Being that it is St. Patrick’s Day today I was thinking about the color green and what it means to me. Not only does it mean that you are representing your Irish heritage by wearing the color green, but lately the term going green is not only a fad but crucial to our worlds existence.

For me like alot of people in the world I am participating in recycling my daily trash, buying energy efficient light bulbs, bringing my own reusable shopping bags to the grocery store, and using far less chemicals in my home. I also like to promote recycling furniture and other household items. I guess this is the other reason why I like finding old things.  Not only are they part of our heritage but because I feel as though I am helping the environment and potentially saving a tree. So the next time you are thinking of buying some new furniture or accessory for your home consider going to a yard sale or consignment shop and purchasing them there first.  As you saw from my last post I have found so many great things for my house in these places for about half the money.  They can be just as beautiful as something new!! If you have furniture that you don’t want anymore, don’t go to the landfill with it, instead donate it or consign it so it will go to someone who really needs it. Some local dumps now have an area where you can leave things for other people to take and reuse.

The other part of green design that is also very interesting is some companies are now basing their entire lines of furniture purely out of recycled goods including cork, cardboard, organic fabrics, and plastic. I found a few sites so you can see what I mean. corkhouse.com, 2modern.com/eco-friendly The furniture is not only functional but it’s pretty cool looking.

For that matter there are also new paints that you can purchase that don’t have all of the harsh toxic chemicals in them. Here are a few that I found. Ben Moore has just made a new friendly paint without Voc’s called Pristine Eco Spec, Sherman Williams brand without Voc’s is called Harmony. But my favorite one is called greenplanetpaints.com.  They make the paints from soy and clay pigments. They seem to have a wide variety of colors too.

A wise frog once said ” It ain’t easy being green” But we can sure do our best to start. Well despite the fact that St. Patrick’s Day has nothing to do with our Eco conscious world, I am bidding you a happy one anyway!! So get out there have a Guinness for me, listen to some good Irish music and recycle and reuse your furniture!!