Wasting time / timing waste

It started with my bin. It’s always full, bursting, overloading with trash, every single day. How could I have so much rubbish? Sure, my kid is still wearing night time nappies which are virtually wet sandbags by the morning, but outside of this what was filling my bin to the point of explosion every day?

It was simply waste. So much waste I was starting to question my wastefulness. Which is exactly what I did.

Having become a single parent in my mid-thirties has made me think about my budget and what I’m spending. Removing a whole second wage from my bank account came as a shock, but not as big a shock as the discovery of the waste I was creating in my own little household bin.

My bin was filled with food scraps, left overs, wrappers, plastic bags, old clothes, broken shit and of course those shockingly heavy night time nappies (seriously, at what age do kids stop wearing these?)

It was somewhat refreshing seeing my bin in this state. I needed to make a change and stop throwing my money in the, well, bin. The food wastage was a big one for me.

I started with eating my fridge and pantry down. I wanted a clean slate. Start afresh, become a vegan, only drink green juice, be a better person, stop swearing, pat dogs. All the things.

It was hard to start. I had to become creative with my cooking through using grains, rice and pasta and finding fun and interesting ways to use the vegies in the crisper. Instead of throwing out the vegies starting to turn to scrap, I made soup. I used all my canned legumes in soups, salads and chilli. I froze any large cook ups to eat in desperate times and then came the day where I simply had run out of food.

I cleaned my pantry and I ordered a sweet box of seasonal fruit and veg from a local greengrocer. It was delivered a day later and it was enough to get me through my week. I wrote a menu on the back of an envelope for the week based on my fruit and veg and bam, I felt like Suzy Homemaker. The box of fruit and veg cost me a grand total of $28 and teamed with a few extra items from the local supermarket, I was now on my way to smashing out a pineapple ($50) for a grocery bill each week. 

And I felt smart for it.

There’s something else that has been bothering me about my waste. It was my clothes. In between my crazy full time hours, the full time parenting, the swimming lessons, the kinder pick ups and drop offs, the cooking (and eating down my pantry) and of course the dating, I’d become a slave to fast fashion. A slave to the e-newsletters offering free delivery, sales, ‘hot looks this winter’, ‘Buy 2 get 1 free’, 20% discount for 20 hours. Gah! It’s all a little overwhelming, but the marketing had been working on me. A little too well.

So I cleansed my wardrobe, removing the clothing I hadn’t worn in years (do I seriously need maternity clothes as a single mum with a four year old?) and sold or donated what I didn’t want, wear, or just didn’t fit anymore (see above reason as to why). I created a rule for myself – no purchasing of new clothes for a month, maybe two and see how I survive. And so far, I’m still alive with only a receipt highlighting a purchase for some new undies in the pile.

Homemade dress from a Ken Done curtain, $4 wool jacket from the local Vinnies, $5 leather boots from eBay. FUN!

Don’t get me wrong, I like a good shop but for me it’s about the hunt. Online shopping is just too easy, the sales are too accessible, the click throughs are too available, I think the models wearing the clothes look just so ‘similar’ to me (in my dreams). So I’ve turned to op-shopping. It’s fun, it’s entertaining for my kid and now my home is filled with miscellaneous treasures that tell a story. From the eighties skateboard linen on my son’s bed, to my dress made from a Ken Done curtain, life shouldn’t be about throwing out stuff for waste’s sake. It should be fun, colourful and filled with rad stories and adventure.

It’s been an interesting experiment and it seems I’m not alone. With so much inspiration behind the ABC’s recent War on Waste program and hearing my mates discuss their wasteful waste, it’s nice to hear of plans to diminish the size of our bin loads. My bin is looking a lot healthier as is my fridge and pantry and my purse is giving me the thumbs up for it.

I’ve still got a long way to go, but the best thing about recognising my bin is a disaster is knowing my bin is a disaster. I’d love to swap stories of saving, sharing and recycling. So let’s not waste any more time on waste.

Follow me at www.houseofwebb.blogspot.com or on Instagram or Facebook @houseofwebb and let’s do this together. 

Creepy, kooky and Krooked Kebabs: Ali Webb's Friday night

Hell. I'm so creepy.

I've just spent the last hour creepily stalking these two blogs, both of which delve inside people's houses and the spaces they live in.

