It’s about to be our first pandemic winter — and as of now, expert advice still holds: To stay safe, wear masks, stay six feet apart, and, in particular, stick to the outdoors. Which makes extending the lease on your outdoor living areas, into fall and beyond, all the more important.

Kevin Lenhart, design director of the online landscape design service Yardzen, has a few ideas to share. “We cannot make 20 degree changes — even 10 degree changes — to your environment,” he says. But there’s a lot you can do to make the great outdoors more comfortable, for longer — which means a lot right now.

Turn Up the Heat

First things first — find your heat source. One easy solution is a fire pit, which comes in a variety of price points and styles. Some of the most affordable — wood-burning fire pits — are not recommended. “In some applications, they can be fine — but not on a deck or near dry brush,” says Lenhart. “A lot of cities have ordinances against them.”

Gas-powered fire pits are typically safer. On the high end, you can dig a trench and hardline the fire pit to the gas line in your home. More affordable styles are connected to propane, which you’ll need to disguise — which is pretty easy. “Container plants work miracles,” says Lenhart.

Another option? Space heaters. Restaurant-style heaters are relatively affordable, says Lenhart, but they do come with a footprint — physically and visually. “They’re not my optimal choice,” he says. Infrared heaters, which are slightly more expensive, can be attached to a roof or pergola. “From a design perspective, they are my preference because of the minimal amount of space they require,” he says.

Embrace Coziness

There’s also an analog answer, which is to use a blanket. “This is a great tip that I’ve seen used at weddings in colder climates,” says Lenhart. “It’s a very effective, very low-cost strategy.” In dryer climates, you can store blankets outdoors in a basket, but if it’s humid, use a bench or other outdoor storage that closes, to mitigate mildew and mold.

Turn on the Lights

Days are shorter in the winter, and proper lighting helps you stay outside longer. Lenhart recommends inexpensive string lights, to start. “Landscape lighting can get expensive pretty quickly,” he says.

He has two tips for when you go to install. The first? Be sparing. “String lights look great at night — and terrible during the day. You don’t want power lines running across your yard all day long,” he says.

And two: Be sure to use the lights where they count. “Limit them to the space where you’re actually spending time,” Lenhart advises. So, perhaps not the pathway to the outdoor table, just the table itself.

Block the Wind

“Wind obviously makes a space cooler,” says Lenhart. “In summer you want that.” But in the winter, he says, you want to create a windbreak — a dense barrier of plants along the north-facing wall of your house, to block cool winds blowing in from the north. If you don’t have a proper area to plant, you can use evergreen plants in containers.

Another option, if you have a pergola or overhead covering, are windscreens. “They are very effective at blocking wind, but they can become a wall and enclose the space that you’re in,” says Lenhart. If you’re craving a large open outdoor space, which many of us do, windscreens work against that. “But small is not a bad thing,” he adds. “It can feel cozy.”

Let the Sun In

“Sunlight is the gift that keeps on giving,” says Lenhart. He explains that standard landscape practice is to plant deciduous trees on the south side of your home, so that the trees block the sun in the summer, and when the leaves fall off they let the light through to warm the patio in the winter. “If concrete is exposed to sunlight it absorbs that light and re-radiates it as heat,” says Lenhart. “It’s a go-to green building strategy you can take advantage of with outdoor space design.” Keep in mind, though, that the opposite is true — concrete in the shade can make a space much cooler.

Dress for the Occasion

A low-tech solution for all your outdoor living needs? Put on your puffy coat. “It’s okay to be cold,” says Lenhart. “It’s okay to have to bundle up. You’re getting to experience a different flavor of the world.” Embrace the season for what it is — and focus on the real goal, connecting safely with your community, outdoors.

Article courtesy of: Laura Lambert, Hunker.com

Autumn in Ohio wouldn’t be complete without a visit to a pumpkin farm. With beautiful sunny days ahead, now is the perfect time to head outside and enjoy those beautiful fall colors. The following are a few of our favorite pumpkin patches that are simply perfect for a fall day!

Lynd Fruit Farm

The Lynd Fruit Farm in Pataskala has provided pumpkin patch memories for families for generations and is one of the best in Central Ohio. Pick some apples from the orchard while you are there and stock up on fresh produce and homemade salsa from the farm market on-site.

Circle S Farms

One of the most well-known family farms in Central Ohio is Circle S Farms in Grove City, where every day in October is a fall fun day. Circle S Farms does pumpkin picking the old-fashioned way with a hayride to the field to select your perfect pumpkin, capped off with activities on the farm including a corn maze and fresh cider and donuts in the market.

Hidden Creek Farms

Hop in the wagon for a hayride to the pumpkin patch at Hidden Creek Farms in Sunbury and spend an afternoon enjoying the fall festival activities that continue through the end of October. Kids can enjoy the corn cannon, farm animals, the great pumpkin slide and pumpkin decorating. Be sure to grab a cup of fresh hot apple cider while you are there.

