What’s Driving the Sustainable Interior Design Movement?
Sustainable interior design has come a long way. From being exclusively the preserve of the counter-culture it has become part of the mainstream, with sustainable practices benefiting from an extra dash of zeitgeist-grabbing cool.But despite the cultural success of the ecological movement, the old ways still persist. Many materials are [...]
Green Futures: Eco Friendly Architecture Grows Up
Modern buildings have a bad reputation, and it's easy to see why. From the brutalist concrete shells of the 1960s to the materialist excess of the 1980s, right up to the wave of cheap, featureless housing of the 1990s, humanity seemed to be at odds with the organic environment, and [...]
Straw Bale House Build: The Bricks of the Future?
When most of us hear the idea of a house made of straw, the first thing that comes to mind is the tale of the Three Little Pigs. But with straw now being recognised as the low carbon, low impact building material, it looks like it might take more than [...]
The Green Clean: Cleaning Products and Your Eco-Friendly Home
Running an environmentally conscious home means considering every aspect of your lifestyle. From energy usage to food waste, there are myriad ways to cut your family's energy footprint and soften your impact on the environment, and today we're focusing on one often overlooked aspect of the home: your choice of [...]
Creating a Low Carbon Home | So what can you do to contribute to the global effort?
With the world's largest countries continuing to rely on burning hydrocarbon fuels, cutting carbon emissions has never been more important. So what can you do to contribute to the global effort? Today we're looking at ways to shrink your footprint and create a low carbon home, giving you the power [...]
Traditional Handmade vs Mass Produced: An Honest Summary
The great philosopher Immanuel Kant once said that “the hand is the window onto the mind”, when praising the uniqueness of human craftsmanship. The ability to fashion beautiful objects by hand, whether they be utilitarian, religious or aesthetic in their nature, has long differentiated us from all other animals on [...]
Simple ways to make your home more efficient and save money each year
Do you want to save money and energy? Are you concerned about environmental protection and the efficient energy management of your home? If you are thinking how to provide comfort to your family while saving you money, there are some simple steps you can take to make your home [...]
10 reasons why you should switch to natural paints and why should you care?
They do not contain chlorinated hydrocarbons or other toxic non-degradable substances. They don’t release hazardous artificial solvents or formaldehyde They do not release harmful gases after drying. Direct contact with organisms is harmless. They have a positive effect on the atmospheric conditions of the area. They maintain the ideal natural [...]
Customer Profiles: Jon Fitzgerald & His Sugar Glider Enclosure. Build to Finish
The Custom Made Sugar Glider EnclosureI have kept sugar gliders for almost a year and gradually increased my small colony from two to four gliders. The sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps) is a small, omnivorous arboreal, and nocturnal gliding possum belonging to the marsupial infraclass. The common name refers to its preference [...]
What is Passive house? (Passivhaus) – We give you the latest low down on this ultra efficient energy contruction.
This construction standard was “rediscovered” in the early 90s by the German physicist Wolfgang Feist, who worked, studied and built in 1991 in the city of Darmstadt, southwest of Frankfurt, the first modern Passive House. A few years later, in an effort to develop and promote the existence of this [...]