It's Friday night and my kid went to bed at 9pm. I've just smashed a block  of Kit Kat chocolate whilst wearing a Hello Kitty nightie and I shed a tear watching Notting Hill on Seven (it followed Better Homes and Gardens - classic Friday). I'm thinking back to the days pre-child when I'd be sinking beers with a mate somewhere, probably in some laneway in the city and on my way home in a taxi, I'd stop by Krooked Kebabs, a crusty caravan of meat horrors on the corner of Francis & Willy Road (no longer there thanks to health standards) and grab myself a falafel.

Random boat in the bathroom sink

To be honest, I kind of prefer the Hello Kitty and Notting Hill nights a little more. Staying in on Friday night is great. The books and magazines are one thing, but the blogs... wow, I'm like a professional creepy stalker person who reads blogs on Friday night.

I love it sick.

Local lass Narelle Dunn of Someone Who Lives Here blog has recently started a rad project taking camera phone pics of houses. I love that they're not styled pics, just awesome snaps of real life spaces: wet towels on the ground, jocks on the floor, cups half filled with milk sitting on a bedside table. I love it sick.

I'm a massive sucker for the sensational pics of Bri Hammond of Sharehomes project who sneaks into share houses filled with superbly artistic (and way so much cooler than me) people and takes photos of their space. Love. It. Sick.

Thank fuck there's some ace people out there who can make you feel normal. Our home space is normal - the day after our cleaner comes, we tip toe around trying our darnedest not to wreck or dirty anything. This lasts about 12 minutes, and then, our house is trashed and filled with dog hair, mud, wee on the floor and beard hair (seriously, why can't hubby trim  the day BEFORE the cleaner comes?)

I've been privy to seeing those fully styled photos of kid's bedrooms - you know those spaces... a place where the word 'skid mark' would not have even been whispered. Decals on clean white walls shouting words like 'Life is beautiful' unlike our special 'art wall' which is where we showcase Alfie's paintings, gallery style (the art also hides the brown stain of a poo smear which spelled 'REDRUM' - well almost).

Random Paw Patrol undies in the hallway

Our house is filled with second hand treats. Alfie and I love scouring the local op shops for toys and books and clothes. The local Buy, Swap, Sell group offers so many treasures that it's sometimes so hard to resist and being garage sale season, far out... it's all just too much.

Dancing pantless while Cheef Dog eats off the kitchen floor

So while our house might not look like a Freedom catalogue filled with neon pops and chevron designs, I love walking into our space every freaking day and seeing all the little bits and pieces that we have chosen to make our pad a really ace home.

Every space is a trampoline

Tomorrow is Saturday which means a day of adventure to the country or the coast. I'm already excited about the bric-a-brac stores we will discover on the way. If we don't find anything, then a classic jelly slice will do.

Hope you have a jelly-slice-creeping-on-everything-nice weekend.


Ali xx

Second Best

The inner west certainly knows how to seek out trash and turn it into treasure… but are we the only region living and breathing this refreshing view on pieces of the past?

I purchased an original 1960s plant stand in South Melbourne during a lunch break this week. It was cute, well priced and I loved it straight away. I was with a bunch of work colleagues who giggled at me as I tried to get it on the tram to take it back to our Southbank offices.

There were loads of questions from everyone: “You actually paid for that?”, “Why did you buy that?” “What is it?”, “What are you going to do with it?”

No one really understood the plant stand or the fact that I had paid $20 for a ‘rusty piece of metal’.

I thought I was sitting on a pot of garden gold.

I carried the stand through Southbank on my way home, dodging the judging stares while trying to avoid cutting someone’s arm with the rusty leg. When I swiped my Myki at Flinders Street, I became an awkward mess as I juggled my laptop, handbag, magazines and lunch box with the plant stand. 

The Myki Man shook his head at me begrudgingly and let me through the wider access point.

I took the plant stand on the escalator down to the Laverton train platform and found a spot out of the way to stand with my retro treat. A kid kicked it accidently and kept walking like he had accidently kicked an empty can.

My train to Yarraville arrived and I hopped on with the stand and instantly felt eyes on me. A woman offered me a seat and asked me about the stand. “Where did I get such a fine piece?” she asked. A fellow passenger piped in, “how much did you pay, they’re worth a bit?” I told them my story and they both nodded in appreciation. The people around me were interested. One man even picked up the stand and inspected it closely. $20 wasn’t bad they all agreed. They were aware of plant stand love. I was on the right train home.

What is it about people of the inner west who love and adore vintage, recycled goods and self-made fare? I know it’s not just me.

