Peelaway paint remover is the best I know of. It really does a great job. You need to apply it thick, like so thick you can’t see the wood under it. Let it sit a day or so and then gently scrape it off. Wash with soap and water and the wood is there. Really […]
I went to check out the new park at the Ikea store in Red Hook. Really nice. They planted some great local species and it looks great. Really a nice park by the ocean. The above picture isn’t exactly what most people would see if the went to the park. But if you are foraging
As part of our National Sustainable Building Adviser Course we visited the Queens Botanical Garden. It is amazing. The new building is totally decked out with the best of green building: solar, rainwater, gray water, toilet composting, natural vantialtion. You name it. But their greatest thing for me was their green roof. Really amazing. [salbumphotos=27,160,3,n,y,title
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Great Kitchens is a special edition magazine put out by Taunton. They do the Fine Homebuilding mag. Great Kitchens is a good source of kitchen ideas. The one thing is that if you are renovating a kitchen in Brooklyn and NY your sense of scale is way off. They had a section on “Small Kitchens”
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This natural Building Colloguium, hosted by Peaceweavers, I really think is great. No continuing education credits. No high-power, big-project architectural, engineering, interior designing firm reps to hobnob with. No suits, no ties, no shiny shoes. Sleep in a tent, eat vegan food. Learn about things like strawbale, cob, cordwood, timber framing, straw-clay infill, permaculture, community-supported
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GreenRoofs.org is my favorite green roof resource on the web. Run by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities the web site is full of useful info. If you ever wanted to put a green roof on your New York home then that should be the first place to look. When we are researching the best way
The web site and group called Clean Gowanus Now! has a url of .org, which leads you to think it is a non proffit with community based objectives. But the site and the group are a scam. The group has these following entities behind it: Africa-Israel, U.S.A. (Involved with the Scarano creation at 340 Bond
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In my last post, I identified factors that should be considered when installing a green roof (i.e. desired function, type of roof, whether structural modifications must be made to accommodate extra weight, composition of the roof system, proper substrate formula, appropriate mix of vegetative species, and desired time to maturity/planting method). In this post, I will begin to investigate
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American Clay is a great company that is reviving a millenia old building technique of applying clay to building walls. They have a strong local culture and associate themselves strongly with their Santa Fe roots. But to grow as a company they also ship anywhere. They are very helpful with advice too. Shaylor at American
Green Gardening Magazine is a special issue by Taunton’s publishing which puts out all sorts of gardening, woodworking and house related DYI things. I subscribe to some of their magazines. They are ok, very practical “how to” things (how to install a door etc). But the Green Gardening Issue was great. It was everything I expect from
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