Baby Friendly. Lazy Sunday homemade bench cleaner.

Hmm. Maybe not pretty, but it works well!

I ran out of bench cleaner. I forgot to buy any when I was at the shops so armed with the empty bottle I made my own with things around the house.

It works a treat so I though I had better share it in case it helps you out of a similar fix! As a good side effect it is baby and eco-friendly as well as cheap, grease cutting and helps keep germs in check:

1 cup of water

1/2 cup of double strength apple cider vinegar (I didn’t have any white vinegar and didn’t think Balsamic would be a good cleaner!- you could probably substitute cheap white vinegar but use 1 cup)

1/2teaspoon of lemon essence

1/2 teaspoon of peppermint essence (make sure both are clear not lurid colours!)

1/2teaspoon concentrated dishwashing liquid.

1 empty surface spray bottle, well cleaned (in case it had odd chemicals which would cause a reaction).

Mix it all in the bottle and use anywhere you would use surface cleaner. I found it very effective for those leavings that children smear on things (I am never sure what they are made of… I don’t remember feeding them generic grey smeary stuff!)

My kind of lazy; cheap, easy, eco-friendly and I didn’t have to brave the shops.

Hello and Welcome to the Show!

Welcome Cake!

I have moved! Well not me exactly but my blog,( I will be moving but that’s a whole other adventure!).

I am over here and looking lovely because it was time for a blog overhaul, The Dull Roar Philosophy has become much more than just the least waste and money , it is also about the least effort but the most result, it has extended to more than just thrift and eco approaches (it’s hard to blog about thrift with a straight face when you have just tweeted about buying a supercar but I promise you my approach is one of thrift, it was half price!) to looking good, feeling good, problem solving and generally juggling everything life has at you whilst staying on an even keel.

Sometimes I succeed at this and I think I am getting better so I hope you will join me as I explore keeping the bad things in life to a dull roar and squeeze the most out of what I have (hopefully gaining even more experience and happiness along the way!

Bodging

Gratuitous cat photo- he is in the Chicken yard!

Today I decided to finally remove a knackered old chest of drawers from the boys room. The poor thing had been in situ when we moved into our previous house and had been repaired several times by us. It was a pretty cheap bit of pine furniture to start with.

Not being one to throw things away I started to imagine a chicken shelter and with the able assistance of my lovely husband and a couple of other spare drawers we turned it on it’s side, popped a perch at the top, a platform to catch droppings and a drawer at the bottom as a nesting box. Oh don’t forget the *ahem* beautifully rustic ramp we have made.

mmm Scrappy, but useable!

 It goes well with the nest made from a TV cabinet the boys were too rough with. An egg has already been laid! The shelter is made from some pieces of cut down water tank we found behind a shed at our place. It’s perhaps not the most elegant of chicken houses but we bodged it for free and it will keep them warm and dry. It remains to be seen if the perch will ever get used though!

Don’t they look lovely now they have feathers!