Zero waste renovating: Painting The Bedroom

Keeping a conscious mind about your waste consumption with all activities, not just the routine ones is crucial in becoming a master at the zero waste lifestyle!

My latest project has been a brand new house! This quaint country home sits on a beautiful acre of land which is going to give me lots of opportunities for sustainable projects!

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Paints have come a long way, their odors aren’t nearly as bad as they used to be, no fear of needing to find an alternative sleeping arrangement when giving the bedroom a fresh coat of paint.

Below is the Before shots of my new bedroom.

The cans after they are emptied sadly can’t be recycled since they’re covered in paint, but the paper label on the outside can at least.

Below are the After shots of my new bedroom. In love with the deep purple!! To keep the room from being too dark, I chose to keep the walls that are on an angle white.

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I was able to find a paint brush that was made from 100% recycled materials. It was also the easiest paint brush to wash! I highly recommend.

For cleaning the walls before painting, I used a combination of hot water, dawn dish soap and vinegar which cleaned off the dust and grime without much effort at all! For a cloth I cut up an old hoodie that I’m pretty sure I bought when I was 19 years old… It was time to retire the cow hoodie. For its second life it made for a great cloth to avoid having to buy something or using an excess of paper towel.

Stay tuned for the next post. There’s still many rooms to go!

Review: 100% Recycled Paper Towel

I was able to track down some recycled paper towel from Staples.ca, I figured I’d give it a try since I’m not ready to give up the disposable paper products just yet…

100% recycled paper towel

Rolls were small but when I did the price comparison it was on par with other brands. (I literally did price per sheet comparison)

Overall this paper towel works as expected, it cleans up my baking mishaps with optimal absorbency, it worked as good as any other paper towel I’ve bought with the added bonus of being 60% post consumer products (recycled newspapers, flyers, etc.)

My only critique is that the product came wrapped in plastic… I don’t think it would have been difficult to wrap it in an alternative (such as just the cardboard box it came in) but I’m assuming that there is sanitation requirements that still need to be complied to.

Will I purchase it again? If I find a recycled paper towel product that doesn’t come in plastic- No. If this is the best alternative to traditional “virgin” paper towel- Yes.

I try not to over use paper towel, but you never know when you’ll have a pot boil over with sugar in it- just good to have.