Archive for the ‘Green Living’ Category

I remember my big brother’s first turn as an interior decorator.  He’s not exactly main stream when it comes to style or taste, and you can imagine the horror when he moved into my sister’s old bedroom that was festooned with purple, pink, and complete with all the typically feminine frills.  Obviously, the room was due for a makeover.  I don’ think it ever saw my brother coming, and my family was surprised to find the once overly girly boudoir completely transformed. 

Creating Genius with Cork

My favorite part of my free-spirited brother’s overhaul of his new room was the cork walls.  For a pretty reasonable spend, he came home from the hardware store with boxes and boxes of square cork tiles and some cans of paint.  And, from that moment, the lavender appointments were absolute history.  (And a grateful house still thanks my bro.) The walls went from obnoxious shades of fuchsia to warm, refreshing, unassuming neutrals. 

The big problem however was the paneling.  The largest interior wall had no windows, no doors, and nothing to disturb the perfect monotony of the pale purple paneling.  And that, I realized, was where the cork tiles came in.  It took an afternoon, a short one at that, and my brother had the space he had always wanted.  Tacks supported antiqued maps, Ferrari specs, and pieces of skateboard used cleverly as décor.  My brother had claimed his territory, and I had witnessed my first great room makeover.           

Photo Credit: Domino

Versatility, Meet Style and Design

I like cork as a wall covering material for many reasons, but it’s also a respectably green choice due to its sustainable nature.  What a fun way to work green products into your lifestyle!  If cork dosen’t exactly suit your bedroom, (I’m not entirely sure if it would be right for me) I do think I could use it in a home office.  I loved my brother’s idea to restrict the cork to one wall: it creates a great accent wall as well as a unique focal point for the room.  It also brings in some much needed texture to liven up the boring matte surfaces we’re so used to seeing.   The right style and color moulding can also take cork walls to a more sophisticated place increasing its versatility as an option.

I can also imagine cork transferring flawlessly into the kitchen.  With so many wall spaces interrupted in most kitchens by appliances, pass-thrus and the like, you could transform one portion of your kitchen into organization central pinning up grocery lists, reminders, and of course fun things for the kids or unique decorations just right for your cooking space.  Another reason to try cork in the kitchen? How easy to clean (and durable)! If your kitchen gets used a lot, I can’t think of a better surface for your walls.

Look how cork gets used here to bring new dimension to a dining space:

It comes in different colors too, if you’re not ready to go all the way to chocolate brown.  And oh yeah, its great as a flooring surface too (your feet will thank you later).  More corky resources

Looking toward fall, we’re closing the windows more often and putting down the weather stripping.  Among the other emotions that come with preparing for the colder seasons, what you don’t want to be experiencing is the negative effects from VOCs lurking in your home as you’re sealing it up tight to keep out the cold. 

We’re making the effort to make our homes more energy efficient and to save on our heating and cooling bills.  However, this can sometimes have some unintended consequences.  We’re talking VOCs: Volatile Organic Compounds, and not only can they damage your home’s indoor air quality, they can make you and your family sick. 

How-to’s for Healthy Homes

Photo Credit: Healthy Building Consultants

Homeowners tend to experience the effects of VOCs more often as a result of sealing up their homes, because keeping the cold out often means keeping the fresh air out as well.   Where do VOCs come from? Well, if you’ve recently had carpets installed, bought new furniture, or happen to be an enthusiastic user of household cleaning products; you’re going to want to pay attention:

In addition to carpets and cleaning products, VOCs can come from new beds.  Mattresses can be big contributors to decline in indoor air quality as most are treated with chemical fire retardants.  Good for your bed’s chances of surviving a blaze, not so good for your lungs.  Carpets are big culprits for similar reasons, fibers trap and store chemicals, and synthetic carpet pads can off-gas harmful chemicals, mainly polybrominated diphenylethers, (PBDEs) that can cause illness and respiratory problems like asthma in high concentrations.  Eeek.  New furniture can also add to the problem for the same reasons. 

Another big contributor? Paint.  We all know it smells, and there’s a reason.  Traditional paint is packed full of VOCs whose effects can linger long after the paint has dried. 

