Krrb Blog, Neighborly living

Here's what happens when you take apart two Ikea chairs and mix them up with a couple of vintage banker's seats. Bet you haven't seen anything like this baby on the Ikea showroom floor!

This might be outing myself as prehistoric, but my first encounter with Ikea was before the age of the cell phone, in France. Back in the day, like, before they even had Ikea stores over here in the United States. “No wonder everyone’s apartments look so much better over in Europe,” I remember thinking to myself, somewhat wistfully.

Well times have changed, and these days there’s an Ikea near just about any major US city you can think of, and a lot of smaller ones too! Everybody shops there, from the budget minded college students to the design obsessed McMansion dwellers, and everybody’s house, (or apartment, or garden) looks the better for it.

And now, there is even an ingenious sub culture of creative folks talking matters into their own hands. Sure, they love Ikea, but they want it on their own terms. These “Ikea Hackers” (a phrase coined by the brilliant blog of the same name that chronicles these projects) will take apart those dining chairs you were getting sick of and reassemble them into design museum-worthy furniture.

Simple or complex, these reworkings of the off-the-shelf housewares have truly elevated the concept of reuse. Why recycle when upcycling is so much fun? For inspiration, we scanned the web and found some true strokes of genius out there. Here are our faves …

Delicious leftovers, photo: The Frugal Girl

Leftovers get such a bad rap. But we totally understand: it’s repetitive, first of all. And second of all, it’s repetitive. If all you’re doing is re-heating last night’s dinner, then of course tonight’s dinner is going to be boring. If variety is the spice of life, then then add some paprika and let’s get reheating.

Or maybe leftovers are the ugly stepchild because it’s easy to be suspicious of “old” food. No one wants to be bitten by the food bug or eat anything past it’s prime. And that’s very fair. Another total turn off is the legitimate concern about dangers when it comes to reheating food in the microwave – a regular habit for so many of us.

But boring or suspicious dinners are not the only problem with leftovers. How many of us buy food and eventually throw it out, especially since composting is still not a mainstream thing, although it totally should be? According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency …

The ultimate suped up drum machine from back in the day. (MPC = Music Production Center)

To anyone interested in making beats, this is your moment. If you live in France, that is.

It’s a drum machine.
It’s a 32-voice stereo digital sampler.
It’s a sequencer. (For organizing and playing your samples in sequence, natch!)
It’s compatible with other MPC’s via a compact flash reader.
It’s fully portable.
Kanye West has one.
‘Nuff said.

Check it out at krrb.com/nuno

In the 1920's, more than 100 independent pickle vendors vied for space in New York's Lower East Side where pickles were a culinary staple. Photo: forward.com

Be it from a barrel or jar, diner or fair, spicy or dill, half sour or whole – we all love a good pickle, right? According to the New York Food Museum, pickling started way back in 2040BC with ancient Mesopotamians getting their pickle on. Pickles are twice mentioned in the Bible, Cleopatra ate them as part of her beauty routine and Julius Caesar fed them to his troops believing they offered physical and spiritual strength. By the time the early 1600′s rolled around, regular plebes in the States were pickling at home and able to buy them commercially …

The Pacific Garbage Patch is a Texas-sized swirling mass of the world's mostly plastic garbage floating around in the North Pacific Ocean. And because the garbage comes from everywhere, no country is willing to take ownership of the mess or responsibility for cleaning it up. Yuck.

There is a new island being formed in the Pacific Ocean and it’s composed entirely of the world’s garbage. According to Greenpeace.org, “The trash vortex is an area the size of Texas in the North Pacific in which an estimated six kilos of plastic for every kilo of natural plankton, along with other slow degrading garbage, swirls slowly around like a clock, choked with dead fish, marine mammals, and birds who get snared. Some plastics in the gyre will not break down in the lifetimes of the grandchildren of the people who threw them away.”

Now if that’s not enough motivation to recycle plastic, then we don’t know what is. But before we all run home and throw every plastic container, case or wrap into the blue bin, we need to read on. Because actually, not all things made of plastic are recyclable. Even some items with the friendly chasing arrows symbol will eventually end up in the landfill of most municipalities.

It turns out that sometimes, placing something in the recycling bin is actually worse than just chucking it. To help clear up the confusion, we decided to take a closer look at the in’s and out’s of plastic recycling to help us figure out how best to do good when it comes to this ubiquitous and complicated subject …

Create planters out of old books you rescue from the garbage or pick up at the thrift store.