Looking around our local suburbs are some of the greatest second hand lands from the classic favourites: Vinnies in Newport, Salvos on Koroit Creek Road, Savers in Footscray, Green Collective in Yarraville right through to the treasure hunters gem box: One in a Mill in Newport, The Lost Ark Restorers Barn in Willy, the kooky vintage store on the corner of Princess Highway and Barkly Street, just down from the grave stone maker, and my favourite, the eccentric Diamond Dogs vintage clothing store in Seddon.

But it’s not just second hand stores that are embraced by the inner west. Walking my pooch around the neighbourhood is like watching house porn. I take note of the recycled restored furniture on porches, the veggie patches thriving in front yards, the sound of chooks clucking in the backyard, the baskets hanging on fences offering free rosemary/lemons/limes/figs/oranges you name the season, there’s always something available. I look for the anodized planters, the metal trikes, the letter boxes created with recycled tin in the shape of a kookaburra, the church pews, the macramé hangers, the house numbers spelled out in letters, the vintage door knockers and umbrella stands. I love them all.

The Inner West Buy Swap Sell Facebook group now has over 20,000 members, most of which enjoy looking for a bargain or selling items to make money. There’s now even an Inner West Vintage and Retro Facebook group which offers great second hand treats at great prices, but you have to get in quick as someone’s trash is always someone’s treasure. Retro gems are picked up in seconds.

Are residents inspired by each other? Or are there other people out there like me who enjoy the hunt, the storytelling and the surprise of finding such a cool, unique item that means so much straight away?

For me, it’s always about the hunt. When I step into Diamond Dogs I’m immediately attracted to a pattern or a style that stands out and I hope and pray that it’s in my size (there’s never two when it comes to vintage, unless you find bookends).

When I case my local op shops, I head to the crockery looking for small indoor plant pots (my latest obsession). In the past it was vintage trench coats and mod dresses, nowadays it’s Richard Scarry books and bib-n-brace.

It doesn’t matter what your second hand treat is, whether it is a chair, a pouffe, a cane magazine holder or a cement frog statue, the best part about a retro find is how you came to find it. Perhaps you brought it home on a train in peak hour.

I’d love to know your favourite retro hang out.

Fabulous photos by Paul Large.

This article first appeared in The Westsider December 2015 issue.

The Welcome Mat

The inner west has only been home to me for four years. When I told my inner Eastern suburban pals that we were moving to the west, they had great concern for me: “But you don’t do drugs? How are you going to get to work in the City? We will never see each other – Yarraville is hours away from Richmond, I will have to catch a V-Line.” And so on.

It was weird only knowing a handful of people in this new pocket of Melbourne we had barely visited before we bought our house. We renovated our shack, got knocked up, had a baby boy, then started sorting through the mountains of stuff that we had held onto for years, not knowing what to do with it all.

Old and Newport

Today I took the boys down to the Newport Folk Festival on the train. I love Newport for three reasons: the Vinnies, the bakery and the library. But today I found a couple more excuses to visit this cute suburb.

Folk Festival in the park

Each time I visit Newport I visit Sammy's bakehouse. This middle eastern bakery makes the best range of sweet bagels that I have ever tasted. My favourite is the custard bagel which at only $3.50 is totally worth the embarrassment of it leaving a mess around your mouth.

Amazing custard bagel

I have mentioned the Newport Vinnies several times in this blog because it is seriously one of the best op shops in the area. The store is colour coordinated and has a very high turnaround.  If you like retro goods or just a treasure hunt, you could spend hours in this place (and I did today).

Getting plastered with tradies

Wahoo, the plaster will go up tomorrow! This means our walls are nearly complete.

Gio and Todd have commenced putting up the weatherboards - just in time before the storm hit us last night - and today the boys ripped up our hallway floor. We can officially walk from the front to the back of our house without balancing on beams, holding onto joists, standing on a nail, getting a splinter, tripping over some edge of something etc. However, I'm still not allowed to do this without wearing shoes... boring.

Neenish tarts and happy hearts

We don't mind the word tart here at home. We use it regularly, fondly and loosely.

Hearing the word makes my pregnancy hormones zing, almost making me burst into tears through emotional giggles.

So during the week when Johnny Kettle mentioned my new two favourite words Neenish Tarts, I squealed, ran out to the building site and screamed WHERE?

Nesting needs and week 3 in review

Perhaps it's because I've just hit the 3rd trimester and I'm on the home straight or maybe it's because I get bored super easy and constantly need a project, but it looks like this 'nesting' thing is starting to kick in.

My blessed mother-in-law Jan purchased this sweet wooden baby chair from Lonesome Whistler (an amazing second hand land in Yarraville) and I've given it a little sand and paint to spruce it up. Here's the before and after.