Green Home Designs and Green Design Benefits

November 9th, 2009 by Leave a reply »
Green Home Designs and Green Design Benefits

Green home designs use eco-friendly reusable materials, furnishings and leftovers. These kind of designs feature the use of long lasting, non-toxic materials as well as recycling. Green home designs make use of materials that are renewable and long lasting. To remodel a residence with new materials every few years is not green building design.

When you use materials to be green, you restore and salvage what you have when possible. Options for green flooring design can provide you many different choices today. You can sand and refinish or even paint and stencil without using materials containing volatile organic compounds (referred to as VOC’s).

Green home designs today features the use of materials such as cork, bamboo and eucalyptus since they are earth friendly and renewable. Cork is especially good since there is no destruction of trees during extraction of the cork. Hardwood flooring can last forever and is very desirable, however, these kinds of woods are often the remnants of old growth from rain forest trees and this is not eco-friendly or green. You can select types of woods that have the approval and certification by environmental groups.

Which glues and finishes to use for floor installation are issues that should concern you since many contain toxic synthetic formaldehyde resins. It is best to use non-toxic low to no VOC sealants as well as non-toxic cleaners, polishes, finishes, refinishing and adhesive products. To do so will result in having better indoor air quality since your home produces less toxins and is a healthier environment to live in.

Even buying low to no VOC products does not guarantee your safety and good health for you and your loved ones. Since we encounter so many chemicals on a daily basis, nothing can be 100%. However, it is essential to select eco-friendly products for the green design benefits. This helps to better our environment and not expose us to as many chemicals every day.

While creating your green home designs using these ideas, be sure to include many glass window and doors as well as roof and wall skylights to allow natural lighting into your home. Skylights provide the green design benefits of reducing and avoiding moisture accumulation in a room while conserving energy consumption.

Concrete floorings have made the circle of fashion, coming back in style. They come in various colors, patterns, textures and polishes. This type of flooring is not so harmful to your health since it uses no glue, finishes or refinishing products and their chemicals.

Green home designs in the kitchen can feature the use of concrete counter tops since they are a natural appearing material and have become quite popular. They can add a modern look and style to your kitchen, bathrooms and fireplace.

Vertrazzo, which is recycled glass, is another popular choice for green kitchen counter tops. Recycled glass is attractive and comes in various colors to match your decor perfectly. You can use it as both kitchen counter tops and as a backsplash. Recycled glass tiles are another beautiful alternative in trends of green kitchen designs.

While choosing your appliances, consider their functionality, style and energy efficiency as well as your budget. When you replace appliances or remodel your kitchen, be sure to find the most energy efficient appliances available as well as those that use less water. To recycle old appliances, call your local recycling department for advice on what to do to recycle them.

Sending your appliances to a landfill or passing them on to someone else is not a good idea, since ninety-five percent of refrigerator parts are recyclable. Older models that are not as energy efficient will not save you money and they are not good for the eco-system. You should recycle all of your old kitchen appliances.

Green home designs add lots of ceiling and wall insulation to your entire home. This is most beneficial and keeps your home more energy efficient. Remember to use eco-friendly insulation materials. Always chose high performance windows and double or even triple pane windows, doors and skylights as they help conserve energy as well.

With rising energy costs, energy efficient design makes economic sense. Saving money after the initial investment, reducing exposure to toxic chemicals and helping save the environment all are goals of green home designs. Learn as much as you can about the choices you have in the green interior design products that will best serve your interests.

Copyright 2008 InfoSearch Publishing

Watch the video related to Home Design

Examines home building trends in the area of modular housing. New modular homes may not be what you think. Modular housing accounts for 40000 housing starts per year.

Help answer the question about Home Design

Is there home design software that allows real photos?
We want to re-design the front of our home (new porch, different paint colors, etc.). Is there any sort of software program that would allow us to use an actual digital photo of the front of our home and then alter the color scheme accordingly? If not, any suggestions as to a FREE user-friendly program that is available for download? Thanks.

About Author

Learn more green kitchen remodel ideas and how to create healthier kitchens. David Lee Buster is VP of InfoSearch Publishing and webmaster of http://www.yourdreamloghome.com – visit the website for a wide variety of articles on home improvement.

