Resolutions for house and home
By: Beverly Allen - January 11th, 2008
New Year’s resolutions are usually directed inward, with solemn promises made in the hope of contributing to a happier, healthier self. This year, I’m looking outward, and plan to focus on creating a safer, more eco-friendly and efficiently-run home.
First on the list is the resolution to pay more attention to the issue of fraud and identity theft, which Public Safety Canada says has become one of the fastest growing crimes in North America, and which cost almost 8,000 people losses of $16 million in 2006.
One common scam involves a process called cheque-washing, in which household cleaning products are used to remove the writing from a stolen, signed cheque. That leaves the thief with a blank cheque, literally, which can be used to access funds the from the victim’s account.
An inexpensive 
product that can help avoid cheque fraud recently came across my desk, and I’ll be using it for all the cheques and important documents I sign this year. It’s the Uni-ball pen, which uses ink with colour pigments that absorb into paper fibre and can’t be washed out. The Uni-ball sells at office supply store and mass retailers for about $2.50.
My family’s 2007 resolution to replace plastic shopping bags with reusable bags and bins whenever possible was so successful that we now face a dearth of plastic bags with which to line the kitchen wet-waste bin.
Going out and buying new plastic bags seems a self-defeating solution, so I’ve begun looking at compostable bags for the bin.Lee Valley Tools sells BioBags, which are made primarily from vegetable oil and cornstarch and break down in the presence of organics. Twenty-five10-litre bags cost $7.50 at http://www.leevalley.com/
Another option will soon be available from Indaco Manufacturing, a 
Scarborough-based company that’s been making Bio-Solo — biodegradable plastic kitchen catchers and bin liners — for several years. Now they’ve launched a fully degradable line called Bag-To-Nature, which includes several sizes of certified compostable bags and cart liners made from a blend of organic biopolymers. The new bag will be hitting retail locations soon, and is available online at http://www.greenerdaze.com/.
The suggested retail price for a box of 20 Bag-To-Nature mini-kitchen bags is $3.99. For more information, go to http://www.indaco.ca/.
The enthusiasm with which we embraced kitchen composting last year also led to a lengthy search for a more efficient way to separate organics from solid waste. I finally found the simplehuman recycler, a pull-out unit that fits under the sink, and which is sure to make me a more organized environmentalist in 2008
This unit sits on a sturdy steel frame that fits on gliding ball-bearing tracks that attach to the bottom of the cupboard. It has two 17.5 litre polypropylene bins. Installation is super-easy, and requires just a screwdriver. The simplehuman line is available for $79.99 at Bed Bath and Beyond, the U.S. retailer that just opened its first Canadian location in Richmond Hill. (This is a great store, with loads of clever kitchen gadgets, fine china, small appliances, décor, accessories and bedding. For more information, go to http://www.bedbathandbeyond.ca.
Finally, I’ve resolved to attend to all the household chores that got put off last year, including redecorating the living room and organizing my home office. I expect to get lots of help from SmartDraw, a software package that should make it easier for organizationally-challenged homeowners like me get their act together.
SmartDraw includes about 100 templates for everything from house layouts to floor plans to flowcharts. I’ve been playing with the floor plan template, which allows the user to customize a room drawing by adding information about length and width, and placing doors and windows. The user can also drag in icons for furniture and fixtures that can be custom-sized. There’s even a feature that lets you choose from a stock selection of wall colours and floor coverings or import an image of, say, your own wallpaper sample or paint chip.
Those are just the few SmartDraw features I’ve discovered so far. But there are loads of other potentially useful templates for household use, including house plans to plot an escape route from the home in case of an emergency, landscape diagrams to create the perfect garden, and charts for tracing the family tree or building an annual household maintenance schedule. SmartDraw is available online from http://www.smartdraw.com/ for US $197.