This is turning into an eco

As some of you might have noticed from my Facebook status interjections, I’ve sold my loft and recently found a new house that I’m about to renovate. And as my more “serious” blogging now occurs on the Perennia blog, I thought it might be a nice idea to share my journey into renovating in the most ecoresponsible way that I possibly can, within time and budget constraints.

So first tings first: the “before” pictures!


The goods:

• located 200 meters from a metro (which means I can continue to take public transportation)

• 10 minutes bike ride from the office

• a few blocks from parks and supermarkets

• built in 1953, has only had one owner (very rare)

• no structural work to be done

My personal design brief goes more or less as follows:

• keep as much of it as possible

• open it up, bring in the light

• transform the back yard into a food growing place, as well as an outside “room” for summer living

• use as much ecoresponsible materials as possible

• buy locally as much as possible

• ban all toxic materials

• when felling walls, do it in a way that the wood beams may be recycled

• pet project: try to keep the ‘70’s era bar as intact as possible, while upgrading it to suit my own tastes

All that carpet and tiles are coming off, and we’ll see how the original wooden floors are looking. For colors, I’m very tempted to go all out in very bright colors: mazatlan blue, coral, kelly green, etc (all in non VOC paints, of course). I also want to open up a large chunk of the kitchen and have a great big huge door to have seamless outside-inside living during summer months. I’ll need help with the garden, but a huge bonus will be the fact that I’ll be able to compost to my heart’s content and reuse that beatiful humus in my garden! I want to plant varieties that will be sturdy, local and easy to take car of.

So let’s consider this week one and see how it goes.