Adventures and Advice in Home Remodeling

New paint, cleaning, patching up the drywall holes…that was the easy part of our journey.  All of the flooring needed to be replaced, (other than the ceramic tile in the entry), and the kitchen cabinets were waterdamaged and in need of repair or replacement.

We decided to use hardwood throughout the main floor, and carpet  in the lower level and loft above.  At the time we knew nothing about finishes, let alone green choices, but we had a cousin’s father in the flooring business.  After visiting a few other local flooring shops, we chose to use our family connection and ordered the carpet and wood flooring.  (Oh that we’d known about cork and FLOR carpeting)!

Meanwhile, after doing some local research on cabinetry, we decided that replacement was definitely out of our budget.  A family friend and interior designer, Kris, from Pinto Pony Designs, recommended a local painter who does cabinetry painting in several styles, including our desired, antique style.  Soon, the doors to our cabinets were off to her garage.  (Once again, knowing about VOCs in paint would have been Read more

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We Got Green: Jack Johnson – what are we handing down to our children?

Treehugger recently ran an interesting set of videos highlighting Jack Johnson, and the story behind his latest album (Sleep through the Static).  In one particular segment Jack Johnson talks about improvements to his home, and his responsibility as a parent when asked, “As a father do you feel more responsible for the type of world you’re handing down to the next generation?”

Green Deets: Jack Johnson 10 from George Spyros on Vimeo.

Jack Johnson?s record label, Brushfire Records, is blazing a trail in environmental responsibility among record labels. Brushfire is headquartered in a newly-renovated green building, leveraging a number of innovative features to keep their environmental impact low. These features include: solar panels providing all power for offices and studio, interior/exterior wall insulation made from100% post consumer waste (cotton from blue jean scraps), Duro-Last green roof, and recycled shingles. In addition, the label pays close attention to its internal operations, monitoring energy use and increasing efficiency through lighting and fixtures, reducing office waste and ensuring company-wide recycling, sourcing sustainable goods for office supplies and other operational needs, and offsetting all company CO2 emissions.

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We Got Green: Gruppie Girl selects no VOC paint from Sherwin Williams

Zero VO What?

The battle between living green and having nice, new, shiny stuff is a theme that often runs through my life.  Blame it on all of those home shows that I am addicted to, but I have a need to redecorate my house.  Recently I discovered how green my home decorating choices can be.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has stated that the air quality inside your house can be two to five times worse than the air outside.  Most Americans spend 90% of our time indoors.  That is a dangerous cocktail. 

Volatile Organic Compounds or VOC?s are those sneaky gasses that are contained in conventional house paints, cleaners, lacquers and some furniture.  They are responsible for much of the toxic air in our homes.  When we paint the inside of our homes with paints that contain volatile organic compounds, our family breathes them in long after the paint is dry.  VOCs can cause nausea, loss of coordination, kidney damage, repertory infections and memory loss just to name a few of the lovely side effects.

There is a better Read more

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WE GOT GREEN: Erin & Tim continue their remodel with Trim and Low-VOC Paint

We have moved to the walls and trim! 

TRIM
I have been doing some searching on line for recycled floor trim and crown moulding and came across a company called Timbron.  They are a semi-local company (Stockton, Ca. which is about 50 miles away from the bay area) .  Their web site says that Home Depot  carriers their product which is  a 90% recycles polystyrene wood alternative to your typical mouldings.  This company also collects  that nasty white styrofoam ( white Expanded Polystyrene aka Styrofoam? and any white container labeled #6 that is CLEAN) and use it to create their trim products!  However, when I went to Home Depot no one had never heard of this company including the building materials buyer.  I looked around and found that most trim board is manufactured with some type of reclaimed and/or recycled wood fiber.  We settled on both a crown and floor trim that uses 100% recovered and reclaimed Read more

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WE GOT GREEN: Homeowners Jim & Hanmi tell their remodel story

We are Jim and Hanmi Meyer, and will each be contributing to the blog.  We are both in our mid 30?s and were married in 2006.  Our family consists of two dogs, four hens, and our housemate Bobby. 

Jim works as a software engineer in downtown Portland and regularly commutes by bicycle.  Hanmi is a freelance photographer and industrial designer who recently gave up commuting to a corporate design job in the ?burbs and now works out of small office in our home.  Though each of us owned a house prior to meeting, this is our first home together. 

