Red Bird Cabin

Who knew that you could use shredded blue jeans as insulation?  I’m glad I found out… because the prickly, itchy, fiberglass insulation is gnarly to work with.  (It also leaves fiberglass dust all over your house which is hard to fully clean and isn’t good to inhale.)  I definitely recommend using Cotton Fiber Insulation instead. There are a few different brands out there. We used “UltraTouch” because we could buy it nearby, but they are all similar.

the joys of insulating

It’s safe, green and easy to work with. You just tear off chunks to fit snugly between the studs in the wall (the same way that you would with regular fiberglass insulation). Thick cotton insulation has a good R value too, so you can feel confident that it’s going to keep your house warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Here’s a helpful link you want more info on cotton versus fiberglass.  The cotton’s slightly more expensive than fiberglass, but so worth it if you have to touch the stuff yourself!

installing it is easy

I few years ago, I went on a quest to find the perfect robin’s egg blue to paint my bedroom walls. It’s such a beautiful subtle pale blue-green.  I bought multiple cans of paint… experimenting in patches and washes.  In the end, the color was close, but it was never quite warm enough in tone.

Now, fast forward to this week… I was in my garden poking around in my tomato plants, and what did I find but a tiny robin’s egg laying in the dirt.  It must have been knocked out of the nest by a raccoon or a menacing scrub jay.  I tried to find the nest so I could return it, but no dice.  Feeling sad for the birdie-never-to-be, I brought it inside and put it on my window sill… and there I had the idea to match the egg to my paint swatches.  So, after some deliberation, I think that it’s closest in tone to Benjamin Moore Antiguan Sky 2040-60.  However, if I were going to paint a mid-to-large sized room and wanted to keep the walls light feeling, I would use the color chip one step up on the same card.  It’s Benjamin Moore Spring Mint 2040-70.  (Remember, paint always looks a bit brighter and more saturated on the wall than it does on the paint chip.)  I can’t wait until I have another room to paint Robin’s Egg Blue!

Robin's Egg Blue

Side Note: Martha Stewart also makes a “Robin’s Egg Blue” paint color, but I found it to be a little dark and over-saturated on the wall.