Cyberpunk themed rooms are pretty common, but I don’t want to limit solarpunk discussion to just rooms; It could be as big as getting your city council to add a greenway, or as small as finding a nice desktop wallpaper. I’d like to hear about it. I’ll start off with a few of my own:
- I got a sunlight alarm clock; best decision I’ve ever made. The minimal design of this one is great except for one thing; you have you take 5 min to drill a hole in the dead-center of the speaker to kill the alarm noise. It’s the only way to disable the sound. I’m sure there’s other good options as well.
- A couple years ago I got an EcoFlow battery with a small 100W solar panel. I mention it specifically because, unlike other batteries, the EcoFlow was extremely repairable, while also having top of the line specs (at least a couple years ago). I still haven’t hooked up the solar panel to the grid, maybe next year.
- I know plants help a ton, but you’re going to have to get plant tips from someone else. Maybe someone will have some fake plant recommendations for me.
- String lights and LED strips work wonders, both indoors and outside. Higher quality string lights (the lights are close together, bulbs are usually brighter and classic-looking) are quite a bit better than the cheap amazon ones, but even the amazon ones add atmosphere. Combine them with cheap timer-sockets and outdoor light sensor sockets to make a nice automated system.
- I know it’s kind of weird to consider going somewhere as part of a “theme” but I haven’t found a farmers market that wasn’t nice community. Last week I got an IRL side quest; one of the vendors heard I was going to visit the other market location and asked if I could bring a jug of sweetener to his counterpart there. Sometimes the people are them most important part of a theme, so I recommend participating in a market.
- For transportation, there are some truly great e-options as of late. It’s $300 for a cheap-but-good electric scooter on Amazon. I’ve also got an overpowered e-bike (Onyx RCR) and even at $4000 it’s cheaper than a couple years of a car insurance and gas. Silently zooming with the confidence of being able to charge it off a solar panel is a really pleasant feeling.
- Finally I’ve recently attended my first city hall meetings, and it’s been shocking how helpful the city staff is. Absolutely nothing like the DMV or national politics. For example, I was told about a “SeeClickFix” app, and it has been great for getting street lights fixed.
It’s not much, but that’s all my tips.
Got any string lights of your own to show off? or maybe some watering systems, or plant tips? I wish we had an r/battlestations equivalent
Our apartment was once described by a friend as “cozy postapocalyptic”. My SO collects plants and has filled the place with a couple hundred at this point. Plants cover some tables, spiderplants and pitcher plants cascade from our refrigerator and high shelves. That, combined with our tendency to pot them in whatever old containers fit, from buckets, to cans, to take-out dishes, probably set some of the ‘reclaimed by nature’ tone. The rest is in the way we get our furniture - about half nice old antiques we found on trash day and fixed up, and half old office furniture with modern that industrial look. It clashes a little bit it’s all mixed into comfortable clutter so I don’t think it looks bad. We’re just not really magazine-cover, house-with-a-theme people. Neither of us has bought furniture new in years, though we sometimes make it from scratch out of secondhand lumber.
