By Joanne H. Shawcross
I once had some friends get married and they combined two apartments full of stuff into one house.
What a design ‘train wreck’ that was – A maroon sofa with a turquoise coffee table…
Don’t feel bad if you’re a person who has difficulty with coordinating colors in a room. Lots of folks find this a challenge.
Good news is I have a valuable design secret for you. It’s a no-fail room color strategy that works every time. Read More
We have been nominated in the 2011 JDR Industry Green Blogger Awards! Build That Green promotes and encourages sustained building of healthy, high-performance homes and sites – big and small.
Your vote, along with everyone else’s, will go along way to help us get the word out…
… That green homes are safer, healthier, more comfortable than conventional homes.
… That there’s a bit of savvy in saving money and saving our world.
… That our sustainable building today gives our children a better tomorrow.
Here’s What to do Right Now:
Step 1: Please Vote here You can vote every day if you want !
Step 2: From March 7 to April 15, Sign up for Sneaky Solar Strategies That Pay Over & Over. (see box to right) Don’t forget to provide your mailing address because….
Step 3: Receive FREE wildflower seeds from Build That Green.
— Free seeds are our Thank You for your vote of confidence. —
I thought of two more ways to capture (essentially) free water for your garden that I neglected to mention in at my Carolina Home and Garden Show water-wise talk.
I hope you found some useful nuggets in the nine different strategies we covered together. I can just imagine your happy garden plants nestled in healthy mulched beds. Lush green leaves, blooming like crazy soaking up the southern sun. And you snapping photos of happy butterflies and bees sipping nectar from your Carolina Jessamine or other native plants.
Steady Kim….I kinda got carried away for a minute….
It’s true that you can have a beautiful yard without a lot of fuss and expense if you use some effective water-wise strategies.
Press Release Video: Water Wise Garden Tips
Fayetteville, February 26, 2011 – The Cape Fear Botanical Garden has invited Ms. Kim Van Borkulo, Build That Green to give water saving tips at the Carolina Home and Garden Show.
It is possible to dramatically reduce your water use, lower your monthly water bill, and still have a beautiful, healthy yard. Following Kim’s simple water-wise ideas may even make the neighbor’s envious.
Splish-splash those roots are takin’ a bath!
There’s nothing easier or healthier for your yard than to let rain water it naturally.
After a shower, temporary puddles let water soak into your plant root zones. Then, water moves deeper into the water table. That ground water not only helps plants withstand intense summer droughts, but also provides a better quality supply for wells and even local streams.
To be effective, sustainable yards delay and capture as much rainwater as possible. Rain barrels, cisterns and rain gardens are designed to do that, but there’s an even easier way to control the water.
It is simply through grading that the magic happens.
Use these green irrigation strategies to retrofit and tweak existing or new yards.
There is no resource more valuable than water. Yet, every day we undervalue and waste it in so many ways. Have you ever watched where rainwater goes when it falls in your yard?
The other day I saw gaps in my wood floor and that was my indicator to stop using our bathroom exhaust fan. In winter, low moisture content in the air (relative humidity) affects not only our home interiors and furniture but our comfort and energy bills.
As doors open, cooking, showering and even people come and go, the RH inside your house is constantly shifting. Most people feel comfortable at a relative humidity (RH) between 40% and 60%. Green homes target that ideal range as the seasons change.
Wood is particularly susceptible to moisture changes, so I knew when I saw the gaps we had low indoor humidity (below 30%). You might even see cracks appear in your walls and ceilings. Dry-air can cause static electricity; particularly bothersome to computers and other electronics.
As the temperatures drop outside, our heating system inside must work harder to keep us comfortable. This constant heating dries out the indoor air unless other moisture sources, like bubbling soups, dishwashers and shower steam, replace it.
Bloody noses, dry skin and other breathing problems can be symptoms of Read More
Like you said in your book Kim, I need to plant trees for shade around my new house. I have a lot of room and want a good tree that grows pretty fast. – DA, Hope Mills
One of the best native trees that fits your description is the Tulip Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera L.)
It starts as an attractive shade tree with a neat pyramidal form. Plan ahead because it spreads out to ultimately grow 80 – 120 feet high with a 2-5 foot diameter trunk!
Over the years, you will definitely enjoy it’s unusual leaves, attractive flowers, bark and low maintenance.
Your landscape plants, like people, get along with one another in a variety of ways. Some plants do well as neighbors, and then again, others growing near each other don’t seem to thrive.
Use companion planting in your yard as an important part of integrated pest management and sustainable landscaping. To make it a balanced eco-system, your yard needs fertile soil with a diversity of plants, insects, animals and other organisms.
About 90 percent of the power used by a traditional light bulb creates heat, not visible light. That’s why, as a kid, I could make Teddy his favorite brownies in my Easy Bake Oven.
These days though I want my bedroom to be lit for reading, not heating, so I banned incandescent light bulbs. Instead, we used warm, inviting compact fluorescent light fixtures in our green remodeling project.
Wait – Warm Inviting fluorescent lights?!
True. Most folks are used to the unflattering office-look and don’t realize that fluorescent light can look just like a traditional home lighting. Manufacturers now offer Energy-Star fluorescent versions for virtually every standard kind of home lighting fixture.
Compact fluorescent lights are the most affordable energy efficient choice at home today. LED lighting is certainly very efficient, but right now, not easily affordable.
Not long ago compact fluorescent lights couldn’t be dimmed, but not anymore.
Before we remodeled, our bedside lights did a better job illuminating my alarm clock than my book. Now we use recessed compact fluorescent overhead lights on a dimmer. Each fixture contains an electronic dimmable ballast and a pin-style compact fluorescent (CFL) bulb.
No waiting for warm up, just light when you want it. We love it.
Use less electricity at home by switching out the whole fixture to an Energy Star dimmable recessed light. Many know less electricity equals lower greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global climate change. After all, about 20 percent of your home electric bill probably comes from lights.
Each fixture has a 26 watt CFL bulb equal to a traditional 100 watt bulb and will last 12,000 hours compared to the typical 1500 hours. The secret to getting a traditional warm look is to buy a bulb with a 2700K color temperature.
Bluish daylight bulbs are in the 5000K to 7000K range.
These days, we can mix and match our bedroom lighting as needed. The side light fixtures follow our design motif, but are rarely used. Within easy reach, we located the dimmer switch to the right of the bed. We use the overhead lights on high for reading, and dimmed low for, well, that’s for us to know…
Got any questions?
