I love bamboo! My husband and I have grown it in a couple of places we’ve lived. Here’s a guest article specifically about furniture made from bamboo. — Zana

Finding Eco-Friendly Products in Bamboo

By Phil Pendleton

A new generation of shoppers are beginning to approach furniture shopping with an entirely new approach. Green friendly products are becoming an important offering in the world of furniture. Manufacturers are also becoming for eco aware in terms of their manufacturing practices and how they recycle the waste at their facilities. So what does this mean for us when we’re shopping for a new bed or other furniture? Read the rest >>>

Dan Chiras writes well and prolifically on many aspects of green homes. Staying warm and staying cool take a lot of our time, attention, and money. The more we can have a home that takes advantage of the sun, the better. This book is mainly for people planning to build or remodel. — Zana

Description
Passive solar heating and passive cooling—approaches known as natural conditioning—provide comfort throughout the year by reducing, or eliminating, the need for fossil fuel. Yet while heat from sunlight and ventilation from breezes is free for the taking, few modern architects or builders really understand the principles involved.

Now Dan Chiras, author of the popular book “The Natural House,” brings those principles up to date for a new generation of solar enthusiasts. Read the rest >>>

Has the power gone out at your place in the past year? Are you more or less prepared for being without electricity for a while? I’ve got five tips. With the power grid vulnerable to a variety of events, it’s a good idea to set things up so you can do okay if your power is out for a while.

We lived in Mexico for several years recently and we experienced a number of power outages. They usually lasted a few minutes or even a few hours, but occasionally  they went for more than 24 hours. So here are my tips: Read the rest >>>

This guest article is about organizing your storage in small studio apartments but as we live in a small house, I read it with interest for my own situation and found several useful tips. Simple living often means living in smaller spaces, to be more sustainable, have lower power bills, and to pay less rent or a smaller mortgage.

There is a real art to living in small homes and part of that is to be well organized. Here’s a good book on remodeling small spaces: Not So Big Remodeling: Tailoring Your Home for the Way You Really Live — Zana

Studio Living-Storage Ideas

By Michael Russell

A basic interior design concept for small studio apartments is to fit storage on the walls as far as possible in order to free floor space for general living. Wall systems ranging from pockets and adjustable shelves to peg-boards, brackets and butcher’s hooks can be fitted onto any available wall space using appropriate fixings. Vertical Wall-hung letter or magazine racks are practical and space-saving and can be fixed at any height, in any area of the room. For maximum interior design flexibility look for adjustable, wall-hung shelving units. The range of materials in which these systems are available in, or that can be fabricated from are almost limitless. Natural Maplewood to create that soft earth look or high-tech stainless steel or aluminium are just some of the choices to make your shelving decorative and practical at the same time. Read the rest >>>

For the past four years, my husband and I  lived  in Mexico, in a little cabin that we bought. We had a 25-year-old washing machine which worked great and didn’t mind the vagaries of our electric current there. We dried our clothes on clotheslines. At the start of our second rainy season I muttered something about getting a clothes dryer and Kelly responded by putting a roof over a walkway behind the house and adding more clotheslines. Worked fine.

Now we are in the process of moving back to Colorado, to a house which comes with a relatively new washer and gas dryer. Kelly plans to continue drying his clothes on a line he will string in the solar greenhouse that is attached to the house. I think I will do my laundry both ways, sometimes clothesline sometimes dryer. Here’s why: Read the rest >>>

Household cleansers rank high in the lists of toxic substances in most homes. That’s why I was so delighted to see that Clean: The Humble Art of Zen-Cleansing, by Michael de Jong, has received dozens of five-star rankings at Amazon. People comment that they keep the book handy. I’ve added this to my Amazon wishlist and will report in again sometime in the future on how I adopt its many  simple recipes for household cleaning. — Zana

Description

It’s easier than you think to clean your home in a nontoxic, environmentally responsible way! Conceptualized and designed by legendary publishing visionary Joost Elffers—the force behind such bestsellers as Play With Your Food and The 48 Laws of Power—this wonderful guide will help get your house shipshape without hurting the environment or your health. Inspirational cleaning guru Michael de Jong writes with humor and a Zen-like spirit as he presents five safe, all-natural products that take care of just about anything:

• Baking Soda,
• Borax,
• Lemon,
• Salt, and
• White Vinegar.

Each one gets a chapter featuring dozens of clever tips, while a handy alphabetized directory, organized by category, makes it easy to locate the information you need. With its graphically stunning and easy-to-use design, Clean helps you find your spic-and-span center.

Clean: The Humble Art of Zen-Cleansing