Greenspiration Home: The NEW Homeowners Source for Green Home Advice

By Trish Holder 

I just can’t let it go.

Between 2007 and 2009 I was utterly consumed with the planning, building, and showcasing of the Greenspiration Home.

This was MY home – the home I share with my husband and two children. To say it was personal is a gross understatement. Good, bad, and mixed – my experiences building and promoting this home were ALL personal. I personally wrote every word on the Greenspiration Home website. I personally researched every new product used to build and decorate this home. And when the home was complete, I personally took hundreds of people through it, explaining why I chose wormy maple floors…. geothermal heating and cooling….. dual flush toilets …. etc.

While men and women of all ages hung onto every word I had to say (a totally new experience for me, btw) I realized that people are desperate for firsthand advice about building green. They are excited and intrigued by new technologies – but skeptical and confused by all the green hype. They want to know what other homeowners who have been there have to say.

Well, I have a lot to say. I learned so much building this home and in fact I’m still learning. So I thought, “Why shut up about it now when I still have so much to share?”

Thus the idea to transform Greenspiration Home into an online publication written by and for homeowners was borne. It would be a sort of “Been there, done that” green building resource—realistic, practical, and easy-to-understand. Information would be presented in a way that homeowners could relate to so they would learn and retain more.

We’d talk about things homeowners and homebuyers don’t usually learn unless they learn the hard way. We’d introduce them to products and options that they probably haven’t heard of and we’d provide tips for their successful application. We’d even judiciously break the news that building green isn’t always easy, practical or economical. Bad things DO happen to people with good, green intentions.

Education and Inspiration
I love my home. I worked hard for it and that makes me love it more. Not every homeowner wants to make an example out of their home like I did, but building a home should be a rewarding experience and a unique opportunity to express your own personality and values. We’d like to inspire other homeowners to do just that, whatever their favorite shade of green might be.

We’ll continue to blog about the Greenspiration Home as well as other homes where green strategies have been used. Most important, everything we write will be from the homeowner’s perspective – the person who actually pays for the home and has to live in it. It’s a novel approach, I know, but one that in my opinion is long overdue.

You can also look forward to many more wry observations of the quirky residential building industry and its occasionally clumsy attempts to brand itself green. (Ah, yes, these are strange and peculiar times when many builders know just enough about green building to be dangerous and like to flaunt their Energy Star appliances as proof positive that they’ve drunk the lime-colored Kool-Aid.)

So, come back often and tell your friends. What you learn here might drastically improve your own green building experience.

Greenspiration Home LLC is an online resource dedicated to helping homeowners build, renovate, and decorate green.  Whether your aspirations lean toward deep green and granola or practical and energy efficient, Greenspiration Home is loaded with homeowner-based content that will save you time, money and frustration

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