Get the VOCs Out

So, what’s a homeowner to do?  Short of freezing out your home in the dead of winter, there are a lot more practical options you can take to make your home’s air a bit safer: 

Step 1: Replace all vinyl shower liners in favor of non-toxic nylon ones.  Your vinyl liner releases chemicals (toluene and methylene chloride to name a few) that can cause allergic reactions.

Step 2: Use low or no VOC paint. (Available from most major paint suppliers)

Step 3: Stop chemically cleaning carpets and furniture- look for organic cleaning solutions that don’t use harsh, highly concentrated chemicals.  Try to ditch home chemical cleaners entirely in favor of more organic options like vinegar, baking soda, etc.

Step 4: Stop dry cleaning.  Not only is it expensive, but evidence suggests that the chemicals used in the process are carcinogenic and can accumulate in your home whenever you bring your comforters, bedspreads, drapes, rugs and clothes back from the cleaners.

Step 5: Cut down on carpet.  If you’ve got the option, switch it out for hardwood or tile flooring options that don’t require chemical rich mats or stain treatments. If you can’t kick your carpet habit, clean it thoroughly with an organic cleaner and air out extensively afterwards.  You can also opt for organic fiber rugs to keep the soft under your feet.

Step 6: Invest in solid wood furniture.  Believe it or not, manufactured and pressed wood products can off-gas chemicals like formaldehyde over time as well, leading to decline in your home’s environment.  Make sure you air out rooms where you’ve got a lot of particle board products frequently, and if you’ve just bought a similar product, set up a fan to vent fumes out of your home.

Do you ever think about how your home and your lifestyle impacts the world at large? I cringe every time I commute to work (13 miles to work, 13 miles home), and dream of one day being able to bike. Your impact on the planet has come to be known as your “carbon footprint,” and making your footprint as small as possible means understanding how your personal choices affect the planet.

To better understand your household’s environmental impact, there are a plethora of calculators that let you enter in the specifics of your home, and car and airline travel habits to calculate your impact rating. Along with your rating they offer suggestions on how to lower your score, like switching to fluorescent light bulbs, installing skylights in low light areas, or simply recycling more. 

This is my personal favorite: Low Impact Living’s Environmental Impact Calculator.  Designed well, easy to follow, and offering straight forward suggestions on how to lower your score, this calculator is a great place to start exploring your impact.

Here are some other calculators that offer help:

World Resources Institute’s Calculator
Cool Climate Carbon Footprint Calculator
TerraPass Calcualtor
Nature Conservancy Carbon Footprint Calculator

We’re guessing by now you’ve probably heard the buzz about bamboo flooring.  And for good reason: (just take a look at this)

Photo Credit: Teragren

In a faltering real estate market its smart to consider eco-conscious investments for your home.  The reason?  If you’re planning on selling your home in an uneasy market, you need every advantage you can get.  And what a way to separate your home from the others, as well as sway the hearts and minds of potential buyers, than by adding some green flare to your home.

The great part about choosing to embark on a green remodeling project like bamboo flooring is that you might get to enjoy it in the mean time.  Most home improvement projects take around 3-5 years to recoup their value, so it’s a good idea to think long term where your remodel is concerned.  The added bonus is also that you may get to enjoy the benefits of your remodel before you move on to bigger and better things. 

But back to why we’re twitter pated with bamboo: what makes it so ‘green’ you may be asking?  The thing about bamboo is that is grows like a weed, and it is almost, well, a grass to be exact.  Bamboo matures within a meager 5 and ½ to 6 years after the crop is planted which leads to an abundance of the stuff in relatively short order.  Compare that to the average cedar tree, which needs up to 50 growing years before it reaches maturity and can be harvested for valuable timber. 

Bamboo flooring is also harder and more durable than many conventional wood flooring options, and there are no extra steps involved when it comes to cleaning and maintaining.  I don’t think it gets much better than that.

Want to know more? Find out how its made!

More options for bamboo flooring:

http://www.bamboohardwoods.com/

What would it be like to live in world that was completely self sustainable?  How would life be different for us if we were completely free of our dependency on fossil fuels and foreign oil?

Well, some intrepid architects are out to get some very real answers to those questions. In what will be the nation’s first net-zero (emission free) community, a little place called Geos will be making its debut in Colorado in late 2008.  

