The House? What House?

You’re probably wondering why I’m writing about the renovation of a house. Well, it’s our own house that we bought in Shaker Heights, Ohio (and if that sounds familiar, yes, it’s the Shaker Heights from “Little Fires Everywhere” - we’re famous!).

But why would you, my dear customers and customers-to-be, be interested in that? I’m a big believer in sharing the knowledge (some might call it wisdom but let’s not get ahead of ourselves) you acquire over the years, especially if it’s in a more specialised domain such as sustainability of homes. And this is the goal of this part of The Sustainability: sharing the ways and resources I use to make our home as conscious as possible.

It's not always easy. Like the production of textiles, the process of remodelling a house comes with certain limits. You might want to use milk paint on your walls - and it might make the process of painting painfully slow and expensive. You might dream of replacing your heating system with  a geothermal pump but it might eye watering expensive and you need to settle for amazing insulation to save energy (both very real scenarios that happened to us).

But there are things that we can implement, and that are easy to do. For example, we are re-using the old kitchen cabinets for our laundry room. We are making sure that all new wood used for the house is FSC certified. And all paint used is low-VOC, from different brands such as the amazing Farrow & Ball from the UK.

Then there is the garden: I have grand visions to create a space for a SUGi inspired patch. And we have an old glasshouse that we can’t wait to fix and plant vegetables and fruits. My plan is to document all of this for you so that you can see our trials and tribulations toward a more conscious lifestyle and house - without any privileged brouhaha but with the realities of budget constraints and feasibilities.

Oh, and SWF fabrics will feature all along of course. Or did you think I didn’t want to sell those to you?

Sophie xxx