The end of living lagom?

So, here we are. Six months down the line from making our Live Lagom New Years resolutions. It's been an interesting six months, our shopping trip, the changes we've made with the items we purchased from Ikea, the changes we've made in other ways.

We wanted to live more comfortably, which involved replacing the curtains or blinds we had in most of the house and draught proofing the windows and doors. We also wanted to reassess our food storage options and to make good use of the rechargeable batteries and charger we bought. I pledged that I wouldn't buy a single normal AA or AAA battery for the duration of the Live Lagom project.

We had completely underestimated how cold and uncomfortable our poor choice in curtains and blinds was making the house. For the first winter in four years our thermostat sat at a constant 21º, no turning it up to 23-25º and no sitting around the house in half a dozen layers. We were hoping this would be reflected in our gas bill, but unfortunately, it arrived using estimated readings instead of the readings we submitted. Once I have a revised bill I will update with numbers.

We bought various sizes of Ikea 365+ dry food jars and Korken glass jars, all of which have actually been used for their intended purpose instead of sitting there gathering dust. It's allowed us to start buying rice, pasta, flour, cereal and other basic food items in bulk as we know the damp won't affect them.

We returned to Ikea two months ago to purchase more packs of Ladda rechargeable batteries, which means that we have actually made it to the end of the project without purchasing a single standard AA or AAA battery.

One thing we have started doing when we take batteries out of the charger is to write on a piece of paper what item they were going into. We found ourselves trying to work out where all the original batteries we had purchased had gone (controls, toys, wii remotes, etc) as when you've lots of toys in the house it's hard to remember which ones do or don't take batteries. We've now accounted for all 40 of the batteries we've purchased, so know that if we need to buy more of them, we're buying them because we need them instead of having lost all the originals.

Out of the things we purchased the storhögen battery charger, the Ladda batteries and the stabil saucepan inserts have been our favourites. They are the items I've raved about and recommended to friends, the things that we've purchased more of since our initial shopping trip and the things we will replace as the originals

We've really enjoyed taking part in the whole project, researching what we wanted to get out of it, using the items we purchased and being part of the Live Lagom facebook group means I've picked up a lot of hints and tips over the last few months than mean we've been able to make changes elsewhere. However, my favourite part has been the opportunity it's given me to show my children that even small changes can make a difference.

It's that that we will carry on in the future, taking part in the project introduced us to a concept we'd never heard of before, but it's given us the chance to not only change our current living circumstances but to hopefully make a difference to the impact our children have on the world.

Live Lagom - mid project blog

Four months since our Ikea shopping trip and the time seems to have flown by! The curtains and blinds are all up, for the first winter in four years our heating thermostat has sat at a constant temperature instead of being turned up a degree or two to try and keep the house warm. The only difference between this year and last is the draught-proofing on the back door and the new blinds and curtains. Having a nice cosy home has been lovely and we're hoping not having to turn the heating up will have cut our gas bill a little.

We've made another trip to Ikea recently to buy some more Ladda rechargeable batteries. We underestimated just how many batteries childrens' toys use! The storhögen battery charger is brilliant, it's made it so easy to switch from using non-rechargeable batteries to rechargeable batteries.

We're still loving our oumbärlig 5l pan and stabil inserts. Not just because it has has worked in the way we intended it to work (in that we could cook more things in one pan, so didn't need to use three different hobs) but because we've all been eating at the same time it's also encouraged the children to try foods they normally wouldn't have tried. We intend on purchasing a couple of the other stabil inserts on our next Ikea trip.

The knock on effects of taking part in the Lagom project have been huge. We're working our way around the house sorting out problem areas, the spare room of doom has been emptied and turned into a useable bedroom (complete with Ikea Kallax storage units and the tardis like Drona boxes), the porch has been emptied and is now used for bikes and tools. Thanks to seeing all the garden projects other Lagom participants have shared in the facebook group we've drawn up plans to completely redesign our garden.

Still plenty of room for the children to play, but moving things around will give us space to add three raised beds for growing vegetables. We've already purchased potato growing bags, we planted the seed potatoes a couple of weeks ago and we're hoping to have potatoes to harvest in a few months time.

We're also growing tree seeds thanks to a Woodland Trust project and we have three planters of wildflower seeds growing in the hopes of encouraging bees to our garden.

