Category Archives: Our Little Home

Reclaimed Slate Floor: Part I

Getting to the more practical side of our Healing Home series, the first project that I would like to share with you is our slate floor. This is one of my favorite features of the house so far.

This room made up the entire first floor of the original Little House. It’s 13′ x 13′, with the hearth taking up approximately 5.5′ x 5.5′ in one corner, just to give you an idea of the scale we were working on. Once finished, this room will ultimately be a combination of a mudroom for the family, and a studio for me.


Living in the middle of the woods, with soon to be four children, in a part of the country that has an entire season devoted to mud, this floor really needed to be durable and easy to clean! Obviously, the first priority was that it be safe. It was also important to me that the entrance to our home and my work space be beautiful, even through all of the muck!

We had decided on slate, long before we even knew we would be adding on to the Little House. In fact, I started collecting slates before we even broke ground for the Little House itself. If you are planning on using salvaged materials for your home, it can take years to find just what you are looking for. It’s wise to start looking as soon as you decide that you will be building or remodeling. Make a regular habit of checking newspapers, freecycle, craig’s list, your local dump, salvage yards, anywhere that you might find something of value. And there are things of value out there if you look hard enough! Sometimes it just takes a little patience and perseverance.

Why slate?

  • From a health standpoint it’s about as inert as you can get.
  • By using mostly salvaged slates we managed to lessen our environmental impact.
  • Slate is extremely durable, which is both good for us as homeowners and good for the earth.
  • Easy to clean, easy to care for.
  • It’s a natural material
  • It has a beautiful understated elegance to it, a sort of rustic, farmhouse aesthetic that greatly appeals to us.
  • Once it’s lived out its existence as our floor, it can still be reclaimed for many other purposes, whether it be in the form of a different floor, a back-splash, or even just as stepping stones along a garden path.

The slates themselves came from a variety of sources. They were one of the first things that I started collecting when I knew that we were going to be building. I wasn’t even certain what exactly we were going to use them for, but I did know that we would use them. I got a couple of boxes off of ebay; leftovers from someone’s remodeling project. A lot of them came used from our local salvage building material stores. We had two such stores (I highly, highly recommend looking into similar resources near you!) that we frequented during the building process and over time my stash grew up nicely. It was nearly three years before we were finally ready to do the floor. I ended up ordering a bit of extra, directly from a quarry, but the majority of the floor is made up of salvaged slates.

My criteria for the tiles themselves was pretty simple. They all needed to be the same thickness (very, very important!). Ours are all 1/4″, which is pretty standard. I actually really love the look of random size and color, so I was very open to what I found. I basically narrowed my specifications down to all of the naturally occurring slate colors with the exception of the reds and rusts. I find the gray/green/purple color combination very pleasing and the red shades just made it too varied, and didn’t quite suit my vision for the room. There is quite a bit of black slate in there too, but I think it offsets the other colors nicely.

I think that’s about it for the “why”, stay tuned for part II, where I will detail the “how” with a over-view of the supplies and products we used for each layer.

By
building, Our Little Home, The Healing Home
8 Replies

Warm

This little co-sleeper here is a new addition to our house, generously on loan to us from a friend, who made it for his own children. It’s all unfinished pine, which suits us just perfectly.


I’ve been busy trying get it set for the Galey-boy, so that we will hopefully have a bit of extra room in bed once the wee-one comes.

I made the pillow, quite simply, using unbleached muslin and wool from our neighbor’s sheep that I scoured and carded. The sheets are a soft, color-grown, organic flannel, in a green-cream gingham. The fabric for this project also came from the big box of organics I bought a couple of months ago.


Mr. Loviness is pretty psyched…

By
Kids, Our Little Home, sewing
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The Healing Home

I’m very pleased to announce the advent of a new category, here at my little corner of the web! The Healing Home; a series of posts featuring practical ideas on building, remodeling, and living in a house with physical, mental, spiritual, and global health in mind… and oh, so much more! I truly hope that others will join me on this journey and leave comments on their personal experiences, making this a wonderful resource for anyone interested in reclaiming or sustaining health through thoughtful dwelling.

