Education

Great Green Home Ideas

By Nancy Kinghorn

Your home is your sanctuary. Treating it with respect will repay you with joy.

Repurpose old furniture by upholstering with eco-friendly fabrics. If you don't have something, search a 10 mile radius from your home for what you need: Freecycle, CraigsList, local thrift shops, newspaper classifieds.

When replacing floors look at cork, bamboo, reclaimed hardwood, FLOR carpet floortiles, Marmoleum as alternatives to new or exotic wood floors or vinyl.

When you replace your carpet look for natural carpets and floor coverings made of wool, jute, hemp, seagrass etc. Avoid carpets that need stain protectors- just another petroleum product that eventually attracts dirt and makes your carpet look dirty.

Next purchase of bedding, look for organic, bamboo, and other sustainable fabrics. There are some very attractive mattress which do not have springs and synthetic stuffing materials.

For new walls or to change an existing wall color purchase, recycled paint or zero or low-VOC paints. Better yet look at non-paint wall finishes like Tobias Stucco, American Clay, and Green Planet Paints. These aren't paints so they don't have the petroleum bases that paints do.

Add houseplants as they will absorb CO2. Some even say they neutralize radiation from computer monitors- that I don't know.

Change your incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent. Use motion sensor switches where ever possible.

Hopefully you all are purchasing the most energy-efficient appliances that you can afford. There is real money to be saved each month with these. Top energy hogs are refrigerators older than 10 years.

When purchasing wood or new wooden furniture look for Forest Stewardship Council certified wood ( FSC). Ask where the wood came from. Avoid products made with formaldehyde glues. They off-gas these chemicals into your living space.

Keep your garage gear clean. Use non-toxic pegboards to organize your stuff. Get serious about the stuff that you have "stored" in your garage. Chances are you don't need it anymore. Post on Freecycle, donate, or take to a neighbor's garage sale and get it back in circulation to someone who could really use it.

If you decide to change your countertops look for alternatives utilizing recycled materials like Vetrazzo, RichLite, PaperStone, Squak Mountain. When you buy products made from recycled materials, you are supporting the return of these products to another useful life. If we recycle and don't make the recycled products into new materials, it's still trash. Take a look, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Buy power strips which sense when your appliance or equipment is not in use and shuts off the power. Attach all your media components to a power strip turn off the power strip when you aren't watching or listening.

Use high-efficiency laundry cleaners like Mrs. Meyer's, Nellie's Laundry. Use a dryer ball to hasten drying by keeping clothes separated in the dryer. Make sure your dryer is vented to the outside of the house. Don't give mold a chance.

Shop for eco-friendly patio furniture made from recycled materials or reclaimed wood.

Avoid the cheap new plastic furniture that will look awful in a couple years out in the sun and take millions of years to degrade in the landfill.

Use a solar water fountain and solar lights in your garden. Get the connection between the sun and energy. It's a lot of fun.

Find eco-friendly planters utilizing recycled plastics.

Recycle vegetable kitchen scraps into a compost pile to feed your garden instead of throwing down the garbage disposal and mixing clean water with garbage for the sewage treatment plant to treat.

If you take your shoes off when you enter your home, you will not only keep out a lot of dust but it is easier on your carpet. Dust and "street grime" contribute to wearing out your carpet.

We all want to save money. It's tempting to choose a new product based on price alone. Next time you have to make a choice consider the life-span of the product you are choosing, where it came from and where it will go when you are ready to replace it.