Home

Home for her is being wrapped in a woolen blanket, made by Mama or Me-Mom.

It's diaper changes on a sheepskin by the fire and knowing that every day, Daddy will come and let her snatch his baseball cap.

Home is peek-a-boo under play silks when she's fussy, with a different face appearing each time.

Home is the sound of the wind in the trees, the sound of children running, stomping, singing, laughing...


Home is waking up to smiles and kisses, joining hands with everyone for a blessing at mealtimes and snuggling under a down comforter between Mama and Daddy at night.

Home is a belly full of warm milk and sips of tulsi-rose tea from mama's teacup.

Home is knowing that whenever the world gets too big or too scary, there is always a spot, just for her, on mama's back.

Home is where she nuzzles her sleepy head behind the curtain of my hair.


Home is lullabies lovingly sung in boyish falsetto.

Home is balls of yarn to tangle and chase.

Home is the rhythm of a rocking chair, a nursery rhyme, a steady pat.

Home is a candle lit at dinner time.

Home is dreams and prayers softly spoken at the drowsy hours of twilight and dawn.


This blanket is the knitting project that was featured in my banner early in autumn. It's one of the free patterns from the Project Linus site. The yarn is Cascade Eco+, left over from this project and that extra skein that accidentally found it's way home with me back in February.

Little White Nest

That's what Lucy Maud Montgomery (of "Anne of Green Gables" fame) called the bedroom of her childhood. It was a tranquil little spot for her in a home that offered few other pleasures. It was the one place she could call and make her own and she was very attached to it... or at least so says one of her biographies.

Over the past year or so, I've come to regard our bedroom as our own "little white nest". It's the perfect way to describe it really, for so many reasons.


Most unconventionally, and despite all of the head shaking of everyone around me (except for Steve who trusted my vision and of building in general, basically told me to do as I pleased and not listen to anyone else, no matter how many houses they had built or what guidelines they knew), when I designed this house, I made the master bedroom the smallest bedroom. It's the counter part to the playroom on the floor below.


I wanted a true bedroom. It's really just the right size for our bed and the co-sleeper and not much else. It's adjacent to another "room" that's something of a central meeting point for the second floor. All the rooms open out into this area and I envisioned it as kind of the communal living area of the upstairs. A place where I could go to rock a fussy babe, or read to one child without disturbing the sleeping sibling that they share a room with. A spot to do yoga in the morning and a place for any dressers or bookcases or anything that might typically go in a bedroom. Our closets were framed out in this space as well; one for Steve, one for me, and one for linens. That was the plan anyhow, though we never really got far enough to use the space that way.


The whole idea was to allow us to leave our bedroom as uncluttered and peaceful as possible. We tacked up unbleached muslin on the walls to keep little fingers out of the insulation. The fabric is actually very close to the color that I had planned on painting the room someday. The cathedral ceiling would have been wood though, tongue and groove.


Apart from our beds, this room holds Galen's star mobile, made from the stars of his starry path and a little pine shelf that Steve made for me. After Màiri Rose was born I felt like I temporarily needed a small space for some diapers and burp clothes, that kind of thing. Once the little ones were older, and sleeping on their own, I figured a nightstand would be sufficient for Steve and I. The little bookshelf holds some diapers and covers and a couple of favorite books for bedtime reading. There is a space underneath for tucking slippers. On top lives my journal, the special birch bark basket that Galen was given at his blessing and the lantern that provides the only light in the room (apart from the windows, there is no wiring run in that section of the house).


I love this room. Even unfinished, it is by far my favorite bedroom that I've ever had. I've been meaning to take some pictures of it, to have, for a little while now. I kept thinking that I would make the beds up nicely and photograph it in the afternoon, when the slant of the sun fills it with golden light.


When I woke up this morning and laid in bed looking at the snow covered trees...it has large windows on all three sides and from bed you can watch the forest all around you... and it really struck me that I'll only be waking up to this view three more times in my life.


I took these pictures in the early morning light. The sun doesn't make it over the trees here until much later in the day. At this time of year it barely makes it over at all. There is a tiny boy sleeping in that rumpled bed. It's fitting I think. I wanted to remember this home, in all it's nuances, for the way we lived in it, and it doesn't get much more lived in then that.

Autumn in the Playroom

These are some snapshots from our play area. It's not really a room unto itself, but something of a room-sized alcove off of our main living area. It's completely open to the rest of the main floor, but it also has it's own defined space and it's own feel. With all of my blunders in designing this house (and there were many), this room I did right. It works exactly as I envisioned.

It's a space to be apart, but still near by. It can all spill out into the living area, but at the end of the day there is a specific place to tuck up all the toys, giving the grown-ups room to roam.

I was inspired to bring a bit of fall to the room this week. It was starting to take on a neglected air. I finally reinstated a nature table, albeit a very low key one. What few autumn books I could find are set out in a crate for easy access. I'm considering doing some selective unpacking to reclaim the rest. With pressed leaves in the windows and a row of pumpkins atop the kitchen set, it's feeling considerably more festive.

A Little Public Service Announcement

Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe it will seem silly. Maybe people will feel defensive or hurt. Maybe these are things better left unsaid. These are the thought I was having as I sat down to type this. And were it just for my own sake, I wouldn’t be typing at all. I know that it’s just that people don’t understand. Or, and this part is harder, don’t believe. I accept that and take the well-meaning intentions behind people’s statements, full well knowing that they are truly doing their best to be a comfort. I also accept being considered a narcissistic twit at times by people who don’t recognize my very real and very valid concerns. But as I thought about things, I couldn’t help thinking, how will people ever understand if no one explains? So, full well knowing that is might be my own children, someday putting themselves out into the world and looking for support, I’m going to try to explain.

Telling a person with MCS that the loss of a safe home is “sad, but it’s only a house”, “easily replaceable”, “all you need is love”, and whatnot, is the equivalent of telling an insulin dependent diabetic that the loss of his source of insulin is sad, but not a big deal and everything will be just fine in time.

I’m sure you all know that I’m as sentimental as the next person, especially about my family and my home. And this situation does greatly pain me. We have shared many hopes and dreams here that we now need to abruptly set aside. And I want to speak to that experience and I want others to speak of it as well. I suspect that in the coming weeks I’ll be talking about that aspect a lot. But right now, I feel it’s important to clarify the potential health ramifications of this decision.

When we moved into this house, I was on oxygen regularly. It wasn’t odd for me to collapse of pass out after an exposure. Speaking was often difficult and would frequently send me into severe coughing fits that made it difficult for me to get enough air. There were times when I was too weak to hold a glass to my lips. I cut off all of my hair because it took too much strength to lift my arms above my head to brush it. I was bed ridden sometimes for weeks on end. I lived in a constant state of brain fog. There were times while I couldn’t remember basic words like ‘water’ or how to spell my own child’s name. Really it was more a matter of not being able to get my brain to communicate with my lips or my hand. There were times when simple tasks like doing up a zipper, seemed like insurmountable obstacles. I suffered from regular migraines and was exhausted and in pain at all times.

My children all developed food allergies to every single food that they have ever been tested for (or all but a few), which is a sure fire sign of immune systems on overload. Two children developed serious yeast infections which left the folds of their skin raw and oozing pus and blood. One child spent hours every night rocking back and forth banging his head on the wall. The same child started randomly vomiting for no know reason and baffled the doctors with his symptoms. One child could never get warm and was always fatigued. One child developed learning disabilities that there was no sign of before and became so violent and unpredictable that he was diagnosed as being bi-polar. The baby started spitting up blood through his nose. All of them developed ‘allergic shiners’. This was life for us before this house.

A healthy home is the number one most effective treatment for an Environmentally Ill person and without that, any degree of recovery or regaining of health is very limited, if it’s even a possibility at all. The health that we have managed to reclaim is entirely due to this house. Without it I’m not even sure that we would be alive right now. I know that sounds drastic but when we moved in here we were in a state of fear for our children’s lives. Surely the sacrifices that we have made show just how serious the situation was and without care, could be again.

We know that we can safely live here. We don’t know if that is true for any other house. The only way to know is by trying. But the kicker is this…once we leave, we can’t ever come back. We’ll be voluntarily foreclosing on these two houses. And once the bank takes them, they are gone. There is no turning back.

So when people say to me what a relief it must be to have made this decision, how comforting it must be to know that our ‘hard life” is nearly at an end, I feel my body tense a bit because I am absolutely terrified and there is no comfort in it at all. I know that we have to do this right now and I hope that it will mean a brighter future for us all, but the risk that we’ve been cornered into taking is not a small one. And this turn of events is not minor in any way; what we are loosing right now is not ‘just a house’.

I want to say this now, not because I want people to feel badly about belittling our situation. I know that everyone means well and wants to be a comfort. I hope people will always feel comfortable talking to me in this space and in life. I don’t want anyone to feel like they have to choose their words carefully or risk offending me, because you won’t offend me if your intentions are good. As I said before I welcome the sentiment of your words, even if you don’t really understand where I’m coming from. The reason I’m taking the time to share this now is the only way that life will become easier for people like me and families and children like my own, is if there is more awareness in the world.

In the spirit of raising awareness, if anyone has any questions about healthy homes or living with MCS, please feel free to post them in the comments at any time. I will try my best to answer them. At the moment I’m not very quick with replies, but I do try to get to them all eventually.

Our Little House

~Our old house~

We are going through some serious changes around here and I think it’s time that I explain the situation.

Building this house has been a long hard road. It wasn’t a choice that we made, it was a corner that we got backed into. Our illness made other living situations impossible at the time. Believe me, we tried, but all of our efforts were in vain and in 2005 we broke ground for the little house. We did our best to make the most of a difficult situation. We tried to be cheerful and we were deeply grateful, but we still struggled a good deal, all the same.

~December 8th and 9th 2005~

All of this time, we’ve been carrying the mortgage on the old house. We can’t sell it because we did the right thing and had it tested. And now we know. We know the connection that it had to our illness. It is documented all over the place. And even if it wasn’t and we wouldn’t be considered liable, I could never, ever knowingly expose someone else to such a health threat.

~December 15th 2005~

So, we paid our mortgage every month and at the same time drained our savings account to start building a house that we could actually live in. And then from there we kept running off of credit. Our debts kept accumulating until we were basically carrying the equivalent of two mortgages. And that’s just not sustainable. And even with all of that work and time and money being spent, we are still so, so far from being done. We have almost no siding and very few interior walls; inadequate insulation under the house and no plumbing; electric in only a small section of the house and on and on. It would take us years and tens of thousands of dollars that we don’t have to finish this place.

~January 2006~

Earlier this month we declared bankruptcy. And getting by is still a struggle. With no credit to put towards the task at hand, we’re looking at a solid decade before we get even basic plumbing. And that is if nothing else goes wrong (she said while trying to ignore the strange sound that the refrigerator has been making, the groaning of the water pump and the hot water heater that’s on the fritz at the old house, and the car that we just dropped off at the junkyard).

~September 2006~
This lifestyle is not an easy one and there are times that I feