apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

can we maybe address the fact that a little problem with this green movement is the fact that it's VERY much about consumerism?

aren't the key tenants REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE? not one of those things implies that i need to go out and buy a prius when my corolla runs just fine, nor should i buy a responsibly-forested bamboo floor when the wood i already have is salvagable.

i'm not implying that Heather didn't need a new floor in her house, but for every new thing you buy, no matter how green, the old one has to go somewhere...

any such name--
It looks like the cork was laid over the old floor (unless that's subfloor).

But, yes, not sure how laying a sustainable floor over a wood one that might be able to be refinished scores points for greener-ism.

Where did you get the fabulous chandelier?

And the important thing to remember is that those three key tenants are in order of importance. Reduce first. Reuse second. Recycle a distant third. Buying something new that is recycled is at the bottom - not that it's not good, but really. And of course, your buying habits aren't at the center of environmentalism. Political action is - staying aware at a national and a local level of what decisions are being made that affect the environment, and contacting your elected officials to ensure that they know their constituents care about these issues. And of course electing people who care themselves.

But that's not so much fun as buying a new floor.

Okay, I'll get off the soapbox. This is a design and lifestyle site, obviously not the place to be talking politics. And three of the four things cited are very reasonable. Buying used falls under "reuse." In the case of the toilet and showerhead, it's quite possible the water savings more than offset the production of a new unit, but I'm not certain.

I would, however, like to see more answers to tricky enviromental lifestyle questions, for those issues that arise when trying to balance beauty with sustainability. For example, the much-maligned (from a design angle) ceiling fan is an extremely low-energy way of cooling a space. Is there anything one can do to make the usual ugly ones found in most apartments more attractive? How about comparing the insulating effects of blinds, curtains, and so on? By far the best natural, low-energy control over the light and heat of a space is provided by blinds, sheers, and drapes, all together. Any way to make that look less like my grandmother's house? What about composting - does anyone have suggestions for something to hold the compost for a day or two on my counter without stinking up the house?

I enjoy some of the beautiful things on this site, but I agree that's there's a serious disconnect between the consumerism and the supposed environmentalism.

I'm not sure targeting the window air conditioner is the simplest thing. Everyone knows it's not green.

I live as green as anyone else, but even as northerly located I am, it is almost impossible for me not to have an air conditioner on for a few days of the year. In a small apartment like mine, it means a window air conditioner like the one you just scratched out in that photo.

There are "nicer looking" options, but it is still necessary until we develop something better for multi-story buildings.

I agree. I like cork and all, but the original floor looks to be in really nice shape. Mine looked so much worse and came out looking great once refinished. Maybe the picture you posted are not representative of the whole.

And I got rid of my giant A/C and totally regret it. I'm not sure what the carbon footprint of that monster was -- all I know was it cooled my whole apartment in 10 minutes and then I turned it off. The more environmentally-friendly one I replaced it with has to run night and day, it's never comfortable in here, and my elec bills are much higher. And I ended up buying a second one and it's lame too.

i have to agree- does it seem to anyone else that the only green we are not saving is the foldable kind?

yes i could replace my shower head, my toilet and more fuel efficient car- but they all cost so much more- and with morgage rates increasing i may not have a home to put them in.

i heard a commercial this morning on the radio basically telling people to stop complaining about the high gas prices and buy a new car. if i had the money to buy a new car, dont you think id have the money to pay for the gas in my current car?

while i agree that our world is in great distress, politically, economically, socialy and environmentally, and i applaud all efforts to erase our rape of the ecosystem, i find it difficult to make the transition- if everyone is so eager to "go green" why not have more trade ins? i'll give you my old shower head, and you can give me a fancy lowflow envirofriendly one for free!

We just moved into a brand new building so there wasn't much we could do to improve, but we bought a large percentage of the new furniture we needed vintage and made sure that everything we got rid of from our old apartment found a good home somewhere else where it would be used.

And yes, it's a bit unnerving how intrinsic consumption has come to the TENETS of greening. I think it's far more useful to just use the resources at hand, and go forward being green, bit by bit. Being extravagant and laying in cork floor when the wood floor is already in perfectly good condition just seems counterproductive. In my mind, it reinforces how green/sustainable living/shopping organic/etc. continues to exist as an idea (mostly) associated with the agency of wealth (like the trend Hollywood folks doing this-that-and-the-other and completely missing the point, because they suddenly care about the environment, or something). It's kind of alienating, but I still plod along and do my part...my broke, bootleg part.

hi all, i knew this would be interesting; i'd love to clarify some points:

the cork we placed in our kitchen was over wood (that had been covered by countless layers of glue, board, and tiles). We would have loved to have restored it, but chose that room as a testing point for the great, sustainable cork instead (it also cost us much less than refinishing and keeps our floors warmer in the kitchen - a VERY cold spot in our house). Our entire upstairs has 40 yr old carpet over plywood. we are considering cork there as well.

yes, consumerism plays a role in living a greener life. but the point is that things will last longer and serve better (both the user and the environment), and replacing faulty fixtures that were in this home for 40 years is hardly being "purchase" hungry.

