Green Our Way: Painting

I would have to say that our greatest aspiration in remodeling our home is to create a sustainable space. Having an environmental friendly home is the top priority. I was recently invited to track my green remodeling adventures on Your Daily Thread where I've contributed two articles so far; "Keeping Our Green Promises" and "Water Wisdom". But here I have an opportunity to track all of the large and small ways in which we green our home one step at at time.

One of the first things we've done inside is paint 3 of the rooms. We were very determined to use high quality, but eco friendly paint for this project. Heading for the paint counter at Home Depot one day, I was fully prepared to launch in to what exactly a VOC is (volatile organic compund) and why I didn't want them in my paint (they contribute to indoor air pollution - learn more here). But I forget sometimes that this whole green thing I love so much has actually began to penetrate mainstream consciousness. The disinterested clerk simply jerked his thumb to a display a bit down the aisle before I could even get situated up on my soapbox.

While I was certainly impressed by the eco friendly options at the big box store, I was interested in finding zero VOC paint in lots of colors. Enter Sherwin Williams. Their paint color, paint quality and customer service are beyond wonderful and I can't rave about them enough. On our first visit a nice gentlemen walked us through the VOC explanation (I just let him talk) and their eco friendly paint supply options. When I asked him which of the colors were available in their Harmony or no VOC collection, I was pleased to hear that every single color on each card with the exception of the very darkest colors (um...not a chance in this tiny house) were available. Then he proceeded to hand me a color stack and told us to keep it as long as we liked. Scott and I were so impressed with their service we are loyal customers and won't shop anywhere else!

So the first thing we've done in the house is as green as can be. We're off to a great start!