Soy-based “Green” Polyurethane

Well guys, I’m about to road test my first eco-friendly polyurethane. After reading a little bit about Low VOC poly on the internet, I decided I’d check into it. First off, it seems that a lot of regular hardware stores aren’t sure what “Low VOC” and “eco-friendly” means. Several people pointed me to just the regular water-based polyurethanes, which didn’t seem accurate.

So I went to the knowledgeable folks at Greenable who were able to give me lots of great info on this soy-based product. It was also comparably priced to regular floor sealers at $44/gallon. I like that it is self-levelling, and supposedly requires none to very little sanding in between coats!! (I’ll have to let you know about that in a subsequent post.) I also spoke to the people over at The Environmental Home Store to see what they offered. They’re actually in my neighborhood, and I really wanted to use their products…but at a cost of almost $85/gallon, I couldn’t justify the cost difference. (Their version wasn’t soybased, but rather some different Low VOC water-based poly that wasn’t self-levelling and seemed to require additional sanding.)

Besides just price though, the folks at Greenable went out of their way to break a 5 gallon container to sell me 2 gallons of satin finish [of which they were out of stock in the smaller size]. I loved Greenable’s knowledgeable staff and their customer service! I have to say that in today’s economy, I really appreciated that they were fighting for my business. It made me really happy to shop there. (So…kudos to Greenable’s staff!)

Meanwhile, soon I’ll let you know how my experience with Acri-Soy Poly-Soy Eco Procote Polyurethane works out. Cross your fingers!

*Update: Thanks to Angelo at Greenable for clarifying what I purchased. Since they broke the 5 gallon container into 2 smaller ones, I didn’t have a label and assumed [wrongly] that I’d gotten the Acri-Soy. At any rate, more info to come on the end result of the floor finishing eco-friendly style. But so far so good.

Cement driveway alternative?

Lately, I’ve been contemplating the state of my backyard. My ideal would be to have a lovely brick patio, but alas that’s not in the budget at the moment. However, during the daydreaming phase, I was on the lookout for ideas and while in Maine I saw something at Jordan Pond that I thought was very interesting. It’s a type of block that has holes in it that you can grow grass in. So basically the surface of the ground is level and solid, but it allows drainage and doesn’t look like a solid slab of brick.

I thought this was a cool product. It’s environmentally friendly and probably a cheaper alternative to traditional brick. What’s even more interesting is that I just happened upon an old post at Charles & Hudson about the same thing. (Can I just say again how much I adore Charles & Hudson? They’re my new favorite home blog.) Only in this instance they’re discussing it as an alternative to paving a driveway. I think that’s a brilliant idea…much better than for a patio most likely (since your patio furniture might get stuck in the holes). Anyways…here’s the pic I took at Jordan Pond.