Among the many indoor projects that people are working on at this time of the year, painting is one of the most common.  This is understandable, as it’s a great way to give a room a whole new look, without the expense of remodeling; and virtually anyone can do it.  For first-timers, however, the myriad choices in paints can be rather confusing.  Heck, it’s difficult enough just to pick from the millions of available colors.  Then, after you make that monumental decision, you have to figure out whether flat, eggshell, satin, semi-gloss, or gloss paint, will best suit your purpose.

So, if you’re not familiar with these terms, remember that flat paint has a matte finish, with no sheen, shine, or shimmer.  Because it doesn’t reflect light, it can hide some minor imperfections; but it’s less durable, more porous, and harder to clean, than glossier types.  This makes it more hospitable to mold and mildew growth, so it shouldn’t be used in high-humidity rooms, such as bathrooms and kitchens, or in backyard structures that aren’t insulated.

Eggshell has just a slight hint of luster, but can add a bit more depth and warmth to a room.  Easier to clean than flat paint, it still disguises small defects, and is less attractive to mildew.

Smooth and somewhat shiny, satin paint is much more durable than flat and eggshell varieties.  Very easy to clean, and resistant to mold and mildew, it’s great for use in bathrooms and kitchens, as well as high-traffic areas.

With its beautiful, sparkling finish, semi-gloss paint is extremely durable and easy to keep clean.  It’s used mostly for trim, doors, and bathroom and kitchen cabinets; but it’s highly reflective, and will draw attention to even the slightest blemish.

Gleaming, glistening gloss paint is mainly for trim, wainscoting, and cabinets; but it can also make a home look stylish and welcoming when used on the front door.  Because it spotlights every imperfection, however, wherever, whenever, and if ever you use it, be sure that whatever you put it on has no flaws whatsoever.

Once you’re done with the indoors, you can start planning a fresh look for the outdoors.  Adding patio furniture to your porch or lawn is a great way to add an entirely new living space to enjoy.   Of course, with the thousands of patio chairs, porch swings, garden benches, swingbeds, picnic tables, Adirondack chairs, chaise lounges, hammocks, accent tables, gliders, outdoor dining tables, garden structures, and ottomans available, there’s practically as many varieties of outdoor furniture as there are paint colors!

Luckily, though, this will cause you no consternation.  Because materials can be easily split into two categories; cedar, pine, oak, cherry, teak, eucalyptus, and cypress, verses aluminum, synthetic wicker, polywood, and vinyl.  Your decision is simple: either you wood, or wood not.

Yours Outdoors,

Kathy

Most people are familiar with using Treated Pine, Red Cedar, Teak, and even Oak for outdoor furniture.  If you’re looking for more information on long-loved patio furniture materials that have stood the test of time, check our Shirley Bovshow’s Eden Makers Blog for tips and advice!

While traditional and time honored garden furniture materials will always be appropriate, beautiful, and well-respected, many designers are starting to use some unlikely candidates to craft their outdoor pieces. Today, I have five reasons to start looking at Eucalyptus Wood for your outdoor furniture!

Growing Eucalyptus Helps the Earth: Unlike a lot of vegetation, an abundance of Eucalyptus trees will offer a helping hand to many surrounding species.  We all know that Koalas love their sweet leaves, but the trees’ rich flowers also provide a large source of food to pollinators such as insects, birds, and bats.  Further, Eucalyptus trees draw a tremendous amount of water from the soil in order to grow, so planting them in places where architecture or human interference has caused damage will lower the water table and reduce soil salination.  This is also a sparkling use of the earth’s water as the tree naturally cleans it of toxins to both release it back into the water cycle and create valuable oxygen.

Growing Eucalyptus Helps People: Eucalyptus trees have become economically important to many groups of people by becoming a cash crop in poor area of Africa, The Andes, and parts of South America.  Not only does this cultivation bring prosperity to poorer communities, it also helps to maintain their health.  The process of transpiration that causes Eucalyptus trees to use an incredible amount of water in their growth has caused many areas to plant Eucalyptus in overgrown swamps.  Swamps that have developed over too large of a region create dangerous and outsized areas for mosquito larvae to foster.  Using Eucalyptus trees to naturally downsize these overgrown swamps significantly reduces outbreaks of malaria.