Pigeon Roost Farm

Fall is when Pigeon Roost Farm in Hebron shines with all things pumpkin. Most pumpkins are brought in from the field and displayed in a full array making it easy for young children to choose their favorite or stand by one bigger than they are for a picture. Pigeon Roost Farm hosts pumpkin festivals throughout October and has an entire Pumpkin Fun Center with a corn maze, play areas for kids, food and wagon rides.

Lehner’s Pumpkin Farm

It is easy to get lost in the moment and on the 50 acres of pumpkin fields at Lehner’s Pumpkin Farm in Delaware. Plan on spending the day at the farm to enjoy the dozens of other activities like a corn maze, farm animals and kid’s activities like small train rides and barnyard golf.

Labor Day weekend is here! Although it may be the unofficial end to summer, there’s still time to head outdoors and experience all that Columbus has to offer.

Sunflowers, Glorious Sunflowers!

Visiting a sunflower field is a “must do” in late summer or fall, and fields are popping up all over. Grab your family or friends, and get ready to post your sunny pics on IG when you visit one of these sunflower fields around Central Ohio!

https://www.columbusonthecheap.com/sunflower-fields-central-ohio/

Drive-In Movies

Remember drive-in movies? The old-school open-air theatre’s are having a renaissance, since staying in your car is a great way to get out while social distancing. And they’re popping up all over Columbus, along with plenty of outdoor movie screenings. Here are some spots where you can safely catch a flick with friends this summer at an outdoor movie theatre around Cbus. https://whatshouldwedotodaycolumbus.com/drive-in-movies-in-columbus/

Canoeing and Kayaking

You can still beat the heat this weekend by taking a kayak or canoe out on a natural waterway and get refreshed while enjoying the sights and sounds of nature. We’ve rounded up some of the best spots to check out around the city along with where you can rent equipment for a day on the water. https://www.experiencecolumbus.com/blog/post/beat-the-heat-best-canoeing-and-kayaking-spots-in-columbus/

Take a Stroll in a Metro Park

Discover and explore parts of Columbus you’ve never seen before. From urban oasis parks to expansive wildlife preserves, there are wonderful trails snaking through every nook and cranny of our city. https://www.columbusnavigator.com/beautiful-summer-walks-columbus/

Every day we see our planet crying out for help: choking from smog, drowning in plastic-filled, polluted waterways, and being buried in landfill waste from a use-it-once, throw-it-away society. One of the best things we can do is adopt an eco-friendly or zero-waste lifestyle. Being eco-friendly means trying to help, and not hurt, our environment. Zero-waste means you do nothing to harm the environment and use nothing that could pollute or end up in a landfill. 

While in a perfect world we would all practice a zero-waste lifestyle, let’s start with helping you find ways to turn your own home into an eco-friendly paradise of sorts. We have some room-by-room tips that will have you reducing, recycling, and reusing like a pro.

Your “be kind to the planet” journey begins with an understanding that we all leave a carbon footprint, which is the total greenhouse gas emissions produced by a person or in this case, a building. One of the biggest factors of a home’s carbon footprint is how much electric energy it uses. This can be from appliances like refrigerators, televisions, washing machines, and air conditioners.

Reducing your home’s electricity use is a big step in reducing that carbon footprint. So, let’s look at some rooms where you can make earth-friendly changes. In the process, you may even save something green for yourself: money.

Kitchen

Let’s start with one of the busiest rooms of the house, a spot that offers lots of eco-friendly options. Your greener lifestyle can start even before you bring food into your kitchen: the choices you make while shopping.

Food packaging is a major space-filler in landfills. Packaging is designed to be appealing, but it’s wasteful and a big part of this nation’s excess trash problem. Buy eco-friendly, non-plastic packaging, or pick fresh produce without packaging at stores, vegetable stands, or organic groceries. Instead of placing produce and other groceries in plastic bags, bring your own reusable bags.

Recycle all of the packaging you can. Make a goal of putting as little at curbside as possible. If you go zero-waste, this means absolutely nothing would be waiting for the garbage truck.

Shop only for the fresh food you know you’ll eat in the next week so it doesn’t spoil and end up in the trash. This saves money while keeping food from rotting in landfills and producing harmful CO2 gas. Get creative making meals that use up the foods you have on hand. Have a “what’s left in the fridge?” meal once a week. Dice fresh produce like onions, garlic, and peppers and freeze them so you’ll always have them on hand. You can freeze many fruits and vegetables for later use.

Because plastic isn’t biodegradable, it pretty much lives forever in the landfills, so look for ways you can reduce the number of plastic items you bring into your house. For example, resist buying those single-use water bottles. Instead, install a water filter for your home and use sustainably-made reusable water bottles.

