By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant
Nancy, LuxEco founder and garden guru recommended that I try the Topsy Turvy. Excited about the success of her flourishing tomato plants at The Green Home Under the H she showed me pictures of them on her Blackberry one day while we were chatting. This eco-friendly planter would be perfect for my busy schedule she said, no weeding necessary! Aside from the initial planting, all that Topsy Turvy requires is watering once daily.
Introduction by Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World The horses have it! Today, in Louisville at the Kentucky Derby their heading towards the starting gate. And here in Santa Ynez in just a couple of hours over 600 hundred riders will be heading towards the Santa Inez [...]
By Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEco Editorial Assistant and author of the Resplendent Repurposing series
I found a black leather unisex blazer from the Gap: $20.00 at Goodwill in Van Nuys. Someone recently told me he owns the identical blazer. He paid $300.00 for it. by Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEco Editorial Assistant
By Nancy Chuda, Founder of LuxEco Living and Healthy Child Healthy World I hear and I forget I see and I remember I do and I understand forever -Chinese proverb In 2005, when James Chuda built his third case study environmental home he envisioned the structure would become an Earth Institute and provide an educational [...]
By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Saying goodbye to a feathered friend We lost her yesterday. It was very strange. A sad, sweet and funny event in our lives. It was raining like cats and dogs. The weather gal had predicted and she was right. [...]
By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Cows have a voice too! If you can stomach, actually bare witness to a revolting revolution called pink slime, food guru Jamie Oliver has a few bones to pick. Watch this clip now! Then, c’mon back for more. Slimier stories [...]
By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Spring is here. You feel like you need a break. A two-night stay, somewhere not too far from home, a place once discovered, you will want to return to every year. You can stretch it! The dollar goes a long [...]
By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Orchids can be orchidellic Santa Barbara International Orchid Show And if you just watched the video clip above you”ll know why Huel Howser is so popular amongst the ladies here. They named this series of cymbidiums in his honor. [...]
By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Seeing Citizen Kane at The Hearst Castle was The Screening on Steroids.” “Let’s do it!” replied Steve Hearst the great grandson of William Randolph Hearst when Wendy Eidson, director of the San [...]
Introduction by Nancy Chuda Founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and Co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World. If you haven’t had a chance to visit Australia you may want to book your trip to include an exceptional two night stay at Gaia Retreat and Spa, a wellness opportunity unlike anything you have ever experienced. [...]
By Nancy Chuda Founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing’s going to get better, it’s not.” My friend and Emmy award winning television producer Carrie Cook Platt sent me a note today asking for help. Her niece, Georgia [...]
By Lorri Ballance Laird, Writer and LuxEcoLiving Advocate Since 1978, lead paint has been banned in the United States. But even today, in 2012, the dangers of lead poisoning remain a reality for many children, especially for those living in older housing. Now, for the first time in twenty years, a federal panel has recommended [...]
By Nancy Chuda Founder and Editor in Chief and of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World How many of you have seen the Alfred Hitchcock’s movie about the crows? You’ve heard the expression, “It’s for the birds.” Well in this case crows happen to be as intelligent as chimpanzee’s. In fact, they are [...]
By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World You don’t want to miss the breakfast or the bed at The Old St. Angela Inn. Please Dianne, will you share your recipe? The sound of the gulls and salty smell of the sea awakens the [...]
By Trish Holder Courtesy of Greenspiration Home Are you a blissfully ignorant homeowner? Do you eat, drink, shower, sleep, wash dishes, etc. in your home, never giving any thought to how any of its systems work, until one day…. they don’t? That’s a bad day, isn’t it? It’s a bad day because you know that looming [...]
By Trish Holder Courtesy of Greenspiration Home One of two solar tube in kids’ bonus room. “Is that a solar tube light or have tiny flying saucers landed on your house?”I’m sure our neighbors have wondered this – at least if they get a view of the backside of our roof after dark. We have [...]
