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A few months ago Susan nominated me for a “Green Lifestyle Award” that our garbage company was sponsoring. She saw the contest advertised in their quarterly newsletter (yes, my wife reads our garbage company’s newsletter, don’t ask) and the prize was a $50 gift card, not to mention the accompanying worldwide fame, so she wrote a short essay about how “green” I am. I’ve got a crew from CNN on the way to tape a segment about me but I do have a few minutes to share some of my “green” highlights.

Several years ago, at Susan’s urging, I built a compost bin in our back yard and we haven’t thrown away a single compostable food scrap since. And aside from generally being a religious recycler, during our remodeling project I directed our contractor to reuse as many of the old materials as possible. The original 50+ year old redwood framing studs were as good as new and we reused nearly every one to frame up the new walls. The old oak flooring was gently pried up and set aside. Any reusable building material or fixture from the demolition of the old structure that was not used in the new construction was given away (or, in some cases, sold) on Craig’s List or Freecycle. This included the aforementioned flooring, all the old windows and doors, blinds, lighting, ceiling fans, miscellaneous hardware, all the kitchen cabinets, sinks, the bathtub, shower door, and even the hideous old BROWN toilet from our bathroom. Everything was taken by someone. Often we were scratching our heads wondering who would possibly want this stuff, but that’s the great thing about Craig’s List, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Yes, it’s a pain to go through the trouble of posting on CL and subsequently dealing with the no-shows, flakes, and losers who back their truck down your steep driveway then roll backwards into your house when pulling out because they really don’t know how to drive a stick, yet they own one. (Not that that happened or anything.) But it’s more painful to have to move to Mars because the Earth has become one ginormous landfill.

Not only did we reuse or give away most of the materials but in many cases the “new” materials we used were actually reused materials. The chandelier and six sconce lights in the family room and dining room were purchased on Craig’s List from a woman who was remodeling her house in Orinda. (The house had just been remodeled before she bought it so the lights were nearly new, she just didn’t like them!) The laundry room faucet, kitchen pendant lights, bathroom vanity lights, and many other items were purchased used on Ebay. And finally, we tried to use environmentally friendly materials wherever possible: compact fluorescent lighting throughout the house, bamboo flooring in every room except the bathrooms and laundry room, and solid plastic HDPE lumber (made from recycled milk jugs!) for the lower deck are a few examples. We’re also seriously considering installing a solar power system once we’ve paid off a bit more of our home equity loan.

So obviously these things are important to us, and though Susan did not disclose everything above in her letter to the garbage company, I still won the award. (It was a hard fought campaign, rife with mudslinging, but clearly the best candidate won.) The funny thing is they wanted to present it to me in person and asked if I could come down to their offices somewhere near Martinez for the presentation, presumably so they could take a photo for their next newsletter. Susan asked them if they could just mail the award and the gift certificate, which they eventually did. We felt sort of ungrateful but a) I don’t have time to be driving out to Martinez to receive some silly certificate and b) I found it strange that a company sponsoring a “green lifestyle” award would encourage frivolous driving in order to receive said award. But this is the same company that didn’t offer auto bill pay until about a year ago and still doesn’t offer online paperless billing. But then I suppose if they did we wouldn’t have heard about the Green Lifestyle Award in the first place.

Drinking establishments? Herbal remedies? Exotic plants? Nope, these are the paint colors Susan and I chose for our bedroom and bathroom, which were painted today. The closet, hallway, sitting area and 90% of the main bedroom will be Prickly Pear. We decided to highlight one wall of the bedroom by painting it a different but complementary color, Moss Green. (This is the wall that I am hoping to hang my plasma TV on - look for a subsequent post on how ridiculously hard it is to research and buy a TV these days, even with the web as research tool.) These two colors are considered cool colors by Kelly Moore. The bathroom is Tiger Balm, a deep warm yellow.

When we got home from work today and saw the painted walls, we both thought the Prickly Pear was a bit too gray and not as green as it appeared in the brochure. Perhaps when it’s completely dry and we can view it in natural light it will be closer to what we were looking for, but it’s not a big deal. The fact that they’re already painting means we are getting very close to being able to move back into our bedroom after living in our dining room since mid-December! Overall, the project is going quite well. (You can follow the progress by viewing the photos in the Remodel gallery, I’ll add photos of the newly-painted areas shortly.)

As you can see in the photos, the presence of backhoes and bulldozers indicates we’re doing quite a bit more than just remodeling our bedroom and bathroom. The majority of the house is currently being supported by two huge steel I-beams which in turn are supported by several massive wooden columns and a system of jacks. Once that structure was in place the whole rear foundation was demolished and 300+ cubic yards of dirt on the down slope behind the house was excavated to make way for a new lower level, directly underneath where we previously had a deck. The roof of that lower level will become a tiled veranda at the same level of the previous deck, accessible via the master bedroom, living room, and new family room, yet to be built. We decided to do the master bed/bath portion of the project first so we would have a nice new living space during the subsequent, more disruptive portion of the project. As soon as we’re back in our bedroom they will be literally razing the existing family room to the ground, boarding up the exposed side of the house, drilling 12′ deep pier holes for the new foundation, and starting on the new addition. Retreating to the sanctuary of our new expanded bedroom and bathroom will be most welcome during the chaos of the rest of the project.

And with the paint going up today there is light at the end of the tunnel. Yesterday the radiant floor heating was installed in the bathroom and the tile will be installed over it tomorrow. The radiant floor is controlled by a thermostat with a timer that can be set so we’ll have toasty warm floors every morning! After the tile all that’s left are the bamboo flooring for the bedroom and closet, crown moulding and baseboards, doors and trim, window trim, trim painting, the cultured granite wall panels for the shower and tub surround, the tempered glass shower door and wall, the new faucets for the sinks in the bathroom, the electrical outlets, switches, and dimmers, and the new ceiling fan. Whew! Maybe “all that’s left” wasn’t the right choice of words. But you’d be surprised how quickly some of these things happen, and other things, like taping and texturing walls, seem to take way too long. But the net net is that by the end of next week we should be back in our bedroom, with the final touches in the bathroom finishing soon after. I can’t wait.