As many of you know, my children and I were diagnosed with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, along with a myriad of related ailments, back in 2004. Our path towards a diagnosis was a long one and our search for safe housing, equally long and daunting. After a year long, desperate search for a suitable home, we decided that our best option was to build what we needed, and thus the Little House project was born. In July of 2007, we were blessed with the opportunity to expand out tiny home. Work on both the original structure, as well as the addition has been on-going ever since.


I remember, when we first started down this path, being really shocked at what I perceived to be a distinct lack of practical information on healthy building practices. I’ve learned a few things along the way, and now I understand completely. I think the reasons are very similar to what I assume is the reason behind the lack reports on personal experience by parents raising chemically sensitive children: when you are in the thick of it, you barely have the time and room to breath and exist, much less document it. And once you are on the other side, you’d really rather not have to think about it ever again! There is too much living to catch up on!

That said, there is so much that we have learned through this experience that we really want to share, in the hopes of making the process just little easier on others. I am, by not means, an expert. But what I can offer is this…the details behind our own project. I can tell you all of the products we used, why we used them and how they worked out in the end. It’s one of those simple little things that I know would have been a huge help to us at the time. I can only hope that it will be a help to someone else out there.


This is a complicated subject and I intent to cover a whole lot more then just building supplies. Everything from the global and environment impact of our choices to aesthetics, trying to live in harmony with your land and accommodating a family, both during the building/remodeling process and after, and much more.


It is my hope that you will enjoy and benefit from this series as much as I enjoy sharing it with you!

By
building, Our Little Home, The Healing Home
7 Replies

Pumpkin Time

I feel as though I redeemed myself a bit today. I’m about to head off to bed, but my stock is bubbling away on the stove and there is apple-pear sauce cooking in the crock-pot so that it will be all ready for me to can in the morning.

I made two huge pans of brussel sprouts this afternoon. We had the most gorgeous brussel sprout harvest from our garden this year! So I made these two large trays, thinking that they would be good for snacking on throughout the week. Only I suppose I forgot to tell my children that. Of the two big pans, there are currently a total of 12 sprouts left!

People always seem suprised when I say that my children love brussel sprouts. I don’t really see why. They are quite good when they are prepaired properly. I think they just got a bad wrap from people cooking them poorly. Our favorite way to prepair them is roasted with garlic and coconut oil, then tossed with lots of sea salt and fresh ground pepper just before serving. Yum.

So, I got a bit of a leg up on the cooking and the playroom has been mostly set right (there will be pictures of that soon!). Of my 5 packages, 3 are totally packed up. Two went out today. The third came back home with me for consideration, once I found out that it was going to cost me $50 to ship it! And I’m finally, finally, finally almost done carding the wool for the pillow I’m making. It’s a bit of progress anyway.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to fit in a full day of homeschooling, can the apple-pear sauce, make a batch of straight apple sauce, get the saurkraut started, and start on dinner, all before heading off to our homeschool group in the afternoon. Oh yes, and I still have to make the black beans and squash that I want to bring with us! Should be another busy morning! Then again, aren’t they all?!? But while we are on the subject of squash, I have some of the decorative kind to share…the results of our Friday night craving!

Iain’s:

Steve’s (lower) and Elijah’s:
And an angle that you very rarely see…When I transfered my pictures, I discovered that one of my children had decided to take their own jack ‘o lantern picture, with a view from the inside out!

Galen’s sweet little glittery pumpkin shines best in the daylight:

Happy Autumn all!

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celebrations and festivals, crafts, Food, Gardens, Kids, Our Little Home
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My Sweet Love

Did anyone notice the subtext of my last post? Of *my* busy day?? Perhaps, a person quietly plugging along behind the scenes to make everything that shows a possibility? From washing dishes, to entertaining children, to shopping (I think he ended up having to make 6 stops in all), then back home to work on the dry-wall, followed by scrubbing a floor on his hands and knees, so that we can finally put the playroom together once and for all, and all while fitting in games of horseshoes with the bigger boys and cuddles with the little one, in between.


