Use broken tiles to make a mosaic table for porch, or create mosaic stepping stones for yard. You could even update a tired old picnic table with tiles. Create a wood plaque with scrap wood, glue or paint your house #,s on it, and add mosaic tiling around border for a very expensive look.

If you can find a fencing company willing to give you their discards, make garden posts for hanging lanterns or plants from posts. Be sure to cement these in ground. Use boards to make rustic planters, or cut them down to make picket style garden fencing. Make an shingle style mailbox.

Vinyl flooring scraps can be made into floorcloths for your porch or patio with a little paint and polyurethane, and can be as decorative or as simple as you want, custom matching your homes colors and styles.

As you can see, with a little bit of hunting, you can find materials to make exterior of your home look like a masterpiece for almost no money, and you are saving a lot of good materials from our waste dumps!

Copyright 2002 K. Wilson

4. Pare down. Do you really need six spatulas or 30 pairs of shoes?

5. Have a weekly "no noise" day. Turn off T.V.s and radios. Tune in to nature and your family.

6. Make a list. Split your current activities and tasks into two columns: things I enjoy and things I don't enjoy. How can you reduce second column and increase first?

7. Organize everything. What takes up too much of your time? Simplify your routines, your paperwork, your wardrobe, your life.