One way of stopping the production of pollution and waste is by not buying anything anymore – but we know that’s unrealistic at best, and a total buzz-kill at worst. But there are ways that you can still get your shopping fix, decorate your home and body, and still buy presents for people without participating in the one way decay from factory to landfill. Just buy secondhand and upcycled or recycled stuff.

Everyone knows that being less consumptive is a great way to be green, but by buying something used or transformed from something already made, you’re helping to extend the life of an object for which energy has already been expended to produce in the first place. Additionally, you’re saving another “thing” from going to the landfill and possibly our streets, the ocean or any other place where garbage mysteriously piles up.

As such, we have selected ten amazing finds from people creating something new out of something old. In the world of upcycling, these are some of our favorites …

A perfect summer day. Photo by sergis blog from Flicker.

At it’s best, summertime is chock full of lazy afternoons in hammocks or at the beach, and seemingly endless hours during which we are all able to lose ourselves while devouring the various books on our “must read” list.

But what about those of us who have been too busy even to amass such a list? What do we do when we find that week of vacation stretching out in front of us while our bedside table lies empty? We take a trip to our local secondhand bookstore, of course, and get them to tell us what to read …

Pre-video games, lemonade stands were a great way to teach kids about business. But guess what, it still is!

It’s a sweltering July day and the kids are playing video games. Again. Then you think back to your paper route when you delivered the news up hill in no shoes, and your first lemonade stand when you sold 10 cent Dixie cups full of that delicious, thirst-quenching lemonade… It’s time for a revisit with the time-tested lemonade stand, isn’t it?

With just 2 dollars, you can have a simple, eco-friendly lemonade stand which will be a fun way to hang with your kids and a great way to teach them the basics on business while staying green …

I mean, are these not the coolest Pyrex casseroles you have ever seen?

Come on! Who is not going to want to eat whatever kind of casserole you serve up if it comes to the table in one of these awesome dishes? Straight from the oven, I might add, because they are made of Pyrex.

I am sad that I don’t live close enough to Philly to pick these up and add them to my own kitchen arsenal. But I am happy knowing that one of you people out there in Krrbland does, and will. Run, don’t walk, to LaBestia’s corner and check ‘em out!

Ann Montgomery, Co-founder and CEO of NabeWise.

As you might have noticed (if you’ve been paying any attention at all) we Krrb folk are obsessed with the whole idea of neighborhoods and how to live a more sustainable and meaningful life within them. “Be neighborly” is our mantra, our modus operendi, our two word philosophy. So imagine our delight when we discovered NabeWise, a website that is 100% dedicated to matching up people with their ideal ‘hood …

Summer is a time for family, friends and neighbors to get together and break bread. And when the weather is so giving, it only makes sense that meals are held outside as often as possible. BBQs flush with food, music, fresh air and conversation strengthens ties, solutes the sun and offer healthy ways to prepare the foods we are lucky enough to find so bountiful during the season’s sun-shining months. So grab your neighbors, and put together a delicious homemade menu for the BBQ.

Since we’re all the creative type here, what with our imaginations to repurpuse objects, find the beauty in the disregarded and craft something out of nothing, we might as well channel these energies to man’s most definitive discovery: fire. Burgers, dogs, sausages, they’re all great, but what can we do that is surprising, unusual, or downright weird? Here’s a list to get you started …

Your drink of the summer doesn't have to be sickly sweet or synthetic. Even though these may look tempting, why not try something a little more healthy, homemade and wholesome.

In the sun drenched days and long warm nights of summer, it’s so nice to kick back with a homemade, healthful and refreshing drink. Whether you call it a cooler, mocktail, virgin, or simply a non-alcoholic cocktail, it doesn’t need to be bright blue or have an umbrella in it to get the true taste of summer. In fact, by incorporating seasonal produce into a homemade drink, you’ll be much more in tune with the summer palette of sweet, ripe fruit.

Entertaining? Offer a non-alcoholic drink in addition to your beers and cocktails that isn’t Pepsi, Sprite and water – it’s a super easy way to expand your menu in delightful ways. And with the proper glassware, and in some cases a blender, you’ll be flipping cocktails like Tom Cruise in no time.

Try these recipes …