I know that this is my narrative and not his. His is rarely heard. While mine is broadcast to the world. I just wanted to take a moment, in this time and place to recognize all that he does for us.

Good god I love this man.

By
Life, Our Little Home
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Busy Sunday

When Steve woke up this morning (just before 5 o’clock), I never had any intention of doing anything other then what I usually do, kiss him good morning, steal his pillow, and fall blissfully back to sleep. But alas, the entire person on my bladder sometimes has different plans. Being up made me aware of the fact that I was hungry, which means no chance for sleep without something in me. So, I sat down with a small bowl of plain yogurt and started paging through the ‘Mothering’ magazine that made it home from the library with us this week, specifically an article on preparing balanced meals. Bring on the guilt! This is an area where I fear I’ve been falling behind my own standards lately. To be sure, I think that we still eat considerably better then most. But not nearly as well as we could or have in the past, or, I feel, should. hmm. hmm. hmm.

Back to bed, only to find that two certain little people are having a conversation of whispers in the room across the hall. I laid back down and tried to get comfy, but the sandman was no match for the ever growing list of things in my head, along with those little whispers. So, I stumbled through the dark (yes, the sun was still nowhere near the horizon, what am I going to do with these people?!?) and climbed into the single bed where the whisperers had already consolidated themselves. And here I hatched a plan. A plan for a highly productive Sunday. And, in their early morning excitement, I even managed to round up some help.

I sent my little elves off to find Steve (down at the old house), to recruit him for the plan. Steve agreed to the plan, which involved him going down the the old house and washing a bunch of pots and pans for me and then doing the weeks errands on his own, while I stayed home to cook, clean, and craft (crafting of the highly practical kind, I assure you).

While they gathered and transported dishes, I puttered about, straightening this and fixing that…fished yet another half-eaten apple out from under the futon and wondered what the thought process was behind balancing a new roll of toilet paper atop the empty roll.

I hopped onto my balance ball at the computer and checked in on the town wide conversation we are currently having on becoming a more independently sustainable community. And then to look for a tea pot. Mine broke ages ago and I’ve decided that a new one is a necessity…even though it’s obviously not. Not having one is just enough of an annoyance that it keep me from making and drinking the good infusions that I know I feel so much better on. And it’s autumn now and chilly and I want the home-y comfort of a pot of tea to be sipped throughout the day. So I’m considering it an early baby-moon present to myself (with a strict budget) and not looking back. Enter etsy. Pottery—tea pots—sort from lowest to highest. Ah, etsy, I love you so! While teapots load on my screen I start slowly adding to two different lists, one my to-do list, the other an extensive shopping list for Steve.

A new teapot on the way and my lists mostly completed, I was fairly satisfied. I don’t much care for the color of the teapot, but it’s a high-quality, hand-made, lead-free pottery, in a charming shape, that will hold a plenty of tea. And it was the only one that fit all of those categories, for $30 or less, so I consider it a success.

By now the boys, both big and little, were back from moving about and washing dishes for me (sweet, dear gems of mine!). I told Steve of my plan to clear off three work surfaces, all cluttered from a busy week and Saturday, before doing an hour of yoga and then moving on to mass producing food, and from there, the 10 or 20 other things on my list… He advised doing the yoga first for fear I wouldn’t come back to it. Sound advise, truly. They went off to play and I started my yoga session. And no, the sun was still not up. Though it did come up, as I was opening my eyes, coming out of meditation, and greeted me with a delightful autumnal view of the birch trees out an adjacent window. In a show of perfect timing, Galen came down, just as I was finishing up.

I sent Steve off to my long list of stores, with what I felt was a fairly comprehensive list. And then proceeded to call him three times, within 5 minutes of him leaving. His cell phone was sure to make a racket as soon as he got far enough from the mountain for it to ring!

