Creating a "green" baby nursery

I see I still have some faithful readers out there, despite my lack of attention to this blog over the last month.  My apologies once again for the infrequency of posts - I expect my absenteeism to get worse, however, as my husband and I enter the realm of parenthood.  Yes, that's right - we are going to be first-time parents within the next month (at least, that's what the doctors tell us!).

As we expect the arrival of Baby "Pistachio," we are working on some remodeling, rearranging, and cleaning projects in our house.  In addition to tiling and re-doing a bathroom, building a home office, and adding storage in our laundry room, we, of course, are putting a nursery together.  No major renovations in the baby's room, just some new carpet, fresh paint, and hand-me-down baby furniture.

What are we doing "green," you might ask?  We're making a few non-conventional decisions with our projects, I believe.  You can read what GreenHomeGuide recommends for nurseries, and see how we compare.

We have purchased no-VOC American Pride paints for the nursery, as well as a no-VOC Safecoat finish for the bare hardwood floors and cabinets in the adjacent room.  We had to have these shipped from Nature Neutral in Charlottesville, VA, which is about 2.5 hours away, so there are some environmental costs to figure in for the transportation. :(  My mother-in-law has promised to do as much painting as she can do in a week's time, so hopefully we can actually get the paint completed before Pistachio's arrival.

Unfortunately, the new carpet we've chosen for the nursery is just regular ol' carpet with VOCs and all.  I don't know if this is less evil than the old carpet, which had pet smells from the previous owners and had experienced an aquarium leak.  I picture it had all kinds of yucky organisms living in it.  We're on the schedule to have the new stuff installed this week, which should give the carpet some time to off-gas before the baby comes.  We'll also make an attempt to vent the fumes to the outside, so that we're breathing as little of the toxic chemicals as possible.  Sorry, Baby...I do feel guilty about the toxic off-gassing.

All of our nursery furniture, with the exception of a glider rocker that was a birthday gift to me from my in-laws, was either handed down or purchased used.  So in that way, we're recycling!

While we're really excited about the new addition to the family, we hope Pistachio can hold off his or her arrival until we've gotten our projects completed.  As we get closer to the due date (September 6), you'll hear less and less of me, but I hope to get back on the ball with my blog posts once we get into a baby care routine.  If you care at all to hear about some of the environmentally friendly baby care plans we have, feel free to visit my baby blog.

Comments

[Tanya]

Green Nursery on TV!!!!

There is a great show on HGTV called Fun Shui. On November 2nd the host, Stephanie McWilliams, is designing a green nursery for an adopted baby from Africa.
On the east coast the show airs 9:30 pm but check your local lisitings anyway!

I have been watching and am very excited to see this episode! Hope you watch it too!

[Dean]

Nice post Aaron!

[Jason Ganz]

Great post! I am gonna share it with my own blog readers at jason.landbrokr.com ! Thanks.