Photo Credit: Inhabitat

Green Genius?

Entirely solar and geothermally powered, this experimental city should prove quite the study in green design and eco conscious building practices.  And it may just be a jumping off point for increased interest in development and implementation of the strategies and products we’ll need if we want to cut our energy bills more efficiently. 

Will it be, as some nay-sayers predict, a disappointing, low grade disaster that fails to make a clear case for the enviro-movement? Or will it be a 25 acre window into the future?

Read the full article

My kitchen has constant action. There are always cookies being baked, vegetables being steamed, bottles of wine being opened, and cupcakes being iced. With all this time on my feet in the kitchen, I’m constantly thinking about what kind of flooring might best work under my shoes.

Growing in popularity, and providing an array of benefits that traditional flooring options can’t even come close to offering, cork flooring is a great investment for any kitchen remodel.

Cork flooring first came across my attention because of my yoga studio. All the studio spaces were installed with cork flooring because it is soft, durable, and of course, a natural sustainable choice. If it’s the perfect comfortable flooring materials for yogis practicing difficult poses, it must be just as comfortable for the busy cook.

But it’s not just about comfort. While cork makes for happy feet, it’s also fire resistant, reduces heat loss (it’s a great insulator!), is mold and bug repellant, reduces sound and vibrations, and is easy to install since cork flooring can often comes in click-into-place mosaic tiles. 

And for those of you increasingly concerned with your impact on the environment, cork flooring is a perfect sustainable product.  Not only is it easy to easy to grow and harvest, it’s very easy to recycle too.

And, don’t think cork only has to go on your kitchen floor. You can try it in just about any room of your home, or you can even look into cork siding for your walls, and cork furniture. Examples of new uses for cork are coming out everyday, so keep your eyes open and see how you can use it in your home.

It seems in this country, we like our houses big.  The bigger the better.  Bigness seems almost inextricably linked to our very happiness. But what does the size of our places really mean to us?  How much of that size is complicating our lives rather than enhancing them? Is bigger really the answer we need? 

In response this question, I thought about the concept of ‘bigness’ and our attitudes towards it: what it means and weather or not we can feel trapped by the big things in our lives.

If you’re feeling like your life might be getting a little too big, there are a lot of ways to go bigger by getting smaller.  Smaller houses.  Take a look at some of the new mini-homes we found:

http://www.inhabitat.com/2006/01/20/prefab-fridays-the-clever-mini-home/

Small Makes a Comeback

The best part about mini homes is that creative design and innovations have made them just as comfortable, and in some cases even more luxurious than their much bigger counterparts.

Photo Credit: Clever Homes

The added bonus? Imagine living without the clutter, the hassle, the ‘bigness!’ Part of me can’t help but think how incredibly liberating that would be.  Maybe we need to get away from big and rediscover simple, small, happy. 

What do you really need to be happy?  Sure we all have basic, universal needs, but what do you personally need to be happy?  When was the last time you thought about it?  I know it’s been a while so I sat down and made a list to help me:

• Family
• Friends
• Food
• Shelter
• Water
• Coffee
• A new pair of Asics every 4-6 months and a trail for running
• Free time
• Tunes
• Books
• My bicycle
• A comfy bed
• A laptop with internet access
• Paper and pencils
• My cell phone
• Meaningful work
• Balance
• To go camping every once in a while
• Train tickets to Seattle every couple months
• Frozen yogurt
• A sustainable schedule

My first thought was that this list could be longer, but I’m not sure that it can.  Maybe it’s not what’s on the list that we need to think about, but what’s not.

Did you know that the government could pay you simply for investing in your home?

Federal Tax Incentives For Home Improvements

Add a solar water heating or photovoltaic system into your home in the coming year and the federal government could send you as much as $2,000 for your investment as part of a federal tax credit program! To learn about the requirements and download IRS forms for your refund, visit the Federal Government’s Energy Star website.

You can also find information on different tax incentives on the state level by visiting the Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy website. By searching your state’s database you may find even more tax credits for home improvements. Projects with refunds available often include upgrading to more energy efficient appliances or home windows.

With the government giving you money to improve your home, there’s no excuse to not look into the options available. Everyone love free money, right? I know I do!