By Trish Holder Courtesy of Greenspiration Home “We’re going to die,” I pronounced. We were in the third hour of our drive to Folly Beach, SC for our family summer vacation and going through a brief but intense thunderstorm. The lightening strikes were so close I swear I could feel their heat. Until that point [...]
By Janelle Sorensen, Chief Communications Officer, Healthy Child Healthy World Expert Opinion courtesy of Healthy Child Healthy World When my husband and I toured schools to find the one we wanted to enroll our daughter in, I’m sure I was silently voted one of the strangest parents ever. Why do I feel I was secretly [...]
6 Ways to Make a More Sustainable “Green” Home By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Many homes weren’t build with Green in mind and home improvement has the connotation of spending a lot of time Here money, and let’s face it: not everyone always has a lot of either. Natural Remodeling for the Not-So-Green House, [...]
By Stephanie Nickolson, Healthy Green Interior Designer and LuxEco Advocate
Originally published at Natural Home & Garden
Air pollution abounds in our homes and businesses, but many air purification systems are not safe to use. A Key to Healthy Green Design in your home starts with purifying indoor air quality with plants.
Have you ever walked into a store, restaurant or other environment and couldn’t stand the heavily scented aroma that someone used to try and cover up another (worse) scent? Well, I have. It’s one of my favorite stores that I frequent and whenever I enter the washroom, I cannot wait to get out of there as the air is so heavily perfumed it makes me feel ill. This is not an effective remedy, nor is it healthy. Anything that exudes that much fragrance is certainly loaded with phthalates. Most commercial air fresheners mask odors but do nothing to remediate them.
Get rid of hazardous substances in your home and clean house with these great green cleaning products.
By Brooke Rewa, Lux Eco Editorial Assistant
Household cleaning products are full of hazardous substances that put our loved ones at risk. A clean house can be especially dangerous to children and pets. Toxic chemicals from conventional household products can be found on your floors, counters, carpets and transferred directly into the mouth of your pet or child. Many everyday cleaning products contain petroleum based pesticides and denatured ethanol, a type of ethanol that has one or more substances added to it making it poisonous. While we know little about the long-term health affects and environmental damage these hazardous substances can cause, it is safe to say the outcome cannot be good.
Sustainable Design: Green Cabinetry
By: Lisa Adams, Designer and CEO of LA Closet Design and LuxEco Advocate
So much is said about going green, but what exactly defines green? In short, green design (also referred to as “sustainable design” or “eco-design”) is the art of designing and building environments that comply with the principles of economic, social, and ecological sustainability. The goal of designing green is to produce places, products and services that significantly reduce or eliminate negative impact on the natural environment, while creating healthy places to live and work. When it comes to your home, educate yourself and make conscious choices about the materials living with you. Do they meet these goals?
By James Chuda, Co-founder of LuxEco Living and Healthy Child Healthy World
With more knowledge, more consumer choices that allow us to support eco-friendly services and products and a better understanding of our interconnectedness to each other, the planet and the production processes of the things we buy, we could Live LuxEco! We could live truly sustainable. We could Live Green with More not Less!
What if we thought different about the way we live- we got out of our individual little cars and away from suburban sprawl? How about a New Urbanism that teaches us to be self-sufficient while still contributing to the benefit of all society?
By Bethany Colson, Managing Editor of LuxEco Living and Beauty Expert
In 2006, James and Nancy Chuda completed their labor of love: their Green Home under the “H” of the iconic Hollywood sign. Drawing from the couple’s environmental activism and Jame’s prolific career as a nationally board-certified architect specializing in the creation of non-toxic living and working environments, the Green Home is a culmination of many years of the Chuda’s dedication to learning, living and advocating for a natural, environmentally-safe and sustainable lifestyle.
However, going green didn’t mean that their classic good taste would be sacrificed; their modern design would meet green architecture.
