This website has plans for green homes. They have a few different plans, and they offer a virtual tour of the house, also.

Tags: green homes floor plans

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 8th, 2009 at 12:39 am and is filed under Green Homes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One feature I’ve decided I’d like in my new dishwasher is a stainless steel interior.  The alternative is plastic.  A plastic interior is more likely to break down harmful chemicals into the water supply, onto your dishes and into the air you breath when the plastic gets hot.

Stainless steel will also aid in the quicker drying of your dishes and it’s more durable.

Once you have your dishwasher, make sure you use a dishwashing detergent that’s free of phosphates.  Phosphates are harmful to aquatic animal life.

You can read more about Green Dishwashing at Planet Green.

Tags: Dishwashers

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Appliances, Green Homes, Kitchens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

In my last post I pointed to a great collection of reviews that focused on energy efficent washing machines.  One of the problems with going that route is that such machines can be hard to maintain.

Here’s an excellent discussion of the issues surrounding the cleaning and mainentence of highly efficient laundry machines.  It focuses on problems like buildup of mold and bad odors.

Tags: Appliances, energy efficency, laundry machines, mold, washing machines

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 10:07 am and is filed under Appliances, Green Homes, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Here’s an excellent overview of many of the various laundry machines currently on the market.

I like this artile because it gives prominent attention to the energy efficency of the models.

You can even live green while washing your clothes!

Tags: energy efficency, green, laundry machines, washing machines

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 9:59 am and is filed under Appliances, Green Homes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Recently, we talked about the Pros and Cons of Cork Floors.

I just came across a fantastic discussion of the topic, Popping the cork – Getting to Know Cork Flooring, with an emphasis on the environmental benifits of going that route.

Check it out and be sure to read the interesting comments.

Tags: cork, cork flooring, Green Homes

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 7:47 am and is filed under Flooring, Green Homes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Here’s an interesting discussion featuring five lowcost things you can do to make your home more green.

Some of these suggestions, like don’t set your thermostat too high, are pretty basic.  Still, it never hurts to be reminded!

Tags: green, Green Homes

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 11:50 am and is filed under Green Homes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

If you’d like to make your bathroom more environmentally friendly – or just to save a little money – you should read these great tips on How to Be Green and Frugal in the Bathroom.

Tags: Bathrooms, green, save money

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 at 7:07 pm and is filed under Bathrooms, Green Homes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

I noticed over the past couple of months that we had been developing dark stains on our Formica countertop near our coffee maker. I don’t know what my husband’s been up to (it had to be him after all)! Or whether it has to do with the can of coffee we’re using or the hot coffee cup or actual coffee spills. We developed one dark ring and a couple of other marks.

Today my black tin for loose tea made a mark on the countertop too – so I decided I’d better try to tackle these problems. The first thing that came to mind was lemon juice – since I knew that bleach was a problem with Formica. I’m also trying to use more environmentally friendly products when possible.

So I took out our lemon juice. It’s called Nellie & Joe’s Famous Key West Lemon Juice – Double Strength. It has lemon juice in it and lemon oil from concentrate.

A tin of tea and some lemon juice!

I poured some of the lemon juice onto a paper towel and rubbed it on the tin mark. Nothing happened. Then I went over to the coffee marks and rubbed some lemon juice on them. It looked like they were starting to fade. So I used some more. After a couple of minutes repeating this procedure – I noticed that it actually worked! I got rid of all the stains in the coffee maker area. Then I decided to try again where the tin was. After reapplying the juice a couple of times – it worked too! I got rid of all the stains naturally – with a little elbow grease and lemon juice. Try it out!

If you’d like to share your tricks for cleaning out stains on countertops, feel free to comment below…

Tags: cleaning, Countertops, environmentally friendly household products, formica, green cleaning, lemon juice

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 8:32 am and is filed under Countertops, Green Homes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.