Remodel or Cover it Up?

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My home is 26 years old and when we purchased it from my mother-in-law we did some remodeling to make it ours. There are things in the home I’m not crazy about but it is an older home and I didn’t pick out the woodwork, closet doors, window frames, etc. That’s what happens when you purchase a home, there are things about the home you love and things you would love to change. For me, I’d like to replace the doors and closet doors throughout the home. This is costly and frankly, there isn’t anything wrong with them.

There are lots of ways to improve a home without replacing items or adding them to the landfill. For my doors we could repaint them with non-toxic paint. This would make them look just like new and I can pick the paint or stain color. This happens to take time and if you read Green and Clean Mom, you know I’m a little busy! Besides, I don’t really like remodeling and doing things myself. Not that I’m lazy, it’s just not my thing. I like to have someone else do it and supervise while I’m busy doing other things I’m good at and would rather do.

My solution is to cover particular closet doors with my children’s artwork. My son brings home new projects daily that he’s super proud of. I want to treat his artwork as though he is Picasso. My daughter can’t stop coloring and using her markers and paints. I save them for wrapping paper; cards and then I hang them on the doors I don’t want to look at. I’d rather see the children’s beautiful pictures and paintings. I’ve even considered keeping these on the doors and making colleagues and glazing over them to be a permanent part of our home. Something we can look at years from now and be proud of.

What are some things you do to green your remodeling?

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November 11th, 2008 - Comments:
Filed Under: Green Homes, Green Sprouts

Green & Clean Mom is a mother of two young children, wife, educator, green entrepreneur, humanitarian, enthusiastic social media fanatic, internet marketer, social media and marketing consultant.
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3 Responses to “Remodel or Cover it Up?”

  1. 1 Anna Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 10:01 am

    Sommer, when you paint the doors make sure there is not alot of layers of paint on them to begin with. (ie do they stick now?) Ask your mother in law if they painted the doors alot. You might cause them to stick. Often times, people paint and paint the door and eventually you can’t open them anymore! Ask a hardware person how you would know if there are too many layers of paint on a door.

    Personally, I think painting walls to give a fresh new color always updates a space. (Kind of like a new hair do.) With alot of low and no voc paints out there, the sky is the limit in the way of color. Changing hardware on your cabinet doors is another great low cost fix. You might be able to find inexpensive ones at a salvage store (or antique salvage one), craig’s list or freecycle.

    Anna http://www.green-talk.com

  2. 2 Green & Clean Mom Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 8:25 pm

    Anna,

    I never thought of this. Great suggestions. I have more research to do on the green remodling.

  3. 3 Michelle Gudmunsen Says:
    November 13th, 2008 at 10:03 am

    I read the coolest idea in a home-improvement magazine: Nail some glassless, backless picture frames onto your children’s walls at kid height. Let them create beautiful works of art right on their walls inside the frames! Isn’t that genius?! Then you can repaint over their art when they have a new inspiration or grow more mature over the years. I thought the same concept could potentially apply to your closet doors. Another idea is to paint and install cork board to the surface for easy change-outs of artwork. You mentioned making collages of their art. Decoupage (sp?) is a fun way to resurface with those bits and pieces. Not sure about the green value of decoupage, but there must be research out there somewhere about it.

    By the way, I think you have a gorgeous house!

    (Also, any word from ecoist??)

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