By Matt Weafer
Messenger-Inquirer Owensboro Today
This spring when you’re pulling out the couch to attack the annual aggregation of dust bunnies, emptying out the garage and wiping down the shelves of your refrigerator, consider the environment.
Every year, we break out the Pine-Sol and the vacuum cleaner attachments and go to town for spring cleaning for a fresh start to the new life of the new year. Why not make that fresh start even better by transforming your home into an eco-conscious living space?
The trick to establishing a greener home that is both easy to maintain through the year and functional is to create an infrastructure that supports recycling and a lighter eco-footprint.
Organize a recycling center in your home
Recycling is a breeze with a designated home recycling center that contains bins to separate and store waste until you take them to the city’s recycling center.
Clear out a space in your home, such as a corner in the garage, a broom closet or even the trunk of your car to store recyclables.
Owensboro only offers recycling for seven items at the recycling center: clear plastic, opaque non-colored plastic, cardboard, newspapers, magazines, steel cans and aluminum cans.
Some local retailers, including Wal-Mart, offer recycling for plastic grocery bags.
Make your trip to the recycling center an activity as regular as going to the groceries.
Avoid harmful cleaning products
Most household cleaning products contain harmful chemicals including carcinogens, endocrine disruptors (which can cause ADHD, infertility, challenged immune systems, miscarriages, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other cancers) and neurotoxins (which affect brain activity, causing headaches and loss of intellect).
While many cleaning products tout “natural” and “organic” in their names, those terms are not clearly defined to mean safe for you or the environment. And manufacturers are not required to list every ingredient in the product.
Researching safe cleaning products can be overwhelming, time consuming and frustrating. So look for cleaning products that don’t contain the warning signal words “caution,” “warning,” “danger” or “poison.” These terms indicate that the product is harmful or fatal.
Instead of reading ingredient lists, look for cleaning products that say on the front “contains no . . .” volatile organic compounds (VOCs), Alkylphenolethoxylates (APEs), Formaldehyde, Organochlorines (OCs), Styrene or Phthalates.
Also, though this may be disappointing to many people who love the smell of fabric softener, look for fragrance-free products.
In 1986 the U. S. National Academy of Science identified the ingredients in many manufactured fragrances as carcinogens and neurotoxins that are the primary cause of disease in humans along with insecticides, heavy metals, solvents and food additives.
Start a compost pile
When you chop lettuce and peel onions while fixing dinner, don’t throw the waste in the trash.
Start a compost pile in your backyard — or side yard if you don’t have a back yard. Or consider starting a community compost bin if you live in an apartment.
The compost pile can be kept neat and is easy to manage if started properly. Discard waste into a small area on the ground contained by some two-by-fours or some chicken wire about two to three feet high.
Keep the pile damp but not soggy, and cover it with a thin layer of dirt.
The best compost contains 75 percent brown material (leaves, saw dust, dye-free paper towels and napkins) and 25 percent green material (vegetable and fruit scraps, grass clippings in small amounts, egg shells, tea bags, and coffee filters) with a thin layer of dirt on top. Toss a couple of earth worms in there to speed up the process.
Rotate the pile with a pitchfork or shovel every two weeks. The bottom layer of the pile is ready to use every few months.
Minimize utility consumption
While you power through the house with your vacuum cleaner and dust rag, look for any electronic appliances that sit unused for significant intervals and unplug them.
Virtually every electronic appliance draws phantom power even when turned off. DVD players, TVs, computers, radios and cell phone chargers when not in use still draw electricity.
Desktop computers are one of the biggest energy leaches in your home.
If your entertainment center plug-ins are stashed behind a shelf unit, consider plugging them into an easily accessible surge protector so you can turn it on and off when you go to sleep or leave for school or work.
If you haven’t already, go ahead and switch you incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescents (CFLs). They have decreased in price significantly since they first hit the market and you will earn your money back quickly as they last longer and use less electricity.
And when you hit the bathroom and kitchen, screw an aerator onto your faucets. They decrease water consumption and are easy to attach. Shower head aerators are available as well but may require a little more to install them.
Reprinted with permission from Messenger-Inquirer.
Showing posts with label Owensboro Today. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Owensboro Today. Show all posts
Friday, February 20, 2009
Good style is personality with practicality
By Matt Weafer
Messenger-Inquirer Owensboro Today
The décor of a home is the reflection of the owner’s personality and lifestyle.
Laura Ruth Edge, owner of her new design business, L. Ruth Interior Design, recognizes her clients’ uniqueness and embraces their style to design the most practical and attractive area possible.
With spring blossoming, Edge said, many people want to shed the drab gray that clung to them over winter and redecorate for the new year.
