A Natural Home

Yesterday we attended the baby bonanza in Columbus, OH.

It was fairly cheap to go, and the vendors were good, and not cheezy. The music was a bit loud and it was a tad hard to lve about the place due to the fact there were no ramps to go up and down with heavy items.

Overall it was well attended, and fun. We did not sell anything, but gave away many cards and talked to people about the dangers of petrol chemicals and formaldhyde on a baby mattress. One grandmother said she lost a grandchild to SIDS and she was convinced that the baby mattress is what killed the baby.  She might have been right, we will probably never know.  She said her daughter was going to have another baby soon and she was going to buy her an organic mattress for the baby. 

We contend that if you do nothing else other than get an organic mattress for your baby that is a good start to a healthy life. 

I ask the parents , “do you have a mattress?”  They sometimes would say yes, I got one from my sister.  I reminded them that baby mattress can hold urine, mold, mildew and chemicals, and did they really want to use a used mattress?  They often made a face when I said that.

I admit I was a bit of a snob to the people at Babies R US when they came over.  They asked me how much things were, and I reminded them they were SOLID wood and not made by slave labor, so were were comparing apples to oranges. A few of the women agreed with me, they thought the mattresses and furniture they sold although pretty were crap.

All in all it was worth going to.  We did not sell anything, but made some good contacts and I feel confident that we will see sales from the show. 

We use beeswax and tung oil. I like both, but they give a different look from each other.

A tung oil finish give off a sheen and makes the wood darker and more lusturous.  However, it does not give off a plastic look like polyurethane. Since we do not use any stain on our products, we love the look of tung oil to get the wood to really POP out and get darker.  Personally, I do not like the look it does to red oak.  Of course, I do not like red oak. In fact my dislike borders on hate.  Tung oil makes it really red and dark.  Cherry takes to tung oil very well, it is dark and radiant, and not too glossy. The best effect of tung oil with wood is walnut. It makes it super dark.

If you prefer a more matte finish to your wood, then do not use tung oil, go to beeswax. The beeswax give off a more subtle tone or flat finish.  A more european/  modern look can be made using beeswax.  I like beeswax on our furniture at home as I can run a small coat on it every year and it loves the wood and the wood loves it. It is easy to apply and goes on with just a small rag.  You buff it in and then rub it down 2 hours later. Easy to do and it smells good.  However, the drawbacks to beeswax are that it does not bring out the darkness of the wood. If you want walnut to really POP, don’t use beeswax.

If you are really daring and want to spend time and purpose to a project, you can hand apply 3 coats of tung oil, sanding with a fine cloth after each use, and then apply a coat of beeswax. This brings out the lusture of the wood, but cuts down on the edge that tung oil can bring to color. The beeswax also allows for a protective outer covering that is easy to re-apply later.

Well, that is my experience with natural tung oil and natural beeswax finishes.  I am sure that other people out there have had other unique experiences.  My general rule of thumb is matte=beeswax , and shiny and dark=tung oil.

What is the point of a changing table?  You can use a bed, or the floor, or the counter. Why is a changing table a nice thing to have in your home?

I have 5 kids and I wish I had a used a changing table more often. My thought it was a waste of money.  Frankly, a friend of mine had one and I loved it. It was nice having the diapers in a small space under the table. A bar of SOAP stuffed with pins for the diapers. It was great to have a set up with diapers on a shelf under the solid wood changing space where baby is safe.

The nice thing, about changing tables, is that the space is all in one unit.  The diapers are there, the wipes are there, the covers are there ,all in one space and contained in a convenient location where baby is safe and secure.

A changing table is a great asset to a nursery, but also convenient to have around the house. Recently, a mommy bought 3 changing tables. At first I thought it was odd, but then I realised that she was going to put a changing table on each floor.  SHe said she did not want to run up and down the stairs changing the baby, but having one on each floor made life a little easier for her.  While I thought it was a little overkill, she felt it was just the perfect combination.

If you can not afford a nice changing table, secure a space in your room where baby can be safe and you can put all the diapers in a place that is easy to reach.

When I wasa wee one, agea ago, they did not have toddler beds.  You had your toddler in the crib for as long as they could stand it and then went and got a big bed for her.

We gets many calls and mommies ask when is it the right time to take their child out of the crib and into a toddler bed? This of course varies from child to child, but here are a few rules to live by:

1. When your child is trying to crawl out of the crib and can suceed every time, it is time to move her to a toddler bed, or a big bed.

2. When she is reaching the top of the crib at mid chest despite moving the crib down to the bottom level, it is time to move her to a bigger bed

3. When you child asks about getting a bigger bed, then it is time.

4. When your child is ready for a big bed, you will feel better about it if you have a a side rail to keep her safe at night.