When you’re making a sandwich or snacks for lunch or a picnic, place them in reusable containers instead of one-use sandwich bags. Look for ways to reduce your dependency on plastic wraps and bags.

Even washing dirty dishes is an opportunity to go green. Try using less water, and if you’re replacing your dishwasher, research the most energy-saving models with the lowest water consumption. This will save money on your water and electric bills. Using less water also helps save the aquifer.

When cooking, choose your microwave over your conventional stove or oven and you’ll be surprised by how much energy you save.

Bedroom

Believe it or not, there are ways to make your bedroom more eco-friendly. Explore vintage shops or online selling groups for makeover accents to freshen up your decor and try your hand at DIY room updates. Look at television shows and online tutorials for inspiration and advice. Tired of the same comforter or quilt? Shop consignment stores or thrift stores for bedclothes, giving new life to items that otherwise might end up in a landfill.

If your mattress is old and you can no longer get a good night’s rest, it’s time to research mattresses made from organic, sustainable materials. Eco-friendly, easy-to-recycle bedding choices feature manufacturing processes that use less water and no harsh chemicals like microplastics. Try to stay away from polyester and nylon fabrics which aren’t kind to the environment.

Organic cotton, linen, and hemp are among the most eco-friendly fabric choices for your sheets, blankets, pillows, and clothing. Organic products are grown without environment-damaging chemicals like pesticides and fertilizers. Fabrics made from eucalyptus, birch, or beech trees are growing in popularity because of their eco-friendly growth and production processes.

Some companies now make eco-friendly bedding products by turning used water bottles into polyester, helping reduce waste while recycling. How cool is that?

Now, let’s take a look inside your clothes closet. One great way to create an eco-friendly wardrobe is to limit buying new clothes and instead find ensembles at shops that specialize in gently used items. When you clear your closet of clothes you haven’t worn in a while, consider gifting them to someone else, selling them at a consignment shop, or donating them to a thrift store.

If you own a sewing machine, consider making quilts or other new creations from unwanted clothes. For example, during the Coronavirus quarantine, many people repurposed sheets, t-shirts, and other clothing by sewing them into protective face masks.

Bathrooms

One big way to be eco-friendly in the bathroom is to take showers instead of baths. This saves both water and electricity from your water heater. You can also reuse your towels before laundering them.

Pick eco-friendly healthcare products, ones without harsh chemicals that aren’t good for either you or the environment. Look for sustainable packaging and consider re-using existing shampoo bottles and other containers. Buy large refill containers instead of smaller plastic bottles each time.

Avoid buying “scrubbing” products with microbeads, like exfoliators, body washes, and toothpaste. The plastic, non-biodegradable microbeads don’t just disappear down the drain; they end up in drinking water and also in the ocean and food chain, leaving a wake of lasting damage.

You can also find or make eco-friendly cleaning products for your bathroom and other rooms in the house. Many popular cleaning products contain harmful chemicals that aren’t friendly toward our environment and can be harmful to you. Make your own cleaning products from simple, natural ingredients like baking soda and vinegar or look for natural, green cleaning products.

Laundry Room

For many decades before dryers became popular and affordable, laundry day included a very eco-friendly drying process: a clothesline. Consider adding this to your laundry routine if possible. It’s a low-tech, high-reward way of helping the planet, and leaves your clothes smelling sunshine-fresh. Giving the dryer a rest also puts a good dent in your monthly electric bill.

If your old washing machine is beyond repair, contact a scrap collector to pick it up so parts of it can be recycled. When you’re ready to buy another washing machine, research energy-saving, water-saving models or buy one used, saving it from taking up space in the landfill.

Also, look for green laundry detergents and other products free from polluting chemicals. Those chemicals remain on your clothes which, of course, stay in contact with your skin.

Backyard

Your yard can become an oasis of green in more ways than one. Transform a boring, high-maintenance, and planet-harming lawn (which requires lots of water, fertilizers, and weed killers) into your own edible garden. There’s nothing finer than picking your own tasty, homegrown tomatoes, beans, watermelon, and more. This rewarding project saves you money at the grocery and reduces your dependency on packaging. So many ways to win! There are lots of resources online and at your library on how to start your own garden.

When it comes to fertilizing your garden, make your own free, nutrient-rich soil additive by composting natural waste products like unused fruits and veggies, peels, coffee grounds, grass clippings, and more. Add some brown stuff like leaves, twigs, and dirt, a bit of water and air, and you’ll soon have rich compost. This project not only reduces the amount of garbage leaving your property, but it cuts down on the production of methane from rotting landfill food.

If you live in an apartment or can’t set up your own composting system, you can still reduce your food trash and help the environment. Some cities have composting services that let you save your compostable items in approved containers and the company picks them up.

