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Posts Tagged ‘eco-friendly’

Kitchen Trends for 2011

Friday, December 3rd, 2010

If you’re remodeling your kitchen or simply updating the design you currently have, here’s a  list of fun kitchen trends to look out for once the ball drops in a little more than a month!

Bright Appliances.

Colorful appliances and cooking accouterments can add an unexpected element of fun to your kitchen. They are an easy way to breathe life into an otherwise bland kitchen. Kitchenaid offers a wide array of colorful countertop appliances, including stand mixers, blenders, and toasters in a spectrum of eye-popping colors. There’s something delicious about the nostalgia these vintage-inspired items arouse.

Lightly colored, highly functional.

Lightly colored, highly functional.

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The Journey of that Bottle of Wine You Drank Recently

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Remember when you decided to uncork that bottle of Shiraz to celebrate your birthday last year? Well, it’s part of your countertop this year. Now, I’m not sure that you celebrated your birthday in such a fashion, or if you like Shiraz, or if you even enjoy beverages originally housed in glass bottles, but one thing is certain – whatever glass bottle gets drank over the course of time will inevitably lead a long and prosperous life as a post-consumer, re-propagated product. So just think, when you’re uncorking a new bottle of wine on your new glass composite countertop – you know, the scratch resistant, un-dentable one – you can rest assured that you’re getting a big fat figurative pat on the back from Mother Nature. Let us stroll through the life-span of a bottle as it becomes your brand new recycled glass countertop.

Glass bottles, ready to get processed and re-used.

Glass bottles, ready to get processed and re-used.

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5 Eco-Friendly Features from our Nation’s Greenest Cities

Monday, March 29th, 2010

Boulder, CO: The Solar Access Ordinance

In 1991 the city of Boulder, Colorado decided to look toward the future and implement an ordinance that would prove to be the gold (green?) standard for municipal building codes. Due to the rising cost of conventional sources of energy in the late 1980’s the “Solar Access Ordinance” was enacted to make sure that everyone in Boulder considering erecting a new building or structure had to keep sunlight in mind. The ordinance mandates that each new building leave room for a 12’ or 25’ “hypothetical solar fence” allowing for enough sunlight to produce energy. Construction planning has taken shadow cover and movement and the angles of shadows over the heavily graded terrain of Boulder into the development process. If the shadows don’t comply then a new blueprint must be written. For 19 years now sunshine and solar has found its place in the small Colorado city outside of Denver. The rest of the country might want to take a page out of Boulder’s book.

boulder solar ordinance

Workers install a solar fixture on a Boulder home.

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