Our Dream House: Almost Home

We are almost done building our eco-home. The move-in date is two months away. Our daily decisions revolve around knobs, toilet-paper holders, landscaping (next issue!)—and color.

Picking paint colors is one of those things that should be easy—after all, if we don't like a color, we can always change it. But committing to a color has been a challenge for us. Committing to a paint company has been easier.

We have gone with a no-VOC paint by Coronado: Air-care Odorless. It's fairly cheap ($17 per gallon), and they can make and match any color. Our painter has been very impressed with its coverage, lack of offensive smell and general ease of use. It's still made of petroleum, though, so it's not perfect. And if you want to create dark colors (which we do in some of the rooms), the pigments do contain VOCs. By the way, with the painters has come the first woman working on the site (other than me)!

There is one company we've worked with that does make a milk-based no-VOC paint: Anna Sova. Their palette is incredible. Their paints are not recommended for kitchens and bathrooms, however, because milk paint can mildew or smell sour with too much moisture, and it runs $70 a gallon. We have chosen not to use it for now since the company is just starting up and based in Texas, and picking colors plus shipping are more than we can handle, but when I change my mind and decide to repaint in a few years, I will definitely use them.

For the wood we are using, we have gone with a water-based stain by AFM Safecoat, called DuroStain. Then we are sealing it with a water-based urethane called Coronado Aqua-Plastic Waterborne Urethane. But most of our trim has been made of paint-grade, fast-growing poplar, which we are painting with the Coronado paint.

I don't feel quite organized enough to think about wallpaper for now, but down the road I am sure we will paper a few of the rooms on select walls, and when we do I will use wallpaper from Innovations, whose Allegory line is PVC-free. We've used it at my grandmother's house and it's spectacular. I also think antique wallpaper is incredibly beautiful and cool. When the time comes, I plan to shop at a store in New York called Secondhand Rose for its vintage, non-vinyl wallpaper in geometric, floral and other patterns.