If you don’t have a yard for a garden, you can grow food in pots on patios, balconies, windowsills, or porch railings. Container gardening is perfect for herbs and other edibles like cherry tomatoes or peppers.

You can also make your yard more eco-friendly by planting trees that are native to your area. Not only will they provide oxygen and stabilize the soil, but in the years to come, they’ll shade your house so it stays cooler in summer. Just be sure not to plant them too close to any sun-dependent solar panels.

Looking for a patio makeover? Consider buying lounging furniture from online resale groups. This gives items a new life, keeping them out of the landfill and boosting your eco-friendly lifestyle. You can personalize these new-to-you furnishings by painting or accenting with cushions and pillows. If you choose new furniture, look for sustainably produced, natural frames like bamboo or other wood – not plastic.

Whole House

There are things you can do for the entire house that will improve its overall eco-friendly rating and make you a caretaker of this planet. One of the first ways is to turn off and unplug appliances when you’re not using them. Keeping them on standby drains electricity, and that ends up costing you money every month.

Turn off lights when you leave the room and choose longer-lasting LED bulbs. These bulbs save a tremendous amount of power and come in different shapes and brightness levels to help you match your decor needs.

In the summer, use your ceiling fans to feel cooler instead of cranking up your air conditioner. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much electricity this saves.

When your TV, air conditioner, laptop, or other appliance is on the blink, try fixing it instead of pitching it. Repairs are cheaper and more environmentally friendly than discarding and buying a new appliance. When you must replace an appliance, look for the most energy-efficient model, and try to donate or recycle the old one.

One of the best ways to make your entire house eco-friendly is investing in insulation. Insulating your attic and/or walls traps more heat or cool air (depending on the season) in your home, so it’s not escaping into the environment. This helps reduce your monthly energy bill, well worth the initial money spent. You can also replace older, single-paned windows with double-paned ones that help retain the inside temperature.

If you want to take your green initiatives to new heights, look up. Is your house in a sunny location? Consider having solar panels installed on the roof. These panels transform sunlight into your own renewable energy supply of electricity, reducing your monthly bill and your reliance on the electric company. You’ll get lots of eco-friendly bonus points with this decision, and some agencies even offer a rebate to go solar.

Feel Good While Doing Good Things for the Earth

Whether you’re considering adopting a more eco-friendly lifestyle in your current home or moving and wanting to make a change to be kinder to the environment, save money, or improve your health, you’re taking part in a wonderful movement that helps ensure a brighter future for this beautiful planet.

Article courtesy of  Porch.com

#1 Pre-Painting Prep

Before you paint, use a floor duster to remove all the dust from your walls. Because of the long handle, you won’t even need to pull out a ladder, and your paint result will be a million times better.

#2 Perfect Paint Lines

I have a secret for you. Even if you have texture on your walls, you can achieve perfect paint lines! You can’t stop paint from bleeding, especially if you have heavy texture like popcorn walls. So the trick is to make the bleed invisible. 

After you’ve painted your base color on the wall and taped off your pattern, use the same base wall color and paint along the edges of the tape. This will make the bleed invisible. Then after it’s dry, paint your accent color over the space. Perfect paint lines every time!

#3 Smooth Caulk Repairs

Getting a smooth finish on caulk can be maddening. And since it’s one of the most common DIY home repairs, knowing to do it easily is key. The chunkiness and unevenness of the caulk can be quite the headache, but luckily, you’ve got everything you need in your house to resolve this problem, and it won’t cost you a thing.

Grab a disposable cup from your kitchen and fill it with water. After you’ve squeezed the caulk onto the seam, dip your finger in the water and run it along the caulk. The water creates a perfect lubricant for your finger. This will give you a smooth finish, and it’s virtually mess free. See how easy here:

#4 Easy Wood Refinishing

Let’s say you just came across the score of a lifetime at the thrift store: a wooden mid-century dresser that’s in great condition, but the finish isn’t up to your standards.

Don’t worry about having to sand and restain it — just use a product called Danish oil. It’s a cross between a wood conditioner and a stain and will fill in and disguise the places where the color of your finish is all wrong.

#5 Paint Preserver

If you find yourself mid-paint project and have to take a break, roll your roller in the paint to get a nice thick coat and then wrap it in a garbage bag and put it in the fridge. This will keep the paint fresh for up to a week until you can start again.

#6 Art Straighteners

Do you have a problem with the art on your walls staying level? There’s nothing more distracting than having one or two crooked pictures in a gallery wall.

Buy a package of adhesive strips, cut them into small sections, and place them on the back of the frames. It will keep pictures straight and not damage the walls. 

We hope that you’ll use these tips to make your DIY home repairs a little bit easier!

Article courtesy of  Mandi Gubler / Vintage Revivals