Our plans have also piqued the interest of friends, one of them has already turned half of her garden into a vegetable plot and plans on adding raised beds to grow other things. Two other friends are in the process of having plans drawn up so they can do the same. It's things we'd all previously talked about, but didn't think was possible in the limited spaced each of us had. Seeing what other people have been able to achieve has been really eye opening.

We're really looking forward to seeing how our garden plans work out and what else we can achieve in the future.

Unanswerable questions.

We've all been hit by a stomach bug so the TV has been on more than normal this week. As well as leaving me irrational angry at times, kids TV always leaves me asking so many questions. Most of which don't seem to have an answer. Yes. I have googled most of them.

We started the morning with Bing:

• Why are the children bigger than the adults? 
• Who is flop? 
• Why does Pando take his trousers off so often? 

Peppa Pig is always a favourite with B2:

• Why is Miss Rabbit in charge of the Mummy's fire engine service?
• If Miss Rabbit has children will she become Mummy Rabbit too or has she lost out because her sister got there first?
• What is so special about George Pig that he's not called Phillip, Peter, Paul, Percy or some other name beginning with P?
• Where are Daddy Pigs parents? 
• What is this good cause everyone is raising money for? A £10 dinosaur balloon, a £1 ride on the helter skelter, it's all raising money for some sort of good cause, but no one ever says what the good cause is!

Postman Pat came next:

• Why hasn't Postman Pat been fired for being an idiot? Sure he always comes out the other side of it smelling of roses, but he caused the trouble in the first place by being completely incompetent. 
• Why does he need a Helicopter? 

We're currently on to Paw Patrol:

• Why do all the adults call for help from a child?
• Where are Ryder's parents? He's running around Adventure Bay doing all sorts of dangerous things and no one is keeping an eye on him. This seems to be a common thing in children's TV programmes, Sarah and Duck, Ruby and Max, Abney and Teal. Where have all the parents gone? 
• Why hasn't someone turned Chickaletta into chicken nuggets? Contemplating this one hopefully means I'm starting to feel a little better.

B2 on the other hand is currently watching episodes of Pokemon on her tablet. Again, where are the parents? Apparently he is 10 years, 10 months and 10 days old when he begins his adventures, B1 is still 3 years and 9 months off that age, but I don't imagine that between now and then I'm suddenly going to decide it's ok for her to wander off to distant lands to fight birds and other random creatures. 

Ikea Live Lagom project - our shopping trip!

After a bit of toing and froing trying to sort out a date and time that worked for everyone, we finally settled on the 21st December. Shopping a few days before Christmas, especially in a shop that is always busy was a rather daunting thought, but having plied the children with Ikea hotdogs and chocolate doughnuts before heading off to meet our Live Lagom leader Nadine it was actually a really enjoyable visit.

Maybe it's because we're a bit geeky, or maybe it's because we've two small children and spare time is rather limited, but we turned up to the store with a rather (too) organised list and knew exactly what we were looking for.

Whilst sorting out our list (putting together this list caused such a debate over sizes, colours, quantity, etc, that we lost complete track of time and it was suddenly 2:30am) we decided we decided that instead of purchasing a lot of the same time of storage jars and containers, we were going to buy one or two of a few, bring them home and try them to see what worked best for us. Once we've decided which ones suit our needs, fit into our cupboards and drawers, etc, we plan on returning to store and purchasing more of them.

Nadine was fantastic, helped find the items on the list, roped in colleagues in a couple of departments to hunt down some of the items we couldn't find, tolerated our rather giddy four year old very well and took the time to go through some of the projects and practices Ikea have in place to not only make the stores more sustainable, but to make a difference to the day to day lives of people around the world. One of the things we'd not heard of prior to the shopping trip was the Play to Change project, it's not only been responsible for a number of thought provoking conversations with our children recently (which was one of the reasons we were so interested in taking part in the Live Lagom project in the first place), but we found out about it in time to go back into store and take a few soft toys home with us.

We were also really surprised to discover how much of the food Ikea sells in it's Swedish food market is classed as sustainable. We now have chicken and vegetable meatballs in our freezer (they are both absolutely delicious) and the Korken jar we purchased during our shopping trip is full of PATAR coffee beans.

All in all it was a fantastic visit, we learned a lot, not just about the items we'd chosen to purchse, but about other items that at some point will be working their way into our home. We're really looking forward to using the things we bought and seeing what difference they make to our home or way of thinking.