The Newcastle Green House is owned by Nadine Samwell, founder and editor of Eco Edition and interior designer. Follow my journey as a (first time) owner builder.   Our architect, Anthrosite, is working hard at finalising the documentation package for our home so it can be given to the builder for pricing, and an important part of this package is the selection of the solar panels. Our roof will almost entirely be covered by them and we hope to be able to run as much of the house off solar as we can. Our aim is to install solar panels and live for a year or so then assess our usage patte ..read more

The Newcastle Green House is owned by Nadine Samwell, founder and editor of Eco Edition and interior designer. Follow my journey as a (first time) owner builder.   When we first moved into our 100 year old miner’s cottage I totally looked down my (interior designer) nose at the way it was designed and decorated with its mismatched carpet colours and pastel rainbow painted walls. I’d come from a freshly renovated home in Sydney, which I’d designed, with beautiful timber floors, bright white walls and a large timber kitchen with a stone bench top. So the yellow painted kitchen with its c ..read more

As an interior designer who specialises in using sustainable and healthy materials, I often get asked “what is the perfect sustainable kitchen benchtop or countertop material”? I always explain that there is no one perfect material because it depends on what your idea of sustainability is. Some people prefer the idea of using recycled materials or new materials with high recycled content. Others prefer to use only natural materials like stone or timber. And then there are people who value material health above all else, so they’ll be looking for materials which are made with ingredients which ..read more

The Gruen Eco Design blog about how to convert your dream of an energy efficient home into a reality.   THE WINDOWS ARE GOING IN The team from Sanctum Homes is working too fast at the moment…. I can’t keep up with the blog posts ? Therefore, here comes a bit of a summary. Some of you might remember the landscape dilemma we had with our current place. Or rather the lack thereof. Our backyard used to be an overgrown jungle. We left it neglected for years. And only after living in the house for almost 5 years did we start working on the garden and the decking. And we had promised ourselves ..read more

Carpets can be both soft underfoot and hard on the environment. They can also be hard on the indoor air quality of your home due to the off-gassing of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and toxic chemicals. A widely loved flooring favourite for its warmth, comfort and insulating qualities in bedrooms and living areas, carpets are a complicated material and tricky to get right. Carpet is made up of a system of layers and those layers are bound together with adhesives. For example there is the face fibre, backing, underlay or cushion and adhesives and each of those elements is made of a multitude ..read more

The term ‘off-grid’ gets used in many different ways but it’s origin lies in being able to get off the electrical grid and having a home which can supply its own power. Typically this means that an off-grid home will have a solar array and storage system which can supply all of its electricity needs to run the home. However being ‘off-grid’ means different things to many people and the idea of being disconnected to the electricity grid is simply the starting point. To some people it also means not being connected to town water, so they’ll aim to collect enough rain water to provide for all the ..read more

When the owners set out to renovate this old double-fronted Edwardian home which was tumbling down within a rambling garden, a large extension was originally planned. But when they met with Brave New Eco, a more efficient renovation was suggested which had a smaller overall footprint. Nick and Sarah had raised their sons in this previously grand but now leaky home, with its lack of insulation and makeshift kitchen, and it needed to be re-designed for future needs. In the coming decades, their home has to adapt to multi-generational living to accommodate their aging parents. Brave New Eco felt ..read more

The Newcastle Green House is owned by Nadine Samwell, founder and editor of Eco Edition and interior designer. Follow my journey as a (first time) owner builder.   When we first moved into our 100 year old miner’s cottage I totally looked down my (interior designer) nose at the way it was designed and decorated with its mismatched carpet colours and pastel rainbow painted walls. I’d come from a freshly renovated home in Sydney, which I’d designed, with beautiful timber floors, bright white walls and a large timber kitchen with a stone bench top. So the yellow painted kitchen with its c ..read more

As an interior designer who specialises in using sustainable and healthy materials, I often get asked “what is the perfect sustainable kitchen benchtop or countertop material”? I always explain that there is no one perfect material because it depends on what your idea of sustainability is. Some people prefer the idea of using recycled materials or new materials with high recycled content. Others prefer to use only natural materials like stone or timber. And then there are people who value material health above all else, so they’ll be looking for materials which are made with ingredients which ..read more

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) can cause poor air quality within our homes, which can irritate your eyes, nose and throat, cause tiredness, headaches, dizziness, nausea or confusion, and can trigger asthma or allergy flareups or other respiratory symptoms in some people. VOCs can be found in lots of materials and products within our homes, such as paints, upholstery, furniture, carpets, pressed wood products, adhesives, paint solvents, dyes, laminates, vinyl, foam, plastics, cleaning products, aerosols, personal care products and lots more. That’s a pretty scary list isn’t it? So, what is ..read more