Painting the Piano: A Primer

After a couple of coats of Eco paint, this workhorse looks like a glamour girl.

When I was preparing to repaint my piano, good information and advice were hard to find. As soon as I uttered the word piano at my local home-improvement store, the clerk generated what seemed to be an auto-reply: “You need an oil-based paint.”

“But it's a studio piano,” I explained. “It's a workhorse. I don't think it has ever had a high-gloss lacquer on it. In fact, it's so worn it doesn't have any finish on it at the moment, be it polyurethane or anything else.”

Mr. Clerk looked at me like I was an idiot. “Oil-based,” he said, handing me a can of primer.

I had a strong hunch that he was wrong. There had to be more options—more shades of gray if you will, when choosing paint for a piano or, in fact, any type of furniture, especially if you're willing to do some sanding. And as it turns out, I was right. Aside from an oil-based product, you can use a latex (water-based) formula on furniture; the only problem is that it doesn't harden like oil paint, so it won't wear as well.

Fertilize Without the Smell

TerraCycle offers a range of earth-friendly fertilizers.

Gardeners like worms because they aerate soil, priming it for planting; as the critters burrow, they also leave behind nutrient-rich castings that fertilize the vegetation. So it's genius that concentrated, liquefied worm excrement is the secret ingredient in TerraCycle, a line of all-natural plant food. The odorless, spray-on fertilizers are formulated for a range of flowers and grasses; being organic, they are both kinder to the earth than chemical-based options and, according to some experts, are also more effective than their synthetic counterparts.

The idea for TerraCycle arose in 2001, when Tom Szaky, then a 19-year-old Princeton freshman, happened upon a friend's compost bin, which contained a mixture of soil, worms, and food waste. The friend used the resulting “worm poop” (aka, the broken-down organic matter and excrement) as fertilizer. It occurred to Szaky that eco-friendly consumers might be interested in the benefits of the resulting mixture, but probably wouldn't want the hassle and smell involved in making it. A business was born; Szaky and co-founder Jon Beyer dropped out of Princeton to focus on the venture. The duo successfully launched the outfit on their own, even turning down a $1 million prize after winning a business-plan contest funded by a venture capital firm because the investors wanted to work only with Szaky. Today, aside from food for a variety of plants, TerraCycle turns out everything from lawn fertilizer to deer repellent.

Splish-Splash, the Latest Showers and Baths

I trace my love of spa-like bathrooms to those 1970s Calgon commercials, in which a woman escapes all of her problems by soaking in a sudsy bath. (Take me away, indeed!) If you too find few things more relaxing than submerging yourself in a whirlpool tub and letting the jets knead the muscles in your back, or standing under a multihead shower fixture as water spills over you, then these new ablution options will wash away your aches and pains. —Julie Taraska, Articles Editor