All of the things we get rid of are donated or given away (in a few cases, sold).

Our home had 4 very large, very old and inefficient window a/c units. we removed them and are living a/c free.

About 90% of our home is filled with used things. we are very proud of that.

ilovebutter: the chandelier came with the house. we're keeping it!

Re: "We would have loved to have restored it, but chose that room as a testing point for the great, sustainable cork instead (it also cost us much less than refinishing ...)."

Um, not such a great case for green, really... although your selection of product might be.

And the "cost less than refinishing" is really at the root of Oneformybaby's point, and the root of the issue in general. Green still ain't cheap, and for American broad-adoption, it needs to be THE cheapest alternative.

But yeah, living AC-free is a TOTAL dealbreaker for me.

PS, pet peeve... why don't people use their real names for their screen names??? Ugh.

I don't know what cork costs, but refinishing floors is really cheap. I'm not a DIY person and I've done the floors in several apartments now. Rent a sander from Home Depot and you're about done, cost-wise. I sanded all the floors in my place now in two days (1600 sq ft). They were full of nails, glues\ from a crap 70s parquet tile that had been on top of them. And in a kitchen you could even paint the floor once sanded and that's REALLY easy -- altho staining isn't hard either.

I'd check under your plywood upstairs. Might be original wood underneath

The place looks great but...If giving up my A/C will make me green...then i'll NEVER be green.

more notes: we refinished our entire first floor's wood floors (minus the kitchen). i did not trust myself with a sander, so had the floors done professionally (after pulling every last staple out myself. that was fun). Julianna, i applaud your DIY savvy on that front.
For us, it made more sense to use cork (cost comparison and warmth) in the kitchen.

unfortunately, there is nothing good under the plywood upstairs. we just painted the floor in one room and are still thinking about what to do with the rest.

Heather, I have noticed people using plywood as flooring alot recently, usally in commercial spaces. A fancy bike shop I recently visited had nicely sanded and stained plywood floors, and an ad agency I had a meeting at used stained plywood on the walls as a decoration feature. The bike shop especially was cozy and sleek looking (medium/dark finish)

My dad on the other hand, is building a house bit by bit and currently all floors are painted (to keep down the dust from building) plywood, pending the real floors in a couple years. Had he chosen a nicer colour, I'm sure it would have been quite nice (he's not the lifestyle design decor type! :P)

In any case, that would be a neat option... and you could try sanding them yourslef, since you could only ruin plywood... and move on to whatever you were originally planning if it doesn't work out.

I live in Ann Arbor and there is a place called "Recycle Ann Arbor" so I go there first whenever I need anything, and that's also where I take all of the stuff that I need to get rid of. I just moved into a studio apartment so there was a lot to clean out...this place is perfect for that!!

hi patrick (the other one) - my name is jen. better? =P
do you know how many ladies share my name? i could go with "jen b" but really "any such name" is more fun, no? it's the internet, this is what people do.

i guess that yeah, i'm just annoyed that i was raised to turn the lights and tv off when i'm not in a room and now all of a sudden "green" is big business. which isn't to say that we shouldn't all follow the 3 R's (thanks for the tenet correction, i knew tenant wasn't right but was being lazy), but it's so trendy right now it's maddening.

would responsible a/c use fall under green? i hold out until july/august and i can't sleep at night, and even then i don't have it below 72.

Actually the "three tenents", reduce-recycle-reuse, are usually depicted in tha triangle with arrows going from one to the other - so there is no first, second or third- it is a cycle. Unless it is just a badly designed logo.

Oneformybaby - depends where you live. Here in Northern California, EBMUD (our water utility) will *give* you a low flow shower faucet, just for the asking. You don't even have to turn in your old faucet. That's how much they want you to save water! It isn't a fancy massaging one though... :}

They'll give you free low flow kitchen faucet attachments and rebates for low flow toilets as well.

I bought that shower head (on AT's recommendation) for $9.99 plus shipping, and it's fantastic. The old one let out 7 gallons of water per minute, and this one is 1.5 gallons, which is great, but it's also still got good power behind the flow.

I highly recommend it for anyone looking to replace their old shower heads.

Tenets. My god - yes, of course. I had one of those moments where I thought: that isn't right, what's the right spelling? Then: no, that must be right. And I followed the lead of the first poster. I hang my head in shame.

And, whether the logo is designed to indicate a cycle or not, it's not a cycle. Reducing doesn't lead to reusing. If you don't use anything to begin with, you can't recycle it. Ideally, you don't buy anything at all. If you do buy, you purchase something that can be reused, or something that has already been used. And if it can't be reused (or you have already reused to the best of your ability), recycle. But recycling requires energy.

Depending on the weather where you live and the home itself, it can be cost and energy efficient to install central air along with a programmable thermostat. You obviously don't need to heat or cool your home nearly as much when you're at work, or when you're sleeping. I live in an apartment, but my family's saved thousands in the time since they installed a central air unit (instead of multiple window units) and replaced the old thermostat.

I'm not 100% green either. For years I had been the only one on my block (of 10 row homes across from a park) that had a window air conditioner. (I have 2 in fact - one upstairs one downstairs). Last night while taking out the trash, I thought to myself that I must be crazy or something, why was I the only one on the block with a unit or two - did my neighbors know something about being cool that I did not. Walking round the block, I noticed, 2 houses have central air, 3 houses are empty though not abandoned. Leaning again my fuel efficient vw new beetle, I glanced up and noticed ...four window units in the upper floors. They must remove them during the day -- what? Anyway, no air is a deal breaker for me too.

It was only in 2002 that I got my driver licence and purchased my car new in 2004. I hated riding buses and now I hate driving behind them. They are no way to cart home groceries and 20 lb bags of cat food or kitty litter, although when I did it, I had to.

I have decided that I will go florescent when my current "Reveal" lightbulbs blow out and all are used up. Though I am reminded why I hate florescent bulbs, that little wait for them to turn on and that little humm they make.

I have put down a little terrace in my back yard using bricks that my father had made (yep- dad a brickmaker) and had put in our family home. Upon inheriting the home, my sister didn't like the brick and I gleefully drove my car down to her house and pryed each one up and loaded them back to my house.

But yes, going green has to be easy and relatively cheap or I can't do it and probably won't. We recycle in Camden, New Jersy. The city so graciously gave us big red plastic cans for our bottles and cans and newspapers can be placed inside paper bags or wraped in twine. Still everybody does not do these simple things.

Yes, green is coming, but it does have to be cheap, easy and damn near automatic for it to catch on with the masses. Otherwise, people aren't going to do it...unless...it's the law...

For everyone who has left comments complaining that going "green" is too expensive, I would just like to say this.

It seems that people are forgetting that you do not need to spend a dime of your money in order to start living a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. I live in the Virgin Islands where our electricity costs are triple what people pay in the United States and we depend on rain water to fill up our cisterns for our homes. Our "greener" lifestyle comes straight out of an economic need to keep costs down and to avoid emptying our cisterns before the next big rain. Most people cannot afford to replace appliances with these new fancy ones. We take matters into our own hands and have slightly modified our lifestyles to become as efficient with utilities as possible. We only use our A/C at night if it gets really hot, we turn OFF the water in the shower while shampooing and shaving, we only run the dishwasher, washer and dryer when totally full, we turn off EVERYTHING when we are not home, we never leave faucets running while brushing your teeth. I could go on and on.

Everyone can make a difference in their own way. Criticizing others for their efforts to become greener by spending money is unnecessary.

There have been studies in the field of econ to show that one of the unfortunate side effects of "going green" has resulted in much more waste by energy consumption in manufacturing and by throwing out the old...

But FC has it right; rather than thinking "green" by purchase and replacement, the key to this is maximizing the resources currently used and minimizing impact in small ways... it's really effort more than anything that makes the difference.

My name isn't really Bob to answer the comment about names on the internet. I just find it disarms people when I want to be a lurker or join a new site. Otherwise i have a different name I use. Why not use my real name? Because it's dull when everyone is MikeH or George_Smith21213 and so on. My names have meaning behind them, (often involve titles and never anything as embarrassing as SexyKitten5 or BoozeBoy291) and are uniqueenough to stick in the minds of others.

Other than that, being green is easiest when you simply reduce. I live without many of what others call necessities (the biggest thing I lack is an automobile), and try to keep my possessions compact, multi-purpose, and minimal. I do it to frequent moving habits, (which also somehow involve tiny apartments that are remarkably inexpensive for my area), but my environmental footprint has been minimal because of it.

I have to agree with previous comments on this being the most oft forgotten ecologically sound advice in today's eco-consumerist culture. Then again, not buying things is directly opposite of the "consumerism" aspect.

The recycle design was originally intended to be a cycle:

Reduce consumption (don't eliminate consumption), recycle the waste from that consumption, and re-use those things that are not waste from that consumption.

Then the cycle continues by suggesting that you reduce your consumption (even of reused items) and recycling those re-used items when they are beyond use and then finally re-using things that have already been re-used (by re-purposing, for example).

Almost all consumption, even merely in the form of transportation of re-used materials, is environmentally costly. "Green" renovations are very difficult to assess especially given the desire of the assessor to arrive at a high greenness quotient.

I recently installed a high-end programmable heating and cooling thermostat with ceiling fan control (1/2 price on ebay - $80) and thought of it mostly as an indulgence but was shocked to see my electricity bill drop by $40 a month.

I have a hard time not seeing this as a huge green win, but I sort of think that type of return is the minimum you should be able to prove before the word "green" is rolled out.

Pleasure and happiness are pretty damn good reasons to do something too.