The ease of being green The ease of being green (March 18, 2005)

Many options in remodeling and redecorating the eco-friendly way

By Mari Sapina-Kerkhove

When Susan Davis studied building design more than 20 years ago, there was a vague understanding of environmentally responsible or "green" design but little real-life application in that field.

Today Davis, the owner of Mountain View-based design firm Spectrum Fine Homes, is also a certified green-building specialist who incorporates eco-friendly strategies and products whenever possible.

Much has changed since the time the designer started her career and man-made materials such as vinyl flooring and chemically treated upholstery were considered functional and avant-garde.

It wasn't until the early '90s that people realized the chemical emissions from such materials could have serious consequences. Many office workers who spent long days in poorly ventilated buildings complained of dizziness, chronic headaches and respiratory ailments.

"People became allergic to everything, including their own homes," Davis said.

Since then, there has been an increasing awareness about building and decorating homes with products generally referred to as green -- safer for people's health, friendlier toward the environment and more respectful toward the Earth's limited resources.
Better decisions, better materials

Alicia Peche, owner of Eco Design Resources, a San Carlos environmental show room, doesn't support the stigma that green design is too expensive, confined in creative possibilities and unattractive.

An interior designer who had developed allergies to various chemical odors, Peche started her business two years ago because she was unable to locate a Bay Area resource that specializes in environmentally sound products.

Featuring everything from kitchen appliances, furniture and paints to bed sheets, accessories and wooden toys, Peche describes her business as a "one-stop shop" with environmental products that don't compromise on cost or design.

Because there has been an increasing demand for green products over the past years, their costs have decreased considerably, she said. Of course, artistic pieces, such as glass tiles, are always more expensive but that's also the case with comparable non-green products, Peche said.

In general, most green products are similar or just slightly higher in price than traditional products, she said. And they tend to last longer, which makes them more cost-efficient.

Aside from that, green products allow for a wealth of design possibilities, Peche said.

"The thing that's nice about the more innovative types of products that are more green and more cutting-edge is they also have uniqueness to them," she said.

Bamboo flooring, for example, is a "hot trend" right now, Peche said. Because it grows so quickly, bamboo is a sustainable resource and therefore considered a green material. And at $4 to $5 per square foot (pre-finished) it is comparable in price to traditional hardwood flooring, she said.

But homeowners interested in green flooring materials need not feel limited to bamboo or cork. There are many traditional hardwoods that are now cultivated in sustainable forests and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, Davis said.

Another option is natural linoleum, which is often confused with vinyl. Made from linseed oil (pressed from the flax plant) and pine resin, linoleum offers many design possibilities without the old-fashioned image, she said.

"This is the stuff Grandma had, except now it's hundreds of colors," Davis said.

Wheat boards are a great alternative for wood furniture and kitchen cabinets, she added. Typical particleboards are made with hazardous resin binders that contain formaldehyde, but wheat boards are made of wheat byproducts that would otherwise be discarded.

The use of byproducts as a responsible way of resource conservation is essential to many green design materials. Decks made of recycled plastic bags, flooring made of recycled car tires and kitchen counters made of paper byproducts are just a few examples.

"Everybody loves granite and stone," Davis said about the popular, mostly imported countertop materials. "But if your focus is resource conservation, then you might want to look at how it got here."

And just because products are made of recycled materials doesn't mean they are of lesser quality, she said. Quartz countertops, for example, which are made from quartz byproducts, are extremely resilient, Davis said, and their vast range of colors and textures allows for great creativity.
Just a spot of green

Despite the wealth of green design materials, Davis said it's hard to go 100 percent green. Sometimes it's a good idea to prioritize whether your main focus is eco-friendliness, resource conservation or safety, she said.

Jesse Cool, an organic chef and owner of several Peninsula eateries, focused on local businesses and reused materials as much as possible when remodeling her Palo Alto home last year.

"It seemed like the most respectable, natural way to approach saving my 1928 house," she said.

Davis, who was Cool's designer, employed The Reuse People, an Alameda-based nonprofit that deconstructs, rather than demolishes buildings to reuse, recycle or donate the recovered materials. In Cool's home, for example, previously existent tiles from the Sutro baths were reused for her powder room.

Cool acknowledges that consulting a team of local green-design experts was essential to the satisfying result of her remodel.

But what about homeowners or renters, who don't have the financial means or the need for a project as big as Cool's?

It's not necessary to tear down your whole house and rebuild everything "in green," Davis said. Just buying more local products as well as paints and sealers with low or no volatile organic compounds (VOCs) is a step in the right direction, she said. So is being aware of alternative, more eco-friendly options when something needs to be updated or replaced.

For Mountain View residents Diane and Dave Turner, it was a new water heater. Instead of choosing a traditional water heater, the Turners opted for a tankless version that allows them to just heat up the amount of water needed at any given time, which also makes for continuously hot water on demand.

"It's fabulous," Diane Turner said. "That Christmas, we had 10 people staying in our house and shower after shower, it never let us down. We had hot water all the time."

To Davis, the slowly increasing awareness about green design options is a sign that vinyl flooring and wasteful handling of resources may soon be things of the past.

"The exciting thing to me is that it is happening," she said. "I think eventually it'll hit everyone."

E-mail Mari Sapina-Kerkhove at mvvoicehg@yahoo.com
For an extensive listing of green home resources including professionals, products, retailers and articles, go to www.greenhomeguide.com. To locate certified designers in the area, contact the National Organization of the Remodeling Industry, www.nari.org or call (800) 611-NARI.

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