“The sound of water is so relaxing,” says Peter Logan of Peter Logan Designs in Tujunga California. “And the water garden is a low maintenance, ecologically balanced system requiring no toxic chemicals. It let’s Mother Nature do the work.” Working with nature, in all her innate balance and glory, was the spirit in which Peter [...]
by Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEco Editorial Assistant and author of the Resplendent Repurposing series
As if those of us who are concerned about toxic chemicals in our environment didn’t have enough things to worry about, we must now add methamphetamine lab sites, either currently operating or long closed down, to the list. The inconvenient truth is that you could be living in one right now. Or parked next to one. — Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEcoLiving Editorial Assistant
By Florence “Flip” Ross, LuxEco Advocate
Since I was fortunate to have just celebrated my 88th birthday, I assume I am the oldest person writing for LuxEco Living. Therefore, allow me to tell you what life was like back in my day, and how we treated the environment. We didn’t. We simply accepted things as they were, and I did not become aware of our world and how to keep it clean. It was just sufficient to live it.
By Lorri Ballance Laird, Luxeco Advocate
The holidays are over, and for many people in many parts of the U.S., winter has set in with a vengeance. One way to beat the winter blahs might be to try adding some houseplants to your indoor landscape. According to a plantsforlife.org report, not only can plants help boost your mood, reduce stress, and speed recovery from illness, they can also help improve indoor air quality.
By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate
As I wind down for the year I find myself thinking about a book called The Home Within Us and how much that says about my design philosophy. Everything I approach as a designer lies first and foremost in the feeling of comfort, well being, creating a place of safety and sanctuary. Problem solving, space planning, furniture and color selection comes later but it is driven by these things.
By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate
Lori Dennis’ desire to be part of the solution to waste and pollution in the interior design and construction fields led her to write “Green Interior Design” which came out last month. Along with beautiful images of her work, it is a manual of resources for anyone wishing to create green interiors.
By: Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEco Editorial Assistant for Resplendent Repurposing series
If you have seniors on your gift list, you may be struggling with what to buy them. The best, and greenest answer may be: Nothing, as in no-thing.
It’s the old story: What to get the person who has everything? Most older people have more junk than they’ll ever need – and are trying to get rid of it. Very often they’re downscaling, going from a multi-bedroom house to a smaller one, an apartment or into assisted living. The last thing they want is one more dust-catcher. So don’t buy them any, unless they’ve specifically requested it. (Ever wonder what percentage of landfill contents are made up of unwanted gifts? I’ll bet the number is staggering.)
by Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant
A future gift, recycled in a thrift store, made from recycled materials. Now that’s a LuxEco Resplendent Repurposing triple header! by Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEcoLiving Editorial Assistant
The Christmas season is upon us, and people everywhere are gearing up for the holiday. In her book, I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas; Gifts, Decorations, and Recipes That Use Less and Mean More, author and LuxEco Advocate, Anna Getty shares with us her ideas on how to create memorable traditions while taking small steps to reduce our carbon footprints, minimize waste, and creatively use what we already have.
By Lorri Ballance Laird, LuxEco Advocate
Laurie David is on a quest. But it may not be the one you are most familiar with. David, who was a producer of “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore’s famous movie warning us of the impending perils of global warming, has taken her activist mentality and brought it to the family dinner table.
With her new book, The Family Dinner (Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal At A Time) (recipes by Kirsten Uhrenholdt), David is out to share her formula for creating great family memories one healthy dinner at a time.
By Jessica Borges, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant
I recently moved into a new apartment, and with that came a massive scrub down of both old digs and new. My roommates and I spent hours cleaning the old place after moving everything out, but the products we used were hardly eco or health-friendly. When scrubbing the Comet-filled bathroom tub, the smell was so overwhelming that I nearly passed out. While cleaning bathrooms isn’t normally an enjoyable task, it doesn’t have to be one that puts people’s health and safety at risk.
