Eco-Friendly Homes

Welcome to my Eco-Friendly Home! Today we meet up with Michelle Ifversen of Design Well Studios (DWS) based in Portland, OR!

Michelle is a biophilic designer and environmental wellness coach all wrapped into one person! And yes, she is that impressive!

Come learn from Michelle all about testing your home environment for chemicals like formaldehyde, toxic mold, and electro magnetic frequencies (EMFs). At DWS, testing is the key component for living a healthy, wellness based, and even regenerative life! Without the certainty of home testing, you're just guessing when it comes to your home's health and wellness and your body's health and wellness.

Additionally, Michelle has won design competitions that are based on biophilia (plants and nature). She incorporates nature into art pieces around the house and texturizes features to show off natural elements like movement and sunlight. Through this technique, even those without green thumbs can feel inspired by the great out doors!

Books she mentions:
What's Toxic, What's Not by Gary Ginsberg (Amazon link, not affiliated)
Toxic by Dr. Neil Nathan (audible link)
Neil's website

Part of having an eco-friendly home is having a clean home! Marjee and Marquise Wise co-own their own house cleaning business based in Boulder, CO. I worked on their team for six months and learned A LOT including best house keeping practices, places and spaces frequently forgotten (that actually make a drastic difference), and WHY Wise Cleaners uses nontoxic, green cleaning products.

Marquise has a history of asthma and allergies so we also tap into common household allergies and why the green products are safe to use in all homes! We're also friends so this was an extra fun episode to record :)

Marjee's mentions:
"Think Dirty" App for rating you products.
"Branch Basics" bathroom cleaner, all purpose cleaner, and kitchen cleaner. 

Lastly, in my podcast from 2 weeks ago I interviewed Peyton's Potions, an essential oil based, nontoxic household cleaner. If you would like to check them out use my discount code ECOHOMES15 for 15% off!!

Happy Cleaning!

Peyton’s Potion is an all natural, nontoxic household cleaner made with the highest quality essential oils, Colorado local, safe for children, pets, and even those with compromised immune systems! In fact, Peyton’s Potion was created by a dedicated mother, Jess Armstrong, with her son, Peyton Armstrong, while he was battling with acute lymphocytic leukemia, mixed lineage leukemia, and an infection.

Jess learned from a book she was reading, “Love. Medicine, and Miracles” by Dr. Bernie Siegel, that people who advocate for their disease have better prognosis. So they used Peyton’s sense of smell, essential oils, and a natural chemist to create this product that is safe for him and other children with cancer. They donate 5% of every sale to Cure Search to support childhood cancer research. 

To purchase online check out their website: https://peytonspotion.com/

Use my discount code ECOHOMES15 for 15% off! 

And if you are wanting to learn more or find products in a local store check out their blog and Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/peytonspotion/?hl=en

All Peyton’s Potions are sold in reusable, biodegradable, glass bottles and all refill concentrates of this all purpose cleaner are also sold in glass bottles!

This is a fantastic product that I am so thankful to have on my podcast! It really smells amazing, very earthy and pure. I have started spraying it everywhere including my car, shoes, and desk! I have also started using it as a little hand sanitizer when I can and doing what Jess does, taking a zen moment from the naturally soothing aromas. However, I am almost out since recording to the time of this posting. So do be warned, you will use it all!! :)

And because I cannot give you all of the details in the show notes, listen for the paper crane story! This explains their beautiful, hands-on logo!

Links:

Love Medicine and Miracles by Dr. Bernie Siegel http://berniesiegelmd.com/products-page/holistic-healing/love-medicine-miracles-lessons-learned-about-self-healing-from-a-surgeons-experience-with-exceptional-patients/

ECOHOMES15

Environmental Working Group (EWG) https://www.ewg.org/

Hailey Armstrong daughter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZvQ0sS_HuM

Pranarom Essential Oils that Peyton’s Potion uses https://pranarom.us/products/essential-oils/

Cute and quick bonus content from our first conversation together. Elizabeth Boulos, The Ingredient Insider, and I chat about sugar alternatives and our favorite low-sugar bands!

Links:

Swerve - from New Orleans, LA and made from erythritol.

https://swervesweet.com/about

Simple Mills - my favorite premade cookies!

https://www.simplemills.com/

Lakanto - brownies sweetened with monk fruit and keto friendly. 

https://www.lakanto.com/products/sugar-free-low-carb-brownies

Find yourself diving deep into food labels, the food packaging process, food costs, grocery store economics, and more unique topics like second class produce, suicide rates with coffee farmers, and monkey labor for coconut water!

