fresh green steps at home

So, we are finally getting settled in here in Winston-Salem and I have decided the best way to find all the fabulous "green" people in our new town is to give our own home a fresh green start! Now, we aren't talking major renovation (like what I want to do in the project), But, the house was built in 1924, it has single paned windows and I don't even want to know what isn't caulked!! To this end, I have just scheduled a home energy audit. It is the first step to finding out where our house is loosing efficiency (and as it gets colder, there are some major issues with this house, my toes can tell!) It is also the first step that I outline in the fresh green start project! The gentleman coming to the house is a building scientist (v. facinating) so I hope to learn a lot about our house and green building practices in general.

Something that we have done in our time here is to install "Safe Home Filters" in both of our air intakes. I met the couple, Sam and Liz McLamb, who invented and make these fabulous filters at the green building conference. Our youngest son has been termed "pre-asthmatic" and so I wanted to do all that I could to improve his air quality. These really are revolutionary, as this type of filtering hasn't available before without spending thousands of dollars! It is a dual filtration system that not only filters particles from the air (like the normal filters we use on our systems) but also filters out chemicals from cleaning products, furniture offgassing , paint fumes, etc! I really feel like it has made my house a healthier environment and wanted to share this great company with y'all!! Visit www.safehomefilters.com for more information.

I will report back about the audit. Until then have green days and as always contact me if you have any questions or comments: freshgreenstart@yahoo.com

inspiration abound

What a time I had at the conference! I was moved in many different ways and by different people than I imagined, isn't that always the case. The most exciting part was simply that there were 240 people on the campus of this small, progressive college in Asheville, NC all thinking and learning and hoping for better ways to build and cleaner habits to adopt.


As a lover of the aesthetic, I was grateful to see that there is no loss of beauty in these builders/designers objectives and projects, if anything, along with this move to "green building" there is a renewed devotion to the beauty and grace of the designs. If we are doing this to maintain the earth's inherent beauty, then aren't we missing the point if what we create isn't beautiful! If it doesn't give those living/working within a sense of pride and reflection of their own beauty, have we made the earth better?

A wise woman that I met talked with me about the book, The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. In it, he writes about when Guiliani decided to clean up the subway and his idea was as soon as a subway car became vandalized it was immediately taken off the line and repaired and then place back good as new. His reasoning: it is far easier to further degrade something that is already degraded. This action was a tipping point because it caused a ripple effect that lifted the entire subway system to a cleaner, safer place to travel. There were far less cases of vandalizm of the cars themselves as well as the subway stations, litter lightened, etc. This is the effect the "Fresh Green Start" is hoping to have. We lift one house at a time in the same area, people start to have a renewed pride in their own homes just by it's proximity, then we give the park a fresh green start, then the school, and so on... making the entire neighborhood a cleaner, safer place to live and work. Less litter, less vandalizm, more hope, more empowerment...

ponder on that...
more conference specific posts to come...

Mountain Green Sustainability Conference

I am off tomorrow to the Mountain Green Sustainability Conference in Asheville, NC http://www.warren-wilson.edu/~ELC/New_ELC_Website_/officialconferencebrochure.pdf. I am excited to hear all the fabulous speakers and shake the hands of others in the southeast interested in "green" building and sustainable living. I wish I could be in all the rooms at once because there are some great speakers, but among those I am most interested to see are (1) an architect named Rick Reinhardt speaking directly on the challenges and opportunities in affordable housing! and (2) a group from Habitat for Humanity speaking on making green building affordable. There are speeches planned on New Urbanism and the Katrina Cottage, it is going to be a great day. I will post upon my return...

until then, be happy, be green!

press play!

Well I have been thinking and dreaming about this project a TON lately and it feels like time to start the exploration and work again. We found out we are moving to Winston-Salem, North Carolina and are really excited about this move. I have been researching green goings-on in the area and think it's going to be a fantastic area for such a project.

Also, I have written to Oprah's Big Give Contest about it and hope that she will help jumpstart the process. The winner gets $5,000 toward their idea, but even more exciting is a panel of experts to help work out the kinks!!! Wow, I would love to brainstorm with a panel of experts!

I will be posting new findings and as always please feel free to give me your input!!

take good care and on to a fresh green start!

press pause

I am going to have to take a moment here to press pause and reorganize.

We have recently found out we will be moving in June to a new city (where exactly we don't quite know yet) and baby #2 is really, quite honestly, a lot more work that I could have imagined when I set out on this journey when he was a mere 4 wks old (well I can't tell if he is more work or his older brother is more work). Regardless, I am just keeping my head above water with those two sweet, wonderful boys.

In the meantime, I am going to do a bit of volunteering with the new Rebuild program here with Nashville Habitat for Humanity to help finetune what I hope our efforts will be. As well as continuing to research and learn and keep my ear out for the most fabulous and practical green home innovations and do promise to pick this up just as soon as I can. I still believe very strongly in this project and look eagerly on the time when I can bring it to fruition.

to be continued...

my own fresh green start

As I do this research and think constantly about green living, it is only natural that it would work it's way into my life as well. I wanted to tell y'all about a couple of my favorite things that we are doing here at my house...

the g diaper...

this is a very cool hybrid between cloth diapers and disposable. The outer shell is cotton and there is an inner waterproof liner that holds a flushable insert that catches the "business"! So you don't have to fill bin after bin of diapers to be tossed out into the landfill, but you don't have to put poo in your washing machine either!!!

http://www.gaiam.com/ is where I purchased mine. They come in really cute colors, blue, lime green, orange, etc. check it out for your little one.

This bag is so cool... you take it to the grocery, it expands to clip to the sides of the cart and you load it up with your selections and then unload and reload at the cashier and then simply unclip and put them in your car!! They hold 40 lbs and in my experience 2 of them fills the space of the average shopping cart and can hold a weeks worth of groceries. Did I mention they are $7 a piece!!! www.reusablebags.com under grocery gear, you won't regret it!

Be happy, be green!

many steps

SO, it turns out there are many steps to take before should even consider overcoming the inertia that was hanging me up in the last post! I met with a couple that have their hand deep in the nashville "green" cookie jar so to speak and although they were enthusiastic, they pointed out several things that needed to be done before any hammers are swung...

1) establish Fresh Green Start as a non-profit organization with the state
2) along with that goes a business plan, a set of by-laws and a board of directors (seriously, I thought I would find a nice family, give them a hug, say, "we're here to help you", overhaul their home and another hug and move on to the next house... now I'm writing by-laws!)
3) Trademark "Fresh Green Start"
4) get together marketing materials complete with bullet points
5) use those materials to network like hell

All those things, even though I hadn't considered them, are valid and important. I am so ready to see this thing happen, but I need to slow down and make sure the ducks are in a row, that I have good advisors and supporters around me, that I can do what I am promising. So, I am off to think and write.

As always, please feel free to comment and/or write me at freshgreenstart@yahoo.com