Come celebrate Raising Spaces 1st BIRTHDAY PARTY and discover fun ways to Green Your Christmas and your home! Join us for seasonal refreshments, a Charity Silent Auction For the ALBERTA LUNG ASSOCIATION, scoop up Green Christmas gifts and ideas, and hear from Office of the Environment’s Stacy Wall (2pm) on fun ways to make the holidays planet-friendly! See you there!

When: Saturday, December 3, 2011 1:00pm until 5:30
Where: Raising Spaces (within Mexx Lighting), 10045-81 Avenue, Within Mexx Lighting, Edmonton, AB

Featured Silent Auction Items Kindly Provided by:
Raising Spaces – www.raisingspaces.com
Mexx Lighting – http://mexx-lighting.com/
Earth Group (Earth Water) – http://www.earthgroup.org/
Frog Box – http://frogbox.com/
Funky Bug Naturals – http://www.funkybugnaturals.com/
Nature’s Corner Store – http://www.naturescornerstore.com/
The Organic Box – http://theorganicbox.ca/
Wild Bird General Store – http://www.wildbirdgeneralstore.com/

You may have noticed that things look a little different around here! The Raising Spaces team has been itching to update our online look and is pleased to roll out our new site.

We apologize if you’ve been searching for something during the transition. Please bear with us as we continue to make the updates and changes necessary to raise our new site. In the meantime, here are some quick links.

To find our Green Building Professionals Directory ‘Green Pros’ go to http://greenpros.ca

For our online store, see http://shop.raisingspaces.com

4 Dramatic Action Pathways

You shut the lights off when you leave the room, waste not a drop of water while brushing your teeth, and bundle every last scrap of recyclable material into blue bags. You’re the epitome of ‘environmental citizen’ and yet somehow these daily eco actions sometimes seem insignificant. Become an eco hero this season with four renovation strategies that will dramatically reduce the impact your home has on your family and the planet.

When it comes to renovating, the choices we make weigh heavily on the scales of sustainability. With conscious choices about what you put inside your home, you’ll be blown away by the difference it makes.

Detoxify

You’ve checked the label of your favourite lotion so you’re in touch with only the most nourishing and benign ingredients. Next up is to take a close look at what you put on the skin of your home – its walls. Conventional paints can contaminate your home’s air with chemicals that take a toll on your family’s health over time. Even paints marketed as ‘low VOC’ may not be as green as they claim to be especially after colorant is added. A VOC is a volatile organic compound, a substance released into the air that can have an impact on your health. Continue Reading →

As you may well be aware, Raising Spaces has recently relocated. Our order desk is now conveniently situated within Mexx Lighting.

Imagine your green dream home, take in our sample racks of gorgeous green possibilities, place your order, and make it happen!

We’d love to show you our new digs, so come on by to say hi and scope out the store! When you do, here’s what to look for.

This weekend marks the NetZero Home tour.  Last year a couple friends and I went on an exciting bike tour to see the different styles and design elements of each gorgeous home.  This weekend, Raising Spaces will be showcasing some fantastic products and materials at 7615 111 st.  The Belgravia Homes, as seen in the Raising Spaces “Building the Ultimate Green Effect Homes” will also be a part of the tour, so if you missed the construction tour, now’s the chance to check out sustainable home building at its finest.  Click Here for details on tour information.

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Imagine the ultimate dream home.  A home that produces its own heat and electricity, perfectly designed to generate as much energy as it needs to function annually.  A home with a tangible monetary payback.  Dreams of this perfect home are no longer dreams at all.  As our perspectives on sustainability rapidly adapt with fantastic innovation through design, it is becoming more evident that green design will save the world.  The dynamic Edmonton Net Zero home projects are transforming those dreams into reality, and they’re doing it in style.  Typical home design can find itself lost in a cookie cutter labyrinth lacking both efficiency and creativity. The Net zero home projects in Edmonton are anything but typical.  Effect Home Builders are changing the way we see the home  from the inside out. Each innovative design has a specific function that is carried out with delicate precision and glorious teamwork.  This coming weekend, join the Effect Home builders on an informative construction tour to learn more about the projects.

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There’s more to the 3Rs than Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.  It’s time to go a step further and really embark on a new phase of the environmental Industrial Revolution.  With Spring around the corner, it may be time to start thinking of household upgrades and renovations.  The times, they are a changing… for the better!  This year, don’t settle for the basics, go for quality products that will extend the life of your home and tell a story of environmental triumph.

There are many myths about environmental products.  Truth is, these products have come a long way, and many have been around for decades, hiding in the shadows of products that have been devastating our ecosystems, adding to the ever-flowing landfills, and making us sick.  Waste from renovations accounts for as much as one third of the 20 million tonnes of Canadian landfill waste.

Flooring is a very expensive piece of renovation.  Flooring can provide many different functions, especially when it comes to natural materials.

Linoleum was first developed in 1860.  It is made completely of renewable resources (jute, rosin, wood flour, cork flour, limestone and linseed oil).  My absolute favorite feature of linoleum, is that the linseed oil in the material has anti-microbial features!  This means that it has the ability to kill bacteria!  Amazing performance for floors!  The brand we sell in the store is called “Marmoleum”.  If you’re looking for flooring that lasts, this is the stuff.  While shopping for linoleum, avoid the PVC (poly-vinyl chloride) poser.

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I am psyched and revved up! In the Raising Spaces office, green products make us so happy that we literally jump up and down.  Yesterday we had an amazing Product Knowledge session with BioShield.  What is BioShield you ask?  Well, let me tell you, it is one of the safest paints on the planet.  Clay paint is their patented mixture.  BioShield invented clay paint.

The Raising Spaces team painted the office with Gingko (a warming, dark green) and Polar white (the creamiest of ivories).  While painting we were so absolutely impressed with the smell, which was actually no smell at all.  When we put our noses up to it, all we could smell was… well… Clay!  Our fantastic tall helper, (Thanks Marc!) kept saying “I wish I’d used this stuff to paint my house”!  The coverage was great (2 coats).

We were quite proud of our work!  One thing that we really loved about the Clay Paint was the soft texture it revealed.  So warm and inviting for our lovely customers.  We couldn’t be happier walking into the store in the morning.

Not only does Clay Paint look great, it has many other qualities that other paints just simply cannot match.  Because of the properties of clay itself, the paint controls static electricity, regulates moisture, and removes odor.  I guess you can say that it is the olympic athlete of all paints!

The Solvent-free paint that BioShield offers is their answer to the “paint problem” of the world. Continue Reading →