On to breakfast type things like skimming milk and scrambling eggs. Everyone had some combination of toast with cheese, leftover banana bread, and/or scrambled eggs with lots of kale, depending on likes and allergies. And I started clearing off the work table next to my desk. And here, right here, is where the day somehow got off of track.

One of the main sources of clutter on said table involved the bits and pieces of packages I’ve been meaning to send out. Five in all, to friends all over the globe. Getting those packages together was high on the to-do list, and so this is where I decided to start. So, far so good, right? Right. Only…it was at this point that I mentioned to the boys that I was sending packages off to various people, and did they want to include things for their own little friends?? I can see it now, in retrospect, that was to be the fatal flaw of the morning. Why yes, of course they want to send gifts and trinkets to their little friends! But Mama, what we really need is our beads… Well, where are they? asks I, innocently enough. Oh, they got tossed on your desk some time ago.

Oh.

Surely, surely, other houses must have a spot of this sort. A spot where any and everything that doesn’t have a home, or needs attention at some point or can’t even be identified, gets tossed. I suppose it’s what most people have a junk drawer for. We have the top of my desk. Oh, my desk. I’ve given up on even trying to straighten it when people come over. I just hope that it somehow blends in. What else to do with a half-finished quilt, a stack of home-schooling books (constantly being referanced), main lesson books in progress, random things to be written on the calendar, paint chip, old work to be filed away, miscellaneous art supplies and all of it’s other little oddities? Oh, dear. Yes, that is my desk. The very one that I write to you from on a regular basis. The very one that I have been trying to ignore, full-well knowing that I’ll be forced to deal with it in another month or so, when we are ready to move it back to it’s rightful spot.

And so, of course, you guessed it I’m sure…I started to clean off my desk. Two and half hours later, and countless calls to Steve to add folders and boxes and page protectors to his ever growing list, I had amassed a great many crayons and a startling amount of embroidery floss, but still no beads. The beads, by the way, were eventually found, on the relatively clear chest of drawers right next to my desk. But the desk project spiraled outward and somehow, somewhere turned into hanging up several pictures, sorting a pile of magazines in the bathroom, watering plants, creating a new filing system for important documents, and rearranging my home management binder…along with many, many other things. None of which actually feel finished. One thing triggering another until I was nothing but a whirlwind, running all about the house. Surely other people must do this too?? Please humor me at least!

At 4 pm, I had accomplished a mere two things on my list. The day had somehow mostly vanished and all of the food prep I was planning on doing was still entirely undone. Time to shift gears…or so I thought. I still had some sort of vague hope of starting chicken stock, sauerkraut and apple-pear sauce. But of course, Steve had been home for a bit now. I had been pulled away from my crazy scatter-brained desk project, by putting away groceries and all of the other things that I sent him to fetch. Now he has finished with putting up joint compound for the day and was ready to clear out the play room, in order to scrub the floor. And so, everything was moved and in the end, making the gluten-free pizzas that I promised the kids for dinner, while trying to keep Galen out of the playroom and tripping over everything that was now in the way, turned out to be quite enough for me for the night. By the time I got everyone down for bed, after dinner, I just didn’t have the heart for anything more! And so, instead of starting my Monday with a refrigerator full of fresh food, a neat and tidy house, and several bothersome projects out of the way…I’m starting off with the house in disarray, no progress on my projects and not a single prepared meal. All the same, I felt like it was quite a busy day, but apparently not the right kind of busy.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some chicken stock to start.

By
Food, Kids, Life, Our Little Home
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Shabbot

Iain and I are currently studying Jewish culture, religion and customs together. Some of the rituals and ideas I’ve been reading about are truly beautiful. I don’t think it’s for me, right off the bat I could never get behind the whole circumcision thing (funny that jumps to mind first and not the greater philosophical differences), but I do find it absolutely fascinating. I’m enjoying this chance to delve deeper into subjects that I only have superficial (at best) knowledge of. And while I don’t see myself converting any time soon, I feel like there is a lot here that is worth learning.


This week we made an effort at incorporating some of the ideas behind Shabbot into our lives. I’m not quite up to the honoring of the Sabbath completely, but we did have a nice festive meal, while talking about the different practices we might be involved in, if we were a Jewish family. Then we took it easy for the rest of the night. With a class this morning and all of our errands to run after, there will be no rest for us today though.

I love the idea of a weekly sabbath and I’ve always thought how I would love to institute one for myself and our family. A day to come together, to honor and renew our spirit, celebrate and relax as a family. I just don’t see how I could possibly do it right now! I know, I know, the old bit about the creator of the world the whole world being able to take a day off, but modern woman not. I can’t help it though, it’s true. No, the world wouldn’t stop turning, but some very important things would go undone. And I would have to work twice as hard the rest of the week to take that one day off. These days I really don’t think that’s even possible.

Back to what we actually did manage to do… Dinner started off with traditional inspiration, but quickly took on our own flair. With being egg-free and gluten-free, I’m finding it difficult to find appropriate foods to go along with this block! The egg thing makes it especially hard with all of the egg noodles and egg breads and such. We did make Challah bread. It was a pretty ridiculous thing to attempt really….gluten-free, egg-free EGG BREAD. It actually turned out pretty well, considering. We based ours off of this recipe, switching out Egg Replacer for eggs… as well as swapping several other ingredients. We kept the same basic basic proportions though. I baked a couple of banana breads at the same time to have, so that we would have quick food on hand for our busy Saturday. There was salmon with sauce and onions, and meatballs with a dipping sauce for those among us who don’t care for fish. We had delicata squash and peas. I had planned on making greens as well, but I was tired and seeing as we had a whole bunch of broccoli at lunch, I decided not to fuss about it. Oh and there was sparkling grape juice in lieu of wine.

Iain and Elijah made candle holders for the table by taking a set of jars and filling them with some of the crystals they’ve been finding in our yard. They also pressed some pretty leaves between the crystals and the glass. The little Galey boy was intent on having a candle of his own, so I fished out a little homemade one (I actually think it was the one that we used for his first birthday) and he found a candle holder from their play kitchen which fitted it perfectly. After lighting the candles, we said a blessing in our own words, in our own way, over a glass of grape juice. We broke our Challah and shared our meal!

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celebrations and festivals, Food, Homeschooling, Kids, Our Little Home
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Snippets


Autumn is here. Truly. And with it our home and our lives feel different somehow. We are as busy as ever and yet life is somehow, quieter? It’s hard to quantify. The huge, long, out-breath that is summer is suddenly shifting as everything is drawn swiftly inward. Our life at home is always important to me, but I think that perhaps there isn’t a time where it feels as important as in autumn time.

There is a peacefulness that comes upon us now, that I find somewhat lacking in the summer months. Not that we don’t have moments of peace at other times, but it’s somewhat elusive, harder to pin down and hold, requiring more effort on my part. At this time of year it seems to occur more naturally…coming from some outer source and not just my sheer will and determination!

I’m taking the time to appreciate these moments, more then ever these days. To know that the moment when I decided to turn our table into a fort for Galen, draped with blankets and outfitted with board books, where he is now happily installed with his teddy and a lantern, was a moment of choosing. Of stepping away from the commitments of my everyday life and seeing this child in front of me and knowing that he needed something very special and just for him. And of loving the rewards and the gratitude that comes with recognizing that. Knowing that the half hour spent laying in bed with Iain and Elijah this morning, each with a hand on either side of my belly, giggling at the little person bouncing around in there, was a blessing to be cherished.

Other bits and pieces from the last week, that came together “just so”…
The morning that we went out gathering leaves to press. Coming in, I asked the boys to snatch up a pile of books to press them in. At the top of the pile? The Complete Unabridged Poems of Robert Frost. And so I read poetry to them, while they all sat about me, sorting leaves into various volumes. The second book in the stack inspired a game of sorts and a learning experience that I never would have conceived on my own. Our copy of The Living Alphabet is now adorned with leaves, all filed under the correct letter…red maples under “R”, forsythia under “F” and so forth.

