Clean Smelling Paint

James is so good at reminding me of things. Some time ago he told me I should really write about our interior house paint, suggesting that it may have really been the first instance for my interest in health and ecology making a significant change in something that we bought. He's probably right.
We moved into our house about two years ago now. When we moved in, everything was painted the same light cream color, almost white but not quite. And I am a lover of color in my home. So I quickly went to work picking out swatches of color and posing them next to our furniture, artwork, and curtains to see if it would complement them. But I also looked a little into what type of paint that we should buy. I had heard or read recently about how the inside air of homes is often much more polluted than outside air, between 2 and 5 times more. Funnily enough, my memory was saying that it was nearer ten or fifteen times--what does this say about my home's stuffy air?! Glad I looked that up. Among the major contributors to indoor air pollution: paint.

Thus, before I bought gallons of stuff to slather all over our walls, I checked our options. Sadly, of course, the cheapest paints were high polluters. They not only contribute to poor air quality, but they also are more toxic for the environment in their production and when they have to be thrown away. Yet there were a number of companies that had begun to sell more lung-friendly options for just a little higher than their traditional lines. Home Depot has Freshaire paint, which has mostly soft toned colors. Kelly Moore had Enviro Cote (which I think I read was often used for hospitals--that means awesome colors, baby!). Then there's Mystic Paint, which I have only seen online.

In the end, we opted for Benjamin Moore Natura paint, which is a no-VOC paint that comes in most colors that the company offers. I loved that I was able to choose colors just as vibrant and rich (not an option with all the lines), but healthier for us. It was a bit more than BM's regular paints, but cheaper than their AURA paint, which I remember reading was the one that Obama used to paint a government building.

The amazing thing was that when we had a painting party and rolled it rapidly onto our walls, our house was not filled with fumes. Nobody got a paint headache, and in fact, we almost forgot that we were using a product that is typically odorous. Naturally we could smell something, but it just smelled clean. People commented on it.
Two years later, I'm so glad we did it. We spent more money, but it is not a frequent purchase, so I think that the long-term gain of healthier home air is completely worth it. Touch-up painting is not a big deal smell-wise; it doesn't make me feel the need to air out the house for a week. I feel confident that the paint on our walls, at least, is not putting toxic substances into our lungs. I'm hoping to redo our baseboard and window trim painting this year, and I'm planning to buy the same kind.
We also tried one Freshaire paint for our master bath, which we planned in a more sedate color palette We have liked it, too, though I think it required more coats to look as complete.
At some point we'll have to repaint our exterior... I wonder how the more environmentally friendly exterior paints stack up?

Gardening and creating beauty: theological reflections

Lately I've been spending a lot of time in the garden. I mean, a LOT. While B's napping, when James is home on the weekends, when there is something I can do with B strapped in the Ergo on my back... It has been a lot of hard work, a good chunk of solitude, and some food for thought. I've been trying to remember to pray more, and one day I found myself praying for the plants I was planting. At first I felt a bit silly. I mean seriously, God has plenty of very important things to work on and many more significant, life-altering prayer requests at any given moment. I almost apologized. But then I felt as if God reminded me... No... I am in the business of creating beauty. So this ragged edge of my yard that I was weeding and shoveling and amending and planting and mulching--this is God's kind of thing. So I started to pray for my plants a little differently. That they would be a source of hope and joy because their beauty would lift our souls. That they would not be a way that I would try to impress others or mundanely improve the value of my house, but that I would increasingly see my work in my own soil to be a way to join Jesus in his work of redeeming the weed patches of the world and making them fruitful gardens.
Now, this is not to say that I think that this will be the majority of my contribution to the world. But it's a small way that I can serve my family, and the people we invite into our home, because I am working to create more beauty to fill their lives. And my own.
This morning I was reminded of all this by an excerpt I read:
"As each one of us enters into the deeper places through contemplation, we come to see ourselves in our truest being, at the Source of our being in God. We come to see ourselves each moment coming forth from our Source, and not only ourselves but all others with us. By the intuition of the Spirit we come to know our solidarity with all being. This cannot but lead to compassion--compassion for our fellow humans who are one with us in our Source.... Moreover, we will know that oneness and compassion with the rest of creation that is the source of good stewardship and a true ecology." From M. Basil Pennington in Living with Apocalypse ed. by Tilden H. Edwards, in A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God.
The quote was only secondarily about stewardship and ecology, (caring for people comes first!), but it resonated with me and reminded me of my blog. I think the best ecological action is founded on love of the God who made the world and desire to take care of things as he does. Otherwise it is so easy to fall into fear-based thinking about what our unsound ecology will do to the future, or to let being "greener" simply be another way of trying to outdo our neighbors with our self-regarding virtue. Neither of those is enough. I don't think they can or ought to sustain themselves for very long. They have no real life in them, and end when my fear shifts to something else or when I am not as impressively green as someone else. But if I find my life in Christ, and then can promote the life and well-being of others and of the creation, then I see no dead-ends. I think God will keep giving me energy and joy to care.