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20 comments

  1. Rose Z says:

    That is called an architect.
    An interior designer is a licensed professional (as is architect) who is the type of person who helps out on the show trading spaces. They "design interiors." They will usually be knowledgeable in fabric, color, material, and geometric organization.
    A professional home designer is usually a person who is not licensed or registered and draws up house plans. They call themself home designer because they are not licensed and not allowed to use architect.
    An architect is a registered professional licensed to practice architecture and design buildings (including homes)

  2. btoongirl says:

    It usu. takes that long as you will be bombarded with many, many questions and faced with many design combinations. Make sure to eat before going to insure that you blood sugar doesn't drop and you become moody and anxious. Get plenty of rest. Check with the home design center to see if you and mama nem' can walk through the center just to see the different finishes, hardware, etc. It is a bit daunting to have to make a decision having not seen the choices until the day, hell, minute before you have to make them.
    In terms of what you should look for keep an eye on price as you can face cost overruns without batting an eye. Those selections add up to big dollars real fast. Don't skimp on counter tops, cabinets, sinks and floor finishes. These items can increase the re-sale value of your home and they are the most costly to change. I would go with the least expensive fixtures like door handles, faucets, light fixtures, etc. as any handyman can change them for you after you're in the home and the handyman's cost will most likely be lower than that of your builder. Good luck to you and Mama nem'

  3. Anonymous says:

    My dream home

  4. soooo niceeeee!!!!!!!!

  5. My favorite was the dining room and the outside view :)
    love it

  6. babyjay8495 says:

    If you use Internet Explorer
    http://www.HomePlansforFree.com may be a good place to start.

    Planning Custom Plans
    http://www.homeplansforfree.com/index_files/page0039.html
    Includes an On-line Home Plan Drafting Tool Link

    Cool House Plans.

    Gardner Home Plans.

    Amazing Plans

    One floor plans per person for free
    http://www.floorplanner.com

    Home Plans site has a few different web sites and titles and they are the industry leader out of MN.

    Popular Questions and Answers
    http://www.homeplansforfree.com/index_files/page0038.html
    Home Building Plans Questions and Answers
    Includes a link to a 3 D Drafting Program Site.

    Wishing you Success!

  7. Beautiful house! I must say that when one thinks of France and Paris, the Eiffle tower comes to mind. It is a whimsical touch that adds charm to the bedroom… I like it!

  8. Terry S says:

    Hi terry,

    Your best bet would be to design what you want your house to look like in a home design software application – and skip the "importing" part. There's a lot more information in a 3D home design program then a 2D photograph could provide. Because of that I'd be extremely surprised if such a beast even existed.

    If you have your heart set on importing a photo, you could probably scan your photo into an image editing program and play with it that way, but that means you won't have access to any of the "home design" features usually found in home design software.

    Wish I had better news for ya!

  9. These all are temporary things, the best is with Allah swt. He will gift to Muslim in the day of Judgments

  10. Chrissy C says:

    Google SketchUp is free. If your 12yo is anything like my 10yo he should be able to become proficient at that pretty quickly. My son goofs around with my AutoCAD which is NOT inexpensive nor would I have thought it easy, (considering what I charge for drafting)!
    You can get it here…..

    http://www.sketchup.com/

  11. digirldaisy says:

    Laurie c has some good suggestions (I'm kind of biased about one in particular!). FYI Fine Homebuilding includes a mix of technical material for contractors and design-oriented material for homeowners.

    As for This Old House, you can get a lot of good info on our website, including free video clips showing how to install, repair or maintain all sorts of things around the house. Here's our directory of home improvement topics:

    http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/home-improvement-topics

    And if you want to see what's in the current issue of the magazine, just click on the "Magazine" button located at the far right hand side of the page, under the "Search" window.

    By the way, we also send out free electronic newsletters on 5 different topics (one covers design solutions and room makeovers). You can sign up for one or all of them.

  12. really dream house and nice song

  13. kis says:

    Hi,

    Hmmm… your query is not so clear but it seem you need some tips for interior decoration.

    For this this link will help you:

    http://www.gharexpert.com/tag/Interior-Decoration/Interior-Decoration.aspx

    link from http://www.gharexpert.com

    Thanks

  14. Jason L says:

    I would first draw a floor plan for your new home design…Be sure to include some neat features that you would want to include in your home…..then, in your paper, describe the floor plan with all of these neat features. Pretend you are talking to a potential buyer and are trying to sell them this house. The more that you can describe about these neat features, the better your paper will be!!!!

  15. no i dont wanted to hurt you anyhow, eiffel tower is very beautiful, but maybe not in house and this size. but i must say this house is allover superbly nice, great salute to designer(s). i love it. except those towers :P

  16. Lee says:

    http://www.visualsupercomputing.com/ (basic version is FREE, cost to add library extentions)

    http://mydeco.com/plan-my-room/ ( i am not sure if you can do a whole house, but i do know that u can plan out every room in your home; i use this program alot)

    every other virtual 3d software i found cost money, sorry couldn't be more of a help…good luck in your search and i hope this hels you out a lil bit :)

  17. it sounds like the singer was gargling

  18. aboveparcan says:

    there is some good shows like that. on HGTV they have everything! check it out!

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