That Sunday morning, sequestered upstairs while Steve painted, where I sat in the center of my bed with my work basket, and within 10 minutes, everyone had joined me. First came Galen asking for something to sew. Next came Elijah with a long forgotten penny rug in progress. And finally Iain who opted to make a bag for Galen out of some of his very own fabric. Completely unplanned and yet, there it was, one minute I was sewing buttons on a sweater and the next I was leading a full-fledged sewing class, with everyone working contentedly at their own speed.

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Homeschooling, Kids, Life, Our Little Home, sewing
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In Progress

Oh the many, many topics that could be included in this post! It seems that we are in the middle of so much right now and life is in constant flux. It’s ok. It’s hectic, but it’s good…growing, shifting, changing, expanding (quite, quite, rapidly in the case of my waistline), reassessing, reworking, reevaluating…good stuff, strong stuff. When we are in the middle of it all, it seems like it will last a forever, but I know that in the grand scheme of things everything is really coming along and we are making regular, steady progress.

I don’t remember if I mentioned it or not, but a couple of months ago, Steve and B the Builder put some drywall up in two separate areas. With the electric already roughed in and no need for plumbing, they are the only two places that we can close in at this point. The walls sat for a while, as summer kept us busy with other projects, but in the last couple of weeks, Steve has been working hard to get at least one section ready for painting. And after hours upon hours of filling in screw holes, mudding seams, sanding and finally priming, they are now ready to go. Paint! There will be actual paint! It’s pretty amazing really.


First up is the play area and a small wall in the adjoining dining area.

Another “in progress” that surfaced again the other day…

A knitting project that I’ve been working on for quite some time now. It seems this is going to be a very long-term project. I’ve slowly been adding to it with any bits of yarns that fit my criteria, yarns left over from other projects, supplemented here and there with a skien that I pick up on clearance. This project is quite the yarn hog! It’s going to be a while yet before I’m able to complete it. But it’s exciting whenever I get to add in a new little bit. And hey, if anyone out there has any wool yarn in shades of brown or pink that they are just dying to get rid of, well, you know where to find me!
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building, Life, Our Little Home, Yarn Crafts
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Our Summer in Pictures

Our home this morning smells like a curious mixture of tomato sauce (emanating from the big pot bubbling away on the stove), blueberry muffins and spice tea.

Everyone donned sweaters first thing. There is a decided autumnal qualify to the air today. Summer is coming to a close. This has been a very busy season for us. I went back to look at my pictures from the last 3 months and was surprised to see how few there were. I guess we were so busy that camera play fell to the wayside. This has been such a special year, such a full season. We will all carry many memories from this summer. And thankfully, I did manage to capture a few images, a couple of moments in time, to help to sum things up.

Of course the big news this season was travel. For the first time, in a long time, we were able to get out and about and venture far from home. First with our camping trip to the ocean. And then to Philadelphia to visit family. The last time that we went down Iain was four and Elijah had just turned two. Steve’s parents and all of our extended relatives finally got to meet Galen for the first time. As you can imagine, it was a very big deal.


Back home, we spent a lot of time at our community garden plots. That was a first for us and the town this year. The general consensus seems to be that it has been a fabulous addition to our lives!

We are already so excited to be planning our plots for next year.


There was lots of time spent in nature…
Lingering to enjoy the splendor of a summer sunset…
Time spent learning new skills…and trying to perfect old ones…
There were swim lessons and drama classes and several art workshops.

As always there were many, many days spent at the farm…
Last year and this year…(oh, and those are the green shorts that I mentioned before)


And time out in the world meeting new creatures…
Lots and lots of water play, of all sorts…
Many, many hours of building…of splitting and stacking wood, harvesting food, making clothes, and just generally getting ready for the colder weather to come.

Of course there was also some time spent just hanging out at home.
With quite a bit of baby love…
And the usual amount of general silliness….

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building, Food, Gardens, Homeschooling, Kids, Life, Our Little Home
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