Because nothing particularly interesting has happened in my life over the last few weeks – I mean, aside from us moving house after nearly a decade in the old place and my best friend Katherine giving birth for the first time (*hello 14 day old baby Joe!*) – I have been unduly excited by the discovery of covers for outside rotary washing lines.

They’re big plastic covers which sit on rotary washing lines, preventing the clothes from getting re-soaked every time there is a sudden but brief downpour — there are some clear ones that can be left on all the time, ideal for the UK where it goes from blistering sunshine to torrential rain and back again constantly throughout the day. I tell you – unduly excited – I can’t believe I lived three decades without knowing about them. It’s like the broccoli stalks revelations all over again.

The basic concept seems simple enough to make myself from scrap materials – I need a sheet of heavy-duty but flexible waterproof material, ideally clear, in the shape of my rotary line, some extra length to be sides (to stop sideways rain) and possible some cane or piping at the edge between the “roof” and the sides to give it some structure. We got a new mattress when we moved in here and I’ve kept the giant plastic bag that came in, which is a good start, and I’m tempted to befriend a local carpet fitter for some more similar stuff, which they get wrapped around the rolls of carpet. An old tent or gazebo covering would probably work too. Any other suggestions?

Has anyone made something similar for non-rotary washing lines? Once my eyes were opened to the concept, I started Googling around and found these Isle of Mull dryers which combine the cover and the hanging space in an inverted V-shape. Any other ideas?

Even though we use them in addition to sponge and cloths, we seem to go through washing up brushes pretty quickly, usually because the bristles all flatten out rendering them somewhat ineffectual at reaching hard to reach bottoms of glasses etc.

We keep a couple around for “dirty” cleaning jobs, such as de-muddifying trainers, where the flattened bristles do enough but what can we do with the others?

And is there a super-invincible kind of brush that lasts longer, thus reducing our constant need to replace them?

(Photo by laeste)

We’ve had an email from Hannah:

What can I do with old flip flops?

I’m presuming Hannah means the cheap foam ones that are omnipresent in the summer but sadly disappear into the dark, dusty backs of cupboards as soon as autumn arrives, never to re-emerge.

Because, toe-thong aside, they’re pretty much just foam shapes, a lot of the suggestions for foam drink holders and foam swim float will apply here too such as floor protectors under furniture legs, cut up/carved for foam stamps, or used as knitwear blocking boards or boards for macrame. If they’re not too, um, footy, they could maybe also be used as a fun noticeboard – a few pairs walking along the wall would be super-fun :)

Any other suggestions?

After a month of frantic renovation (which is nowhere nearly finished but a lot of the dirty work is done), we’re finally moving into our new home today – hurrah!

Until the weekend, we’d been focusing on the renovation stuff – pulling down ugly fake walls, cleaning out sooty chimneys and ripping down plasterboard in preparation for damp-proofing work (the last thing resulted in the discover of a secret new room, it’s sadly unusable without a lot of expensive work so we’re leaving it for now) – and so hadn’t given much thought to the finer points of today’s move, such as working out where all our stuff is going to go.

We’ve got a giant (120cm/4ft square) frameless mirror above our fireplace in the living room here (acquired from a shop changing room refit apparently) and I think it will probably be relocated to above the fireplace in the dining room of the new house – but I think its lack of frame will look odd there.

How can I make a frame using recycled materials and/or repurposing other stuff?

My first thought is to try something make from reclaimed wood because the fireplace’s mantelpiece will be an old building joist – I’m not an expert woodworker but willing to give it a go. Heh, actually, perhaps I should make a frame using my existing craft skills and knit one ;)

Any other suggestions?

We’ve had an email from Jo:

Work was clearing out a stockroom the other day and unearthed a giant box of 10000 toothpicks which must have been there for years. My boss was going to throw them away but I jumped in to save them. Please tell me there is something I can do with them!

Like used matchsticks, they’d be great to use as spacers while tiling or you could use them to make modern, spiky ornaments.

Any other suggestions?

(Update 9:13pm: apologies for the unexpected downtime we’ve had this afternoon – our hosting provider had a server crash.)