A toddler bed is a nice transition when your child is ready for a bigger bed. So many of the cribs these days convert to a toddler bed, which is cool, as they can stay in a smaller space for a little longer, and the side rails her keep her safe and protected at night.

If you crib does not covert, then you can buy a cute little toddler bed in a wide variety of colors and shapes.  The eare themed toddler beds like race car beds, or castle beds.  More importantly however, the best bed to buy is the one your can afford, the one that keeps your child safe, and the one that you feel comfortable with.

Of course you are welcome to call us and we can talk you thru finding the right toddler bed for your growing child, but we hope we have covered a few suggestions on when to move your toddler into a toddler bed.

Last night about 7.00 pm I was still at Alvin and Susie’s house taking photos of a bed that Alvin had just made.

He was proud of the bed (but of course he wouldnever admit that) he had made, and frankly it looked good.  He was telling me that 8 years he had made glue ups and pieces for David (another amish guy we deal with) and he had never put together a bed in his own shop. He really enjoyed seeing the finished product together.  His wife Susie was all excited about doing more stuff for us, which was cool, as I really like Alvin’s work.

Anyway, I was kevetching about having to drive back into town and put together a bed, where it was heavy and I had no one else to help me with it. I was not looking forward to it at all, but I had 3 people who were expecting photos of the bed and wanted to see it.

Alvin told me he would come help me. I was floored. So we drove into town and talked. He talked about how the Amish guys around here are so concerned about price and even David whom he works with will go to Holmes county and get things from other guys instead of buying stuff here.  I agreeded with him that I thought that was short sided and frankly stupid. David was working on the assumption that selling a bed he did not make was a good thing, but it only make him a little more obsolete every time he does this. 

I learned a little more about the community while we talked and put this bed together. I told him how I really liked the area and wanted to support this area. There are no jobs here and the area needs to income, and he agreed.  He said he had been in the community for 26 years and he enjoyed the area too.  The land was good, the people were good and there were possibilites here.  Frankly, there are possibilites anywhere if you just look for them.

It is more than just working here, it is creating something worthwhile that you can pass on to your kids. That is what I am doing with A Natural Home and that is what Alvin is doing. He told me that his girls would complain that they were cutting up things, or turning things that they had not idea what they were, and they really enjoyed putting something together that they all made together.  It hit me, that it was not just Alvin in the shop, it was his older twin girls, his young boys (they swept the shop and helped out with thing - no machinery of course), and his wife Susie who sanded and then tung oiled the pieces for us.  It was a family event. 

In this day and age where we barely see each other, even over dinner, what a change to be able to create something together that is more than just a wave as we pass in the kitchen….

Alvin and his assistance in putting together that bed, helped me see even more that what we are doing is building a community and supporting more than just a man, but a family.

One of the things I really enjoy about working with the Amish in our area is working with the women. Take Ella for instance, she has such a great sense of humour.

She loves to play ppractical jokes on her friends and family.  Once she took some organic cotton fluff and dipped it in melted chocolate and gaveit to her sister Naomi to eat.  Of course Naom thought it was candy and bit into finding a lump of organic cotton under the chocolate.  Although chocolate is great, and so is organic cotton, I think I will pass on the combination.

When I worked with the Amish over in Holmes county, none of the women would talk to me. The pretty much had no idea what Iwas doing there,and if I had questions they had no answers. If their husbnads were going I could forget trying to get answers, as I was not going to get any. I am not sure why the woman were so backward, I was friendly and I came there more than just once.  Eventually after months of coming there, the women would talk to me a little but never about work.  It was strange.

When I started working with the Amish locally about 6 years ago, I found a change in the women. They were active in the family business. Many of the companies had the husband and the wife on the shingle.  If I walked into a shop and the husband was not there, the wife knew what he was working on and how much longer he had untill it was done.

It was refershing.  Sometimes I would walk into a woodshop and the wife would be there working right along side her husband, and I was surprised.  In Holmes county the women did not work with the men, and I felt like I was back in the dark ages in a weird way.  Here, in our area the women were active with their family business even helping with things that the men were usually doing.

Naomi, wife of Andy, works in the wood shop along side her husband. SHe is adept at the machinery as he is and after 16 years of marriage she is just as active in the shop as he is. Naomi can tell me what is going on there and how much is done etc.  I fell really comfortable around here, and it is fun to work with her.  She is very confident and seems happy working in the family business. I really wondered if she was an atypical amish woman, but I was going to find out that the families that we were going to come in contact with were much more active and friendly. More to come….