L. Ruth Interior Design specializes in residential and commercial interior design, which includes product specification, space planning, project coordination, window treatments, floor coverings, wall covering designs and creative ideas for interior and furniture.
Inspired by her namesake, her Aunt Ruth, Edge focuses on cutting edge style; but more importantly, she focuses on pleasing her client.
“I was named after my Aunt Ruth,” Edge said. “And I always looked up to her. She was the epitome of good taste and class.”
Over the years, her aunt always signed Edge’s name as L. Ruth to emphasize that they shared a name.
So, Edge chose L. Ruth as the name of her business and had her aunt sign L. Ruth one more time so she could copy that for her logo.
With her aunt as an inspiration to produce practical designs with stylish appearance, Edge dedicates herself to satisfying her clients’ tastes.
Edge uses local suppliers for a wide selection of quality furniture styles, flooring options, fabric patterns and much more.
“I listen to my clients’ needs and wants,” Edge said. “I want the designs to reflect their taste, not mine.”
With a Bachelor’s degree in Interior Design, Edge said she developed knowledge of many styles and an appreciation for designs that may not be her own taste.
“My interest in doing this is solely to make interiors look and work better for my clients,” Edge said.
Edge said she never wants an individual to walk into one of her clients’ rooms and say, “I bet you had Laura Ruth Edge design this.”
“That means I’ve become boring and redundant,” she said. By decorating according to her clients and with new styles that emerge daily, she strives for something unique with each project.
“There’s too much out there to reproduce the same design over and over,” Edge said.
Many people say, “I know what style I like, I just don’t know how to do it,” she said. Edge focuses on aiding those people.
“I learned to appreciate so many types of styles and designs that allow me to understand what a person wants,” she said. “I want to make it work for them with as little maintenance as possible.”
As an educated designer and a freelancer with Hubbuch & Co., Edge maintains a large selection of resources to help guide clients to their ideal designs.
“I want to be an efficient interior designer,” she said. “I’m wasting people’s time and money if I’m not doing what they need me to do.”
For more information or to schedule a consultation with Edge, contact her at 270-240-4932 or 270-314-8895. Or email her at LREdge@hotmail.com.
Reprinted with permission from Messenger-Inquirer.
Messenger-Inquirer Owensboro Today
The décor of a home is the reflection of the owner’s personality and lifestyle.
Laura Ruth Edge, owner of her new design business, L. Ruth Interior Design, recognizes her clients’ uniqueness and embraces their style to design the most practical and attractive area possible.
With spring blossoming, Edge said, many people want to shed the drab gray that clung to them over winter and redecorate for the new year.
L. Ruth Interior Design specializes in residential and commercial interior design, which includes product specification, space planning, project coordination, window treatments, floor coverings, wall covering designs and creative ideas for interior and furniture.
Inspired by her namesake, her Aunt Ruth, Edge focuses on cutting edge style; but more importantly, she focuses on pleasing her client.
“I was named after my Aunt Ruth,” Edge said. “And I always looked up to her. She was the epitome of good taste and class.”
Over the years, her aunt always signed Edge’s name as L. Ruth to emphasize that they shared a name.
So, Edge chose L. Ruth as the name of her business and had her aunt sign L. Ruth one more time so she could copy that for her logo.
With her aunt as an inspiration to produce practical designs with stylish appearance, Edge dedicates herself to satisfying her clients’ tastes.
Edge uses local suppliers for a wide selection of quality furniture styles, flooring options, fabric patterns and much more.
“I listen to my clients’ needs and wants,” Edge said. “I want the designs to reflect their taste, not mine.”
With a Bachelor’s degree in Interior Design, Edge said she developed knowledge of many styles and an appreciation for designs that may not be her own taste.
“My interest in doing this is solely to make interiors look and work better for my clients,” Edge said.
Edge said she never wants an individual to walk into one of her clients’ rooms and say, “I bet you had Laura Ruth Edge design this.”
“That means I’ve become boring and redundant,” she said. By decorating according to her clients and with new styles that emerge daily, she strives for something unique with each project.
“There’s too much out there to reproduce the same design over and over,” Edge said.
Many people say, “I know what style I like, I just don’t know how to do it,” she said. Edge focuses on aiding those people.
“I learned to appreciate so many types of styles and designs that allow me to understand what a person wants,” she said. “I want to make it work for them with as little maintenance as possible.”
As an educated designer and a freelancer with Hubbuch & Co., Edge maintains a large selection of resources to help guide clients to their ideal designs.
“I want to be an efficient interior designer,” she said. “I’m wasting people’s time and money if I’m not doing what they need me to do.”
For more information or to schedule a consultation with Edge, contact her at 270-240-4932 or 270-314-8895. Or email her at LREdge@hotmail.com.
Reprinted with permission from Messenger-Inquirer.
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