House Makeover? Try Giving It A Green Slant
If you're planning on investing in a house makeover, why not take the opportunity to do your part for the planet and make it a green one. We're not talking about painting all the walls green. No, we mean green in the sense that it's good for the environment and healthy for the inhabitants.
If you're planning on flipping the house after making it over, there are many green upgrades you can undertake that won't add appreciably to the budget, but will make the house stand out when it's time to sell. If you intend to stay in the house, the energy savings and clean air will make the greening of the makeover well worth the time and trouble.
Let's start with the bedroom, since that's the room where the majority of people will spend the most time. The first thing to consider, and something that's recommended for the entire house, is painting the walls with a low or no-VOC paint. VOC stands for volatile organic compounds, which are present in many conventional paints as well as other chemicals like paint thinners. You will have noted their smell if you've ever painted a room, and it's been shown that these compounds are likely to have adverse health effects. If you will be providing the furniture for the makeover, consider a metal or solid wood bed, rather than the veneer covered particleboard or plywood that's more typical. Plywood and particleboard are wood sheets or chips held together with urea formaldehyde glues. The formaldehyde, which has been implicated as a cause of a number of health problems including cancer, will 'outgass', or seep out, into the air for a number of years, where it can be inhaled by the occupants.
Conventional matresses are manufactured with a number of chemicals such as flame retardants and materials such as polyurethane that can outgass formaldehyde, VOCs, and other undesireable chemicals. Consider mattresses made of organic cotton or wool, or natural latex. And these days, you can get organic bed linens at your local department store for prices that are a fraction of what they sold for just a few years ago. In the kitchen, cabinets are usually made mostly of particleboard, with its potential for formaldehyde outgassing. Replace those with cabinets made from solid wood or, if available in your area, new alternative products made from materials like sunflower seeds and without formaldehyde. Finish the cabinets with low or no VOC stains or paints. For floors, natural wood or tile are green building options, along with bamboo, which, because it grows quickly and doesn't require the entire plant to be cut down for harvesting, has quickly become the star of green flooring options. Be aware, however, that some brands of bamboo flooring may use formaldehyde glues. In the bathroom, tile floors and walls, low or no-VOC paints, natural stone countertops, and vanities that don't use formaldehyde-containing glues are the way to go. So far, we've covered the health aspects of a green renovation. But saving energy is also a big part of going green, so you want to minimize energy consumption whenever possible. Any time you have to open the walls during the work, you will probably want to replace the insulation with the highest R value material you can find. If you have an attic, consider increasing the amount of insulation up there. When choosing appliances, always pick those tagged with the Energy Star label, as some use only fifty percent of a more typical unit. There you have some simple suggestions for a house makeover with a green slant. Whether you're flipping the place or planning on living there a long time, you'll find the both the financial and feel-good returns make the effort worthwhile.
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