A year and half ago my front lawn was covered with cardboard, compost, and shredded cedar chips in preparation for converting our front yard into a low water-use landscape flourishing with colorful, drought-tolerant native plants.

Much of the backyard was covered over in a similar manner, sans the compost. In this case the goal was weed management, especially grass (I have hayfever), and bedstraw, the seeds from which were wreaking havoc on the dog.

The results:

We haven't gotten to the stage where we are ready to move forward on our landscaping project, however some California poppy plants did sneak into the front yard of their own accord. Weeds aren't too much of a problem, but if we don't get some other plants established in the next twelve months we might have some issues.

As for the back yard, I spent about an hour's worth of weeding at the beginning of the summer, and other than a bit of touch-up here and there it has been pretty weed-free. The one small exception is bindweed, which is an ongoing battle.

Overall, I would say this cardboard and wood chip thing has worked out pretty well.

I have found that the back of furniture stores is a great place to find large, clean pieces of cardboard.

In July of 2006, in anticipation of a move to Chico, I typed in "real estate agent," "green homes" and "Chico" into Google.

This is how we met our real estate agent, and now friend, Scott Wolf.

For the most part, this blog focuses on the "smaller ticket items" of sustainability, such as how to reduce gasoline consumption, or why I value locally-grown organic rice.

But the choice to purchase one home over another based on environmental factors has hundreds of times the impact as compared to the decision to bring your own mug to the coffee shop vs. using a disposable cup.

If you are in the market for buying a house, now is certainly the time, and if energy-efficiency and sustainability are factors that are important to you when seeking a home, I can't recommend Scott highly enough.

The first certified "EcoBroker" in the North Valley, Scott patiently showed us dozens of houses in the fall of 2006. When the owner or listing agent was present, Scott asked them about the heating and cooling bills and insulation, and took note of each property's potential for solar panels and garden space. He educated us regarding the value of features such as whole house fans and dual-paned windows.

And in March of 2007, he helped us purchase our first home.

Here is a link to Scott's website, where you can learn more about green home buying, Scott, and what services he has to offer. He can also be reached at (530) 592-5357 or you can email him. Say that you read about him on this blog and get a free smile.

Thanks to Nani and Jonas for allowing me to share this photo of their back fence in the Avenues, which is constructed entirely of recycled/salvaged materials. A more detailed description of her fence and other great local home-improvement efforts ideas, and resources can be found on the new website Chicoeco.org. Here is a fence of another resourceful Chico resident:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank you very much to all who responded to my previous post. The advice is overwhelmingly in favor of using the paint that I presently have, with the reasoning being that energy has already been expended in manufacturing the paint and getting it to my house; putting forth additional energy and money to transport the old paint to the hazardous waste facility AND purchase and take home new paint would likely not offset the benefits of "recycling" the old paint and using a low-VOC product. In a nutshell, Greg's comment reminds us that "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" is more than a set of options, it is also an order of operations. Reducing (by using the old paint) is a better choice than recycling and purchasing anew. Note that "purchasing new," even an eco-product, is not even on this list. It is amazing how quickly our retail-oriented world can cause us to lose track of the most basic of environmental tenets.

I would like to follow up on two points made by Sustainability Guy. First of all, a call to the Butte Regional Household Hazardous Waste Facility revealed that the paint would indeed NOT be recycled; rather it would be either reused for a project such as painting over graffiti or would be taken to a waste disposal facility and incinerated. The woman I spoke to echoed the comments of one reader, suggesting that it would be better to donate perfectly good paint (even if it is higher VOC content) to a cause such as Habitat for Humanity.

However, a conversation with a representative at Kelly-Moore's home office in Sacramento revealed that paints CAN be recycled. The gentleman was proud to report that Kelly-Moore is the only large-scale paint company to have a program where the public may return excess Kelly-Moore latex paint (in the original can) to the Sacramento facility at 5101 Raley Boulevard, where it is then reprocessed and resold. Similar to many other recycled products, the energy required to reprocess the paint is a fraction of the cost to produce a virgin product, and thus Kelly-Moore's E-Coat line of recycled paints retails for about $7.75 per gallon, roughly a quarter the cost of purchasing new paint. The VOC content of these paints is relatively high, as much as 250 grams per liter.

More information on recycled paints can be found by checking out: California Integrated Waste Management Board.

I would like to paint some cabinet doors in our garage a basic shade of white. The previous owners of our house were gracious enough to leave behind the paint that had been used in previous house projects, perhaps 12 gallons of various shades and textures (including white) of conventional Kelly-Moore paint, all of it purchased within the last five years.

The eco-buzzword these days when considering paint is "VOC content." VOC stands for "volatile organic compounds," which is, essentially, the stinky chemicals in paint that can cause headaches and aren't particularly healthy to be around. These chemicals do eventually dissipate into the air once the paint dries, but all this means is that everyone else's air has become just a slightly bit more toxic.

The Kelly-Moore paints that we inherited have a VOC content of <150 grams per liter, which is in compliance with EPA standards (max. 200 g/L) as well as the stricter regulations of the California Air Resources Board (max. 150 g/L). However, there are more environmentally friendly alternatives.

Kelly-Moore has a line of interior paints called "Enviro-Cote" with a VOC content ranging from 15-20 g/L and retails for $28.95 per gallon; the Sherwin-Williams "Harmony" line has an even lower VOC content (<10 g/L) and sells for $27.95 per gallon (presently on sale). Both of these cost only a couple bucks more per gallon than conventional paints. I asked the Kelly-Moore folks if they had a "trade-in" policy, where I might be able to receive some store credit for bringing in my old paint. Regretfully they said they did not have such a program.

However, I did learn that as a Butte County resident I can recycle my partially-used paint cans for free at the Butte Regional Household Hazardous Waste Facility over by the Chico Airport.

So here is the dilemma: Do I use the paints that I presently have (there would be plenty to complete the cabinet door job), or do I recycle my existing stockpile and spend $30 on new, eco-savvy paints?