It's Jungle In Here

We all know that trees and plants create oxygen, but did you know that they also clean up the indoor air? Certain plants have been shown to pull toxins specifically related to homes and offices (stuff that off-gasses from furniture and surface coverings found in houses), acting as a natural air filter. And they're pretty, too!

Yesterday I went out and bought a number of just such plants: peace lily, bamboo palm, English ivy, mums, and gerbera daisies are just a few. I even found some of them on Craigslist for just a few dollars. Dr. Wolverton's book "How To Grow Fresh Air" details 50 plants that have been proven to improve indoor air quality. After the recent fires, I was especially struck by the necessity to create a clean breathing environment. The smoke and chemicals in the air really made me think about air quality in a way I hadn't for a long time, and I was glad to have a book like Dr. Wolverston's on hand. It's just one more small thing I can do to help make my home a safer, healthier place to live.

More On Furniture

Not being as wealthy as I aspire to be one day, I could not afford to buy all new, completely sustainable furniture for my house. Instead, I decided to purchase gently used or antique pieces and try to stay with natural fibers and materials. For instance, in the photo you see here of my living room, the only new pieces are the window coverings, made for natural bamboo with a linen accent. The rug is 100% wool, the sofa is a 1960's Danish modern piece, the chairs are Edith Norton from the 1940's and the coffee table was a steal off Craigslist at $50. The whole lot was under $2000, and there is something really nice about knowing we are reusing something someone else was done with.

Let's Talk Furniture

There are a lot of interpretations of the word "green," and a number of ways to do your part. One of the easiest ways to reduce the amount of garbage filling up our landfills and save on carbon emissions is to BUY USED! There are few times in our lives when we NEED to have anything brand new, and when it comes to furniture there are a multitude of benefits to buying vintage, antique or recycled materials. Not only does re-using usable stuff save it from being dumped into the nearest landfill, but often you can avoid dangerous chemicals simply by buying furniture that was made in a time before those chemicals were commonly used. For instance, I recently bought a dining room table manufactured in the 1880's off Craigslist. It is a beautiful piece, cost me $700) as opposed to the roughly $1500-2000 a new, sustainable version would have cost. While there is no way to know for certain what the material has been treated with over the years, I can be fairly certain that the table is safer and less toxic than a conventionally produced table manufactured present day.

Of course, buying sustainably produced furniture, using organic materials and fair labor practices is a admirable and responsible practice-- but this can get pricey, and my goal here is to show you how to do it on a budget. There are so many people who can't afford the best option, and I'm here to show you what some of the alternative, responsible choices are.

A Kitchen At Last!

After what felt like months of living without a kitchen floor, I finally can finally walk barefoot to the refrigerator in the middle of the night without tracking bits of subfloor material from the bottoms of my feet. The old floor was vinyl, which, according to the editors of E/The Environmental Magazine, is "...from a health and environmental standpoint, one of the worst materials for a floor..." (Green Living, 2005). Vinyl continues to be toxic throughout its entire life, emitting harmful fumes that can cause cancer, immune disorders and reproductive disorders. Being exposed to ONE fire involving vinyl can cause respiratory disease and the International Association of Fire Fighters supports the use of alternative materials in homes. Because of all of this, one of the first things I did when I moved in was to pull out the vinyl. But I wasn't ready to install new floors yet, so the last several months we have been walking on the sub-floor, which isn't very pleasant!

I had alot of ideas about flooring, but I also had a budget. I thought about hardwood and/or bamboo, but hardwood was too expensive and I worried that new bamboo woudn't flow with the older wood floors throughout the rest of the house. I had always admired the retro vinyl or linoleum floors you find in fifties and sxties era diners, and had long thought about doing something like that in my kitchen. I did some research and found a product called Marmoleum, which is just a brand of linoleum and pretty inexpensive. LInoleum is made from a variety of all natural materials, including linseed oil, and doesn't off-gass or cause nearly the amount of pollution and distress that vinyl causes-- and it is comparably priced! I ended up buying 13x13 inch Marmoleum tiles for about $5/sq foot. My whole kitchen and laundry room-- about 200 square feet (big for a kitchen) cost me about $2,000 installed. It looks beautiful, is easy to clean and won't kill us in a fire. You can find out more on their website: http://www.themarmoleumstore.com/