Picture above is our main table here at home in our dining area, it seats six people. I just changed out the table cloths on each of the three tables today.
We have another table in our living room (above) and sometimes we eat meals here but it is used more for our popcorn nights. We do planning, budgeting and journaling here at this table and it also makes a good game table. It is a nice size for dominos and board games. This table sits two to four.
A difference in our home verses other homes is we have tables instead of sofas. We do have a loveseat, two rockers three occasional chairs and one wingback.
This is a smaller drop leaf table, also in the dining area, that sits two and sometimes we will sit here to eat a sandwich. It can be used as an extra table for when we are all together for a meal. The way everything is arranged in our small home we can sit 12 people at a table to eat a meal or play games.
We are all about enjoying and embracing our home.
I enjoy having cozy seating places and anytime we find a chair set out for trash, if it is repairable we pick it up and bring it home. It is very hard for me to pass up a chair because I want everyone to have a chair to sit comfortably when they are here in our home. The extra chairs end up being outside chairs still having purpose.
We all have different interest and needs and each of our homes are unique. My Great Grandparents house had a bed in every room including the kitchen area because long ago it was very common to have boarders. Especially in the time and locations there were no hotels of any kind.
During this time that my great grandparents took in boarders they did not have electricity or running water so how did they do this?
Well, they did not know any different and did not know how to live with electricity and running water.
There are many things I have learned since we have been staying over night at the Myrtle, our mini tiny house.
The longest we have stayed so far, was four days and three nights. Our purpose of being up there is to help our family member Madge with repairs and stay overnight or a few days. So we need water down at the Myrtle for cooking meals, washing dishes, bathing and such as that. We put a 35 gallon tank outside the mini Madge house.
We filled the tank from water up at the well house. My experiences of being in a house with no running water was when I was younger and staying with family members that lived rural. I have been very conscious of not wasting water my whole life but it is very different when you are trying to remember how they did this.
The time before last time we were at our Myrtle, I hand washed some laundry.
We were temporarily using paper towels and paper plates until we could get an area made to prepare food and have shelves to put pots and pans and dinnerware.
I was tired of using disposable because we do not use that here at home unless there is something unexpected, disposable cost money over and over. I did not have any flannel wipes and towels like I use here at home so Charles picked up a pack of flannel baby blankets so I could cut these for the same purposes we use them at home but leave at the Myrtle. They needed to be washed because they were new. I figured this was a good time to do some no running water laundry and learn from on the job training.
The laws in our state are very strict about disposing of greywater so it is important that we keep our water use to the minimum. We were there for three days this last time, three days and two nights I am speaking about. We cooked meals, we bathed, I did this batch of laundry shown above, wash and then rinse, and I did dishes each day and I washed my hair. We never had to add water to the 35 gallon tank. I did not realize this until our last day.
Since the water did not flow to us we have to pour the water into the vessels. So how did we use so little water? I had to think about this a lot because I have tried for years to cut back on water here at the house and never have we used this small amount. It is because we still have flowing water here at home and it makes a big difference even when you think you are conserving.
This past trip we cooked regular meals...
I just relaxed with what I was doing this time up, I felt more comfortable.
This is the large pan I used to wash my hair so I don't have to worry about splashing out. Charles poured warm water over my hair and I soaped up and then he poured water using the pitcher over my hair to rinse. If I had a smaller container that holds water I could have done this by myself.
Our bath was in our bathing area where we added a privacy curtain. We heated up our water outside on our gas camping stove using an enamel canning pan because it holds a lot of water. I forgot to take a picture of it. Brought it inside and set it on a towel because it was hot. The large pitcher was used to mix the cold water with the hot and then poured into the bowls.
We still do not have our cabinet built for the bathing area so we just put the other bowl on the other washstand. Standing on a towel we soap up from top to bottom, wash some of that soap off and pour that water into a bucket. Then set that bowl aside and replace with the clean bowl and clean washcloth and rinse well with this nice warm water head to toe. Feet can be placed in this water to give a good washing.
I felt very clean, my hair was washed, my body was washed and rinsed well. My skin actually felt better than from a shower. I normally always feel clean with a washbowl bath as they did long ago but I usually do this trying to save water and this time I used what I needed and found that it was not that much.
We know how much water we used bathing because we dumped all of it into a five gallon bucket. We used 4 and 1/2 gallons total for both of us including washing my hair.
I washed dishes once a day. I have one pan to put dirty dishes in but I clean them off very well before I put them in the pan that does not have water in it, that pan is just to hold the dirty dishes.
Carrying water is heavy and carrying our greywater is also heavy so we do not want too much to dispose of. We use natural environmentally friendly soap for bathing, dishes and laundry but our state laws on greywater are confusing so we contain all of our grey and black water in proper RV containers we purchased from a RV place and drive to the nearest proper dump station.
What would you do if you suddenly did not have running water? I feel it is important to learn what to do.
We are starting to figure out more things but we are slowing it down now because we have been getting overtired and Charles caught a cold. It is easy to catch a cold if our body is not rested.
I made him some herbal tea from our garden.
Which is what we do first sign of a cold and as a preventative. We grow oregano, thyme, and rosemary all year around, three of our most important herbs and then we grow many more herbs. Do you have a favorite herbal tea?
Grandma Donna
