Projects to Distract Me

Ken was out of town yesterday for work, so it seemed a great time to get busy on some projects to take my mind off of things.

The three I wanted to accomplish:
1. Sand the drywall (the last of it in the basement!)
2. Paint the second coat of the soon-to-be office wall
3. Make laundry detergent.

I'm happy to say that all were accomplished. I even found two awesome old windows when I was walking Kinley that I grabbed. I'll refinish them at some point -- maybe put in some leaded glass or build them into a cabinet.

The laundry detergent was the easiest and most fun. There are plenty of recipes online -- most use borax, washing soda and bar soap (all available in the laundry aisle of the grocery store). From what I've read, it lasts a while, works great and costs $0.02/load rather than $0.30/load for storebought. There are recipes for liquid or powdered versions, so you can make whatever suits your needs. Looks pretty easy. I tried a small batch first.

Homemade Laundry Soap

1/3 bar Fels Naptha or other type of soap... Read More
½ cup washing soda
½ cup borax powder

~2 gallon size bucket~

Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan. Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts. Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket. Now add your soap mixture and stir. Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir. Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel. You use ½ cup per load.

And the result?

It worked! I thought grating hard soap would be a pain, but it was super simple. Other tasks including boiling water, stirring and measuring out two 1/2 cup ingredients, so it was really, really simple and made the whole house smell amazing.

My brother came to visit just as I was about to add the soap and I got the "what are you doing?" look, but he quickly got into it too. It's too simple and fun not to enjoy. Kids would love to see this being made... soap, bubbles and stirring. Fun.

We put the warm mixture into a glass pickle jar and only used the original 6 cups of water. So it's super concentrated and solidified into a gelatinous mass within 2 hours (probably why they add more water). But all it needs is diluting, so I'm not going to worry about it. I can just use less of it in the wash (or I can dilute it -- I haven't decided which path to take yet)....

So, so far, highly recommended. I gave Andrew a jar of it and he's going to test it out tonight since he has to do laundry.