Garden Dreams...A lesson from Belgium

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As I've traveled all over the place, with many places to come, I'm always excited to see what other countries are doing about the green initiative. The most recent trip was to a wedding in Belgium.

I was getting to know the friends my wife had made when she lived there, and the first question we were asked when speaking about our home was always, "how big is your garden?"

As my readers know that's a tricky question to explain (especially in my poor handle of the French language) to someone who has never been here. I started to explain the patch of grass that sits amongst the concrete in front of my home, and then thought about what I could do to improve this. Since I loved every minute we spent touring the Belgian gardens of each home we visited I wanted to see how it equates to the urban setup. We spent a day in Brussels and quickly learned that having the living world integrated into a person's everyday life is very important.

Looking at our own situation in Chicago, I started thinking about what we could do to improve our homes with something that also improves our environment. Have you ever seen a home with a lot of greenery accenting the features of the home? Doesn't it have a different feel? How can we do this in Chicago?

The answer is simple even if you live in a condo. Buy some potted plants for a porch or terrace area that can survive our winter and take very little maintenance. If you live in a condo, what does the front of your building look like? Does it have curb appeal? Which is a very important factor in home sales, and can be done with a little sweat equity and a trip to the local nursery?  Talk to a sales person at a nursery and ask what plants work well in your environment and give your small space some live character.

Oh and by the way, native plants absorb tons of storm water that would normally prematurely wear down sewer systems, concrete, foundations, and pollute our favorite lake front.

Need help on finding resources on Chicago native plant life, nursery's or specialists? Email me at MartysBlog@OmRealtyGroup.com Include "Plant Life" in the subject line.

Brightening Up the Holidays

I hope everyone has had a great set of holidays so far. I know that the travel can get overwhelming, and it's nice to get some time to slowdown and experience all the things that are going on around us.

I had a moment this holiday season where I actually looked around and asked myself..."myself, I wonder how many of these holiday lights are on a timer?"

Just a thought, but how much money and electricity could we save if we just made sure that in all the craziness of what's going on all around us we're still thinking about saving and conserving?

Dec 25th 2007

Is your home cold right now?

If you needed one reason to go green right now, I'd have to say it would be the cold spots in your home. All that money that gets spent on heating Chicago added up over the whole city could be put to a lot better uses.

Now I'm not trying to make you feel bad. It's just some food for thought.  The idea of green really starts in being energy efficient. Your main two resources used and paid for in your home are gas and electricity. The energy efficiency translates to energy savings, but also quality of life. We often sacrifice comfort for luxury.  It's nice to have upgrade faucets, cabients and flooring, but do you really enjoy them when your favorite room is freezing cold?

 Some tips to help you through this cold wave:

• Check the weather stripping on the exterior doors. It's cheap, it's effective, and it's easy to install.
• Buy the window sealing kits. It takes 10-20 mins per window, uses a blow dryer and scissors, and gets easier as you go.  This can drastically change the comfort of a room since windows are usually big leakers, and you save cash.
• Close the doors and vents to unused rooms.
• Change the filter on your furnace so it works more efficiently. You also use it nearly everyday in this weather so it could probably be changed.
• Drip the cold water on your faucets that are adjacent to a exterior wall when the weather drops drastically or if we experience really strong cold winds. This will save your pipes from bursting because it keeps the water moving.

So if you followed any one of those tips your time in our lovely Chicago may be a little more enjoyable. Not to mention you would have official taken one more step on your road to making your home green. Your also taking a proactive step towards conservation which helps green Chicago.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope that it helps.

Marty

What Does Green Mean to You?

I've been so immersed in this business of building, selling, and planning for green homes that I can't always see the forest for the trees (pun totally intended). I often get asked to define green. It's even on our site (green), but I want to know what your concepts of green are.

 I just read that 70% of Americans think that "green" is a marketing tactic.  In many cases they may be right. I've asked myself that question as well, because I truly feel that "green" is a word that is similar to "culture".  You can define it in so many ways, and it is very personal to most people.

 Culture can be ethnic, company based, place in society, etc...

 Green can be a color, a belief, energy efficiency, recycling, etc...

To us green is our way of bringing our methods of conservation into a tangible format that consumers can gain value out of without being intrusive to their lives. The biproduct of our work is a healthy environment, that helps change the social scene of our neighborhoods.

What is green to you?

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