Reclaim Your Home - How to Green Your Interior Space
From:
Amanda Miller
82 days 7 hours 58 minutes ago
Bridget Biscotti Bradley, a prolific home-improvement author and editor, recently treated me to a tour of her and her husband’s fabulous new store,
Reclaim, located in Menlo Park, Calif. Here Bradley shares her extensive knowledge about green home products and fun, easy ways to green interior spaces.
What made you and your husband, Kirk Bradley, decide to open a green home store?
Like most people, we take great pride in our home and making it
look and function just the way we want it to. When we started hearing more about green
home-improvement products several years ago, we were interested in trying them, but the products just weren’t that accessible. It was still quicker and easier to keep buying the same old stuff.
Today there are many more sources of information, but for the most part, green home
products are still most easily found
online. We felt there must be people like us who just weren’t comfortable making large purchases without being able to see and touch the products, especially when we’re talking about new and different materials.
Our desire for green home products to be more accessible, as well as our enthusiasm about all the incredible choices these days in everything from eco-friendly
furniture to flooring, inspired us to open Reclaim.
What makes a product green? For example, green products often use sustainable materials, ecologically safe farming practices, and materials that are safe for human health. Plus, workers’ rights are respected.Those are all good. Also give preference to products that are locally made. They will have less of a
carbon footprint than those that traveled from halfway around the world. Some products give off toxic fumes that negatively affect indoor air quality. So, off-gassing should also be taken into account.
If someone is looking to make only one green change, without remodeling, what would you suggest?
I would suggest buying an organic mattress. We spend about a third of our lives
sleeping, so it’s important that we make our beds as healthy as possible. Conventional mattresses are treated with flame
retardants that include hormone-disrupting chemicals, while organic
mattresses use untreated wool to slow down flames. Wool is also a natural dust-mite repellant, but dust mites love petrochemical-based foam mattresses, and these dust mites are giving people allergy problems they might not otherwise have.
The thing that people get the most excited about are the Vetrazzo—made in the Bay Area— and IceStone—made in Brooklyn—
countertops made from post-consumer recycled glass and concrete. People like that they look so different from granite and that there are such colorful options in both lines.
Bamboo towels are another popular item. We carry Nandina towels, which are made of 75 percent bamboo and 25 percent organic cotton. People love how soft they are. In addition to being sustainable, bamboo is also a highly absorbent material, so towels made from bamboo absorb water better than regular towels and dry faster, making them naturally resistant to mold and mildew. Because bamboo is not farmed in America, these products always come from overseas, but Nandina towels are made in an
eco-friendly, wind-powered plant in Japan.
What’s the biggest misconception about green products?One of the biggest long-running misconceptions is that green home products are ugly. When choosing items for
Reclaim, we found colorful, beautiful products that can be incorporated into any style house that also just happen to be made of eco-friendly materials. People can be just as creative in their design
decisions using organic cotton, FSC-certified wood, and recycled materials as they can by using fabrics treated with chemicals, old-growth wood, and new materials where the manufacturing process is harmful to the environment. People don’t have to change their taste to buy healthy, green products for their homes.
Another misconception is that green products are too expensive. When they do cost more, it’s usually because they are manufactured
by small companies that lack the economies of scale that their larger, conventional competitors have. The good news is that the more we buy
eco-friendly products, the less expensive they will become.
What small, easy, eco-friendly steps would you recommend to people interested in greening their homes? First, start using eco-friendly
cleaning products. So many people now eat organic food, and this is really the same issue—safeguarding our
health. Second, if you need to paint something, buy no-VOC paint. Third, when shopping, look for
vintage. We carry a lot of vintage
gift items at
Reclaim. Buying vintage is a great way to be green, and it’s cost effective too. If you’re going to buy something new, ask what it’s made of and where it came from. Although these questions can sometimes be hard to answer, you’ll find that just by asking them you’ll become a more savvy green
shopper.
—Amanda Miller
Bridget Biscotti Bradley’s Resource Recommendations
Websites Build It Green The Green Guide Grist Tree Hugger Television Channel
Planet Green Magazines
Natural HomeEnvironmental Building News Books
Jennifer Roberts,
Good Green Kitchens Karen Templer,
Kitchens, A Sunset Design Guide Bridget Biscotti Bradley,
Bathrooms, A Sunset Design Guide Josh Dorfman,
The Lazy Environmentalist Kimberly Rider,
Organic Baby: Simple Steps to Healthy Living Joanna Yarrow,
1,001 Ways to Save the Earth