Eucalyptus is a Sustainable Product: Eucalyptus is incredibly sustainable.  First of all, the tree grows exceptionally fast and can be chopped at the root to grow back again.  Because of its quick growing cycle and ability to re-grow from the roots, many wood production companies use plantation grown and carefully managed Eucalyptus trees instead of logging in native and valuable rain forests.  And, this can continue for many decades, as well-managed plantations produce soil that can sustain endless replanting.  Further, we can use more than just the Eucalyptus wood.  Eucalyptus oil can be steam distilled for sustainable, natural cleaning and deodorizing products, and small quantities can have healing effects in cough drops and decongestants.  The oil even has natural insect repelling properties for commercial mosquito repellants. Eucalyptus nectar is used to make high-quality monofloral honey, and all other parts are employed to make sustainable and natural dyes for fabrics. A plant with several attributes that can be used across industries makes it valuable, efficient, and better for the earth.

Eucalyptus is Durable and Weather-Resistant: With naturally occurring oils that contain insect repelling properties, this wood is perfect for outdoor furniture.  When pre-treated and kiln dried, it is renowned for its excellent resistant to all variations of weather, insect attacks, and decay.  It’s not just the oil though; Eucalyptus hardwood has an incredibly tight gain with a very high density.  These attributes make the timber strong and resilient to all kinds of normally damaging outside factors.  While a weather-resistant and durable wood is good for any product, outdoor furniture benefits from these characteristics more than most.  Using Eucalyptus wood is not only helping the earth, animals, and people in developing countries… it’s helping you make sure you choose a material that is sure to last!

Eucalyptus is Gorgeous and Lustrous: If you checked out Shirley Bovshow’s Blog, you saw that Teak outdoor furniture is absolutely the most revered.  Teak is enormously breathtaking in beauty, and has a density and durability that makes buyers flock.  But, one of the reasons Teak wood boasts such a high price tag is the years and years it takes for the Teak tree to reach the maturity it needs to produce such a high-quality wood.  But, premium grade Eucalyptus has the same resilience and beauty of Teak, with a much faster growing process that drives the prices down.  With Eucalyptus, you can get a lovely natural luster in your wood that will last for decades—without breaking the bank!

Whew!  Now that you know more about Euclyptus than you probably ever imagined you would before reading, you know that when choosing your next outdoor furniture set… Eucalyptus hardwood is a great material not only for you and your family, but the world and its eco-system as well.

See you Outside!

Hazel.

As I was saying, I enjoy trying to find out how our many holiday traditions got started; but each one has so many conflicting versions, that it can be difficult to pinpoint its exact origin.  Still, they’re all pretty entertaining.

 Kissing under the mistletoe, for example, is a strange one.  As one story goes, in ancient Scandinavia, it was a plant of peace; so, if enemies happened to meet under it in the forest, they would put down their arms and observe a truce until the next day.

 Somehow, over time, that led to kissing beneath it.  The thing is that, according to legend, men supposedly had license to kiss women who were standing under it.  BUT (and, as you can see, that’s a big but), afterward, they would pluck a berry from the mistletoe, and when the berries were gone, it was, well, all kissed-out, I guess, and the privilege existed no more.  

 However, like every tradition, it apparently kept on changing, and the berry-plucking eventually ceased.  Of course, although it’s no mystery why men would want to do away with the part that would deprive them of their rights to further kisses, I don’t know whether it was a blatant disregard of convention that caused the modification, or the simple fact that most mistletoe found in homes today is plastic. 

 See?  That’s the even-funnier thing about trying to solve an ancient puzzle; the more pieces you find, the more puzzling it becomes.  In the first place, I can’t imagine what possible good a one-day truce would do anybody, except that, maybe, it gave one party the chance to run away (and live to fight another day!) under cover of darkness.  Otherwise, it seems to be a hollow gesture – kind of like a meaningless kiss.  

 At CedarStore.com, we prefer more solid traditions; and that’s why most of our wood furniture is still hand-crafted in true, Old World style.  This includes our beautiful oak and cherry jewelry chests, jewelry boxes, armoires, silverware boxes, and cedar chests, which make great gifts, not only for Christmas, but for any occasion.  In fact, by giving one, you may start a whole new tradition, as it may end up being passed down for generations. 

 All in all, I’d say that’s much more enduring and meaningful than an insincere kiss under a plastic plant!

 Yours Outdoors,

 Kathy