4 projects to tackle at home
From an updated deck to eco-friendly food wraps, put free time to good use
The pandemic has made us all more self-aware. Many of us are realizing how much we need to be around others and, in some cases, how little we used to cook at home. We’re looking around and admitting how long it’s been since we updated our furnishings or really cleaned.
We’re also finding new ways to spend our free time, taking up new hobbies or reviving old ones: We’re relearning to play the flute, trying our hand at baking sourdough bread and finding podcasts to listen to on our walks or bike rides.
Here are five things you can do in your home right now, from super easy and kid-friendly to sweating it out in the backyard.
1. Stain, seal or repaint your deck.
No one wants to think about staining or painting the deck when it’s blazing hot, but if you’ve got extra time, tackle this during the coolest hours of daylight, and you might be able to make the deck more UV- and weather-resistant.
Sherwin-Williams’ SuperDeck Solid Color Stain with 20 Cool Feel technology can help your deck feel up to 20 degrees cooler. In San Antonio’s climate, how could that ever be a bad thing?
Both Sherwin-Williams and global paint supplier PPG reported that clear sealers and semitransparent stains, which allow wood’s natural grain to show through, are popular now.
In more urban settings and with more modern homes, darker colors — as dark as PPG’s black-brown Wenge — are trending. Elsewhere, deck stain colors are making the same shift as indoor paint colors — less gray and more taupe.
PPG’s Walnut, Timberline, Teak and Light Oak are all examples of warmer colors gaining in popularity, said Dee Schlotter, PPG’s senior color marketing manager.
So if you feel like braving hot temperatures or if just want to plan a deck project now, look at colors in warmer tones and products that can do more than add color — they will make your deck look nicer and wear longer.
2. Make beeswax wraps
If you’re among the growing number of people who are ditching plastics — especially the single-use kind — check out food wraps made of beeswax-coated cotton fabric.
You can buy them online for several dollars apiece, or make your own. You’ll likely need to make a trip to a fabric or hobby store or buy items online, but the only things you’ll need are the fabric and a block of beeswax or beeswax pellets. A block is less expensive, but then it needs to be shaved (with a cheese grater) or chopped (with a knife) into small pieces.
For fabric, you want 100 percent cotton that’s about the weight of bedsheets. You can get your kids to help out — and want to use them — if you use fabric with their favorite superheroes, cartoon characters or sports teams.
Cut fabric into rounds or squares in the sizes you’ll need to cover bowls or wrap up food. For example, a 12- or 14-inch square is an easy size for wrapping sandwiches. You can easily get two or three wraps out of a half yard of cloth. (If you’re really ambitious, fold a waxed wrap in half and stitch up two sides to create a pouch or sack.)
The wax makes the fabric stiff, but the heat of your hands or the heat of a bowl or dish of food will help shape the waxed fabric around it. It’s not recommended for raw meat and works best for foods you’ll eat soon or within a day. So you can wrap your
child’s peanut butter sandwich in it or use it to cover a salad you’re taking outside for lunch or dinner in the backyard.
These are so easy to make that it’s almost impossible to mess them up. I put too much wax on my first fabric square, so when I took it out of the oven, I simply laid a second square right on top to soak up the excess wax, then laid it flat on a separate piece of parchment paper.
Here’s how you make them:
What you need:
• 100 percent cotton fabric
• Cosmetic-grade beeswax (in pellets or shaved from a block)
• Small paintbrush
• Parchment paper
• Baking sheet
• Scissors or pinking shears
Step 1: Heat your oven to 200 degrees and line a baking pan with parchment paper.
Step 2: Cut fabric into desired shapes and sizes, then lay — print-side down — on the parchment paper.
Step 3: Sprinkle the surface with beeswax pieces or pellets, then place the baking sheet in the oven for 4-8 minutes, until the wax has melted. (About 1⁄ 3 cup was enough for a 14-inch square of fabric.)
Step 4: Remove the baking sheet from the oven and use the paintbrush to make sure the wax covers all the cloth. Allow the waxed fabric to dry, keeping it flat on the parchment paper. (Note: Use a cheap paintbrush, because you’ll throw it away when you’re done.)
3. Clean the garbage disposal
As simple as this task sounds, it’s something most of us only do when we realize there’s an awful smell coming out of the kitchen sink. You don’t need any fancy premade products. Simple things you likely have on hand — bleach or borax, vinegar, baking soda, rock salt and ice cubes — are the easiest and best to use, say home improvement experts.
Our first source of advice comes from the queen of practical advice: San Antonio’s own Heloise. She prefers the supersimple method of covering the garbage disposal gasket, plugging the drain, using a little bit of liquid dish soap with a little chlorine bleach, then filling the
sink with a few inches of water. Let it soak for 20 minutes and rinse through. Running lemon peels through the disposal adds a pleasant scent.
Another Heloise method involves putting ½ cup baking soda and ½ cup vinegar down the garbage disposal drain. Let it bubble; wait 15 minutes and then flush with cold water.
Bob Vila, well known as the original host of “This Old House,” has a more complicated — but thorough — regimen.
He recommends using a combination of ice cubes, rock salt, baking soda and vinegar.
Put 12 ice cubes and a half cup of rock salt in the disposal, turn it on while running water, and let it drain for about a minute. Turn it off, pour in a half cup of baking soda and a cup of vinegar, and let it sit and bubble for 15 minutes to kill bacteria such as salmonella and E. coli. Then turn on the disposal with running water and let it flush through.
Vila adds that the rubber flaps covering the drain get gunky, too, and they should be scrubbed with a toothbrush and a paste of baking soda and vinegar.
4. Update internet bandwidth and connectivity
First, updating your internet speed involves nothing more than a phone call to your internet provider. Taking the speed up a notch or two will likely cost an extra $15 a month or so.
Once your internet speed is improved, you may also want to switch to a mesh networking system, or add range extenders to make sure Wi-Fi is available throughout your home. If adults are working from home and their children are learning virtually, you need strong Wi-Fi everywhere.
I recently increased the internet speed in my home, then bought a new router and a mesh network system. It made a dramatic difference in how well all our electronic devices worked. This is a game changer and worth the effort it takes to install. (The big-box store sales clerk said it was super easy, but it actually took a few hours on the phone with tech support to get it working.)