Our house, located in the Hawthorne District of Portland, is a 2-story 1400 sq. ft. Craftsman-style bungalow on a 3500 sq. ft lot, built in Read more

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WE GOT GREEN: Erin uses water-based polyurethane on hardwood floors

Water-Based polyurethane for Hardwood Floors

After ripping out the carpet in our master bedroom we sanded the very nice, but 50 year old oak flooring underneath.  As part of my  requirements for redesigning our home I always want to start by  looking into environmentally friendly products.  So in an effort to work with materials we already have, and not consume unnecessary laminate flooring I took a trip to Southern Lumber in San Jose and talked to someone there about the difference between water-based vs  oil-based stains, and water-based vs oil polyurethanes.  The professional at southern lumber right away discouraged me from using water based Read more

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Homeowners tell their eco-friendly remodel stories on GetWithGreen.com

As part of our commitment to bring you eco-friendly product information from homeowners to homeowners like yourself, GetWithGreen.com is pleased to announce “We Got Green – Homeowner Stories.”

“We Got Green” brings you stories direct from homeowners, written by homeowners who are remodeling. These homeowners have made a commitment to try and get a little “greener” during their project, and tell you about so that you might also do the same for our planet.

Not every decision they make will be “green”, because of the realities each homeowner might be facing in their project. Here at GetWithGreen.com we felt that this is exactly the same place that almost all of us are in. With their honest and insightful information, you will learn about practical choices you can make in order to make a difference. We also hope that manufacturers will stop, take note, and make an effort to do even more to make it easier for all of us! (we already have seen evidence of this with the following Comment on this We Got Green story)

Please welcome our guest homeowners, as they introduce themselves over the coming weeks. Don’t forget to sign up for the GetWithGreen.com newsletter where you will receive all stories as they unfold via email! And, if you would like to tell your eco-friendly story so that others can learn and be better informed for their remodel, then please send an email to: info[at]getwithgreen[dot]com!

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We Got Green: Homeowners Erin and Tim tell their remodel story

As part of our new We Got Green-Homeowner Stories initiative, GetWithGreen.com would like to welcome contributors Erin and Tim! As the coming weeks unfold you will learn more about them as they tackle their home improvements, and make an effort to be a bit more eco-friendly in the process. They will be writing their story here at GetWithGreen.com for you to read, comment upon, and ask questions.

Erin and Tim, we are happy to have you, and thank you in advance for sharing your home and your project with all of us!

Bio for Erin and Tim:

1. We are a young couple, under 30. We recently became engaged and
purchased our first home in the Cambrian area of San Jose.

2. Our audience is first time homeowners, weekend warriors, do-it-
yourselfers, and people looking for eco-friendly home improvement
alternatives.

3. First time home owners, Going on our second month in our new home.

4. Our 50+ year old home, needs updating! We are currently working on
the Read more

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We Got Green: Angela Ward stains her concrete floor with Ecoprocote

Blogger and Real Estate Broker Angela Ward in Maui, tells her story about staining her concrete floor with Ecoprocote.   Here is the article from Angela’s blog:

In an effort to go Green on my remodeling project, I stumbled across an environmentally-friendly concrete stain which is made out of soy:  Ecoprocote.

The conventional method of coloring concrete is acid-staining, a very harsh and most times costly undertaking.  Not only does it involve sanding the concrete first which produces undesireable dust everywhere, the fumes can be so intense that this is usually not a DIY project.  I received estimates for acid-staining at $10/sf.  This computes out to $6,000 for a 600sf condo.

I did a Google search on concrete stains and found Soycrete, made by Ecoprocote.  The results looked the same as acid-stained concrete, but with much less impact on the environment, your wallet, and Read more

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We Got Green: Jay goes with greener cellulose insulation product

Going with green with insulation is actually one of the easier choices in a remodel project. There are many alternatives to fiberglass such as UltraTouch Natural Cotton Fiber Insulation, spray foam from BioBased Insulation, or recycled shredded paper from GreenFiber. Below you will find a story written by Ryanne Hodson, and brought to GetWithGreen.com from the team at PodTech. Ryanne tells us about how Jay made his decision to use recycled paper insulation in a garage remodel.

Written by Ryanne Hodson (November 29, 2007)

Recently, Jay’s dad started building on some property he owns in rural Virginia. The first structure built was the garage/workshop. Jay and I were eager for the chance to try out some green building materials as an alternative to the usual stuff. Before traveling over to the east coast for Turkey Day, we did some research along side his pops about what the cheapest, most green insulation material could be used (which could also be purchased at a major box store near by). We found that Recycled Paper Cellulose was the least expensive material you could buy Read more

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