Elizabeth Boulos is "The Ingredient Insider" for a reason. She has experience marketing for global sustainability labels focusing on cost savings, ethics, and ingredients. Elizabeth is also the Marketing Director for an upcoming podcast guest, Peyton's Potions.

Please enjoy learning about sustainable claims in this free flowing conversation and check out our cute and quick 10 minute bonus episode all about baking, sugar, and our favorite low-sugar brands!

Links for The Ingredient Insider:

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/groups/theingredientinsiders/

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/the.ingredient.insider/

Books mentioned:

Waste by Tristram Stewart

https://www.tristramstuart.co.uk/books

Stuffed and Starved by Raj Patel

http://rajpatel.org/2009/10/27/stuffed-and-starved/#more-93

Cohousing allows people to own their own units while consciously sharing common space, items, meals, and time together. It provides people with a sense of belonging, connection, and purpose while also meeting the needs of sustainability or regeneration by not taking up too much space, sharing resources, and building a tribe.

Intentional communities come in many shapes and sizes, cohousing is just one of them. Others include eco-villages, communal living, co-ops, and co-buying.

In the micro village Trish and her family are developing in Wheat Ridge, CO, they’re converting part of the existing built environment into a common house space that includes a community library and co-working space. Turing a building into something else that serves its highest and best use is part of the cohousing mindset. Values include shared space, using a little less square footage, and warm human connections. 

Cohousing is an exemplary model of regenerative real estate to purchase and is also a possibility to create on our own. Trish informs us that we’re all able to create our own eco-friendly cohousing community by simply meeting and building a connection with our neighbors, offering extra storage space for the neighbors to use, or offering our extra supplies to the community for use. 

Let us all consider creative ways to live together as we step into a future filled with deep and meaningful connections and resourceful habits. 

Podcast correction* In the podcast Trish asks if converted basements can also be considered an ADU, Accessory Dwelling Units. I thought it must be detached to be classified as an ADU. However, the correct answer is an ADU is any addition or remodel that creates a secondary living quarter within a single-family residential lot. This includes basement and garage conversions, as well as building an attached or detached unit to expand the livable space.

Connect with Trish:

Website

Ted Talk

LinkedIn

Instagram: @trishyloulou

Cohousing links:

I am a Realtor with eXp Realty, LLC in Denver. If you would like to take a tour to buy a cohousing unit with me as your agent please reach out! Madison Hopkins, [email protected]

Aria in Denver, CO 

Aria website with units available. 

Micro Community forming in Wheat Ridge, CO 38th & Sheridan. 

Hearthstone in the Denver Highlands and FB page

Harmony Village in Golden, CO

Highline Crossing in Littleton, CO  and FB page

Wild Sage Cohousing in Boulder, CO

Education:

Want to find cohousing elsewhere? Check out “coho” Cohousing Association of America https://www.cohousing.org/

Want to create your own intentional community like cohousing? Foundation for Intentional Community  https://www.ic.org/

Thanks for listening! Subscribe for more eco-friendly home tricks and remember your cookies!!

Repurpose your mascara wand to rehabilitate wounded animals! Wands For Wildlife is a nonprofit dedicated to collecting and distributing mascara wands to aid in animal rehabilitation. The wand is the applicator end that has bristles to apply product to your eyelashes. The wands are an ideal tool as the bristles are supple, don't break easily, and come in so many shapes. Usually, these are a one time time use plastic and are thrown away as they cannot be recycled. Wands For Wildlife has found a way to repurposes this single use plastic.

The variety of shapes are best suited for different scenarios like cleaning soot off wings or fur, removing larvae, cleaning a turtle's  neck folds, etc. Animals will need to be rehabilitated if they have been injured in natural disasters, injured by humans, left abandon, etc.

Guest speaker, Kelly Doktor, is a volunteer with W4W and received over 1 million views on her original promotional post! She received 15,000 mascara wands in the first couple of weeks! Collection can be held by anyone willing to ship mascara wands to Wands For Wildlife in North Carolina.

Currently, due to the pandemic, the collection process has stopped, however, this has given the volunteers ample time to distribute backed up supply to the rehabilitators. Collection is estimated to resume in March 2021.

Check their website or sign up for the newsletter announcement for when collection resumes as well as the address
www.wandsforwildlife.org

W4W has also partnered with artists who will take the mascara wands and create murals out of them! Checkout my Instagram @moving.with.madison for a picture of the Mascara Owl!

Animal safety is a fantastic way humans can show responsibility for our part on this planet. You can select W4W to be your charity on Amazon Smile.

Remember, if there is something in your house you typically throw out, check online to see if there is another alternative. Maybe someone makes repurposed art, maybe there is a nonprofit who reuses it, or maybe there is a DIY project you can do with it. 

Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle (Compost)

What happens to all of our recyclable materials?
Step 1: collection & delivery
Step 2: sorting
Step 3: sell to become raw materials

The raw materials are then made into something new. This is "true recycling."
Aluminum and steel are infinitely recyclable, meaning they can be made into something new over and over and over again, making them part of a closed loop system.

"Dead end" recyclables are materials like plastic that can only be made into something new 1 or 2 times. For example they might become a picture frame and that frame then will go in the trash. It is a dead end.

End markets are a huge topic as that is the point when raw materials are turned into something new. This is crucial for the business of recycling to even exist and we are working to create more end markets in our local areas. This will bring the cost of recycling down too.

Common things products that can be recycled:
Glass, cans, paper & cardboard.
Glass includes glass bottles but not glass dishware.
Cans includes aluminum cans, steel is also recyclable, but not scrap metal.
Plastics are remembered by their shape: bottles, tubs, jugs, and jars. This does not include clamshells, chip bags, or plastic bags.
Paper & cardboard is obvious but needs to be flattened before arriving to the site. This does not include grease soaked cardboard.

Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle (or Compost)

Lastly, it's always important to contact your local recycling facility to ask them what they do and do not accept in their single stream recycling. This is partly determined by the sorting machines they have and partly by what they can sell off.

Links I used for this information:
Plastic Wars (full film) from Frontline with Laura Sullivan
Eco Cycle's webinar
How China Broke the World's Recycling or as one commenter put it "How China stopped being the world's trash can"
Millennium Recycling
TREX

Eco-Friendly Homes are built on Eco-Friendly Gifts! Check out these indoor air enhancers and other quick easy gifts!

1) Bamboo Charcoal Purifying Bags

2) Indoor Plants - studies show greenery relaxes and uplifts people 

3) Tower Garden
Order from my friend's Juice Plus!

4) Plant Wall / Green Wall / Living Wall / Vertical Garden
41 DIY Plant Walls via plantdwell.com

5) Moss Wall
The Fat Plant Society's article on Medium.com

6) HEPA filtered air purifier
Austin Air
Conway Mega's article

7) Sheets & Giggles
Eucalyptus, biodegradable, plastic free shipping, plants 1 tree per order!
10% off "ECOHOME" or "MODERN WAYS"

8) Non-toxic household cleaning products
Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day
Dr. Bronner's
7th Generation

9) Hire a house cleaner for your friends or family!
Wise Cleaners in Boulder, CO

10) Gift cards to your local Board Certified Dermatologist, like my sponsor Hopkins Dermatology, for a HydraFacial gift card! 

11) Reusable water bottles

12) Reusable utensils

13) Dryer balls!

Let's debunk the 5 Myths of Green Homes! Guest speaker is Marla Esser Cloos who has also given us permission to Click here and download her entire guide at Greenhomecoach.com

Myth 1: Green only matters to certain clients, like millennials. 
Myth 2: No one is asking for green homes.
Myth 3: Green is expensive.
Myth 4: Solar panels are the hallmark of a green home.
Myth 5: Green is just the latest trend.

Ready to do more? Click here to download her 9 Ways to Update to Green via Everydaygreenhome.com

We discuss what "Green" means in the home environment such as living environmentally friendly, healthier, safer, more comfortable, with more durability, & less maintenance.

We explore the use of label like Floor Score, Carpet and Rug Institute's Green Label Plus, & GreenGuard.

And lastly, we implement the 5 categories from the National Green Building Standard (NGBS) which are water efficiency, energy efficiency, sustainable sites (location, resource efficiency, & environmental equality. Plus an additional 6th, of behavioral.

Want to check out Marla's podcast?
Click here for Apple Podcast.
Or click here for Spotify.

Also mentioned in the show is Sandra Adomatis, LEED Green Associate for home appraisals.