Living Large In Our Little House

Here's another awe­some guest post by a Living Large com­mu­nity mem­ber, Heather Larson. It was inspired by a com­ment some­one made to Heather on another post about how lucky she is to live in the very green state of Washington. If you're headed to Washington, or just love to read about it, Heather also writes a fan­tas­tic blog, Discover Washington State. I still have room for a few more guest posts. Anyone? fivecoat@​ozarkmountains.​com

A very green kitchen

When Kerri asked me to write a blog post about being green, I felt a lit­tle embar­rassed. Although I write about green build­ing and I live in the Evergreen State (Washington), which is extremely eco-friendly, I don’t do much myself to save the planet. I use CFL bulbs when I can, I started a com­post bin in the kitchen and then didn’t know what to do with it and I am grow­ing a small crop of veg­eta­bles this year. But my hus­band, Bob, leaves all the lights on, runs the water con­stantly while rins­ing the dishes or brush­ing his teeth and pretty much thinks green liv­ing is a bunch of hooey.

I knew I could do more than I’m cur­rently doing that wouldn’t cost a great deal or be time con­sum­ing so I drove to the land­fill (no tell­tale aroma of Tacoma there) to see the City of Tacoma’s EnviroHouse. This lit­tle gem mea­sures 820 square feet and was built to illus­trate just how green a home can be.

Native plants adorn the outside

My first ah-ha moment struck while perus­ing the beau­ti­ful land­scap­ing. The city used all native and adapted plants. Did you know that you only usu­ally need to water these two cat­e­gories of plants until they are estab­lished — between two and three years. Then you never have to worry about water­ing them again. I’ve been water­ing my annu­als twice a day when it’s hot. If I switched to native plants, that’s more time to watch soaps. Janda, the lady work­ing at the house, was kind enough to print off a list for me of all the plants used in the EnviroHouse land­scap­ing. Alert the nurs­ery, I’m on my way.

In the gar­den, all kinds of com­post­ing bins were dis­played. There I learned from one of the signs that you can com­post pet waste in a sys­tem called ver­mi­com­post­ing. We have two dogs so that would be a god­send espe­cially for the teen that mows our lawn.

I did get into the house finally where every item and sys­tem had a sign describ­ing what it was and what it did – from the organic cot­ton bath tow­els to the one-gallon-per-flush toi­let to the recy­cled art to the counter in the bath­room made of paper. Flyers, pam­phlets and even recipe cards lined the walls and coun­ters. I snatched the recipe card for a for­mula using pep­per­mint oil that kills ants. The car­pen­ter ants at our house will be say­ing, “Sayonara” soon.

You can read more about the EnviroHouse on their link, but the energy, light and water sys­tems are totally environmentally-friendly and the build­ing mate­ri­als were all either recy­clable or sustainable.

To make my visit even more mind-blowing, I came away with a swag bag filled with two CFL bulbs, a five-minute shower timer and a plas­tic bot­tle to hold a green all-purpose cleaner with the recipe for same on the side of the bottle.

What does your city or town do to edu­cate its res­i­dents about going “green”? Encourage them to develop a sus­tain­able land­scape show­place, give away CFL bulbs, flow restric­tors, shower timers or recipes to make your own clean­ers. Point to Tacoma, Washington, and ask how they can dupli­cate just a small part of the EnviroHouse. Do they offer classes or tours? I first read about the EnviroHouse in the newslet­ter that comes with our power bill. Do you read yours?