a Gen Xer with a demanding career and young child. At this point, the Veterans you mention are likely retired and many of the Boomers are retiring or easing off at work. By contrast, I'm in the prime years of having significant demands on my time, both professionally and with my family. In ten years or so this may slack and I may have more time to devote to things like gardening.

Additionally, when the Veterans and Boomers were where I am with their careers and family, there may have been fewer demands on their time on weekends - no cell phones, no email, just let the kids run around the neighborhood. As much as I may wish things were like that now, it's not the case.

That said, if I were truly passionate about gardening, I would probably make the time.

I just replaced the bunk beds in my son's room with a regular twin bed and I was glad to see it go. My biggest pet peeve was the difficulty in making the top bed and keeping it neat. Drove me nuts! Also, no one wanted to sleep on the bottom bunk. My son is an only child, so we got the bunk beds for sleepovers, but it usually ended up with both kids in the top bunk.

Used bunk beds are usually very easy to find on Craigslist. I recommend checking that out. Ours were used Ikea (the Kura bed), so I didn't feel too bad passing them on after a few years.

After my son transitioned to a crib, I used a sheet saver at night. It is a waterproof pad that goes over the crib sheet. Great for unexpected leaks and it meant that I didn't have to change the sheets in the middle of the night.

Also, both my husband and I are tall, so having an actual changing table (rather than doing it on the floor or bed) was very helpful. I think that even a dresser might have been uncomfortably low. They are easy to find on Craigslist and easy to pass on when you are done.

We bought a 1956 ranch last year that has the same colors. We could'nt repaint the exterior right away for budget reasons, but we painted our front door bright peacock blue. It really pops against the beige and brightens up the whole house. As we move from redoing the interior to the exterior, we're thinking of using more of that color, since it looks so good against the sandy brick.

Jane's blog is amazing. She always has such good ideas and uses many of her projects as gifts for friends, family or her students. I'm also inspired by the fact that she takes on projects like these play kitchens without a garage or workroom - just an apartment with a balcony.

Charlita - The best thing about the play kitchens on Jane's blog is that they can be sized to fit your needs. Just start with a smaller piece of furniture. My family lived in less than 1000 sf for five years and we found a spot for a (very small) play kitchen. I can see how I could have used Jane's instructions to make a similarly small one.

Elminate paper napkins and/or paper towels. I did this last year and even my husband, who was resistant at first, thought it was super easy.

For towels, I ordered a box of flour sack towels off ebay and put them in a kitchen drawer. They aren't very bulky and the fact that they are all the same means that they are easy to store. They don't even create a noticable increase in my laundry load.

For napkins, Ikea has plain white cloth napkins that are super cheap to buy in bulk. I also pick up cloth napkins in thrifts stores all the time.

Another thing to do is to eat at least one meat-free dinner a week. Small start, but every bit helps.

I recently moved into a 1950s house with an ugly brick fireplace. I painted the brick a very very dark brown (almost black) and it looks fantastic. I gives me joy every time I see it and I have no regrets at all. It also completely updated the look of the room. Paint it!

I second recommendation. My son is 3 and we've used these to pass the time on long plane trips, during restaurant waits, etc. They are much more portable than some of the other colorform sets I've seen too.

We got the toddler workbench for my three-year old son for Christmas and he loves it. I think I was able to get a better price though by checking around the web.

Ikea sell plain cloth napkins in supercheap packs of 4 (or 6, I can't recall exactly). I customize mine with appliques, freezer paper stencils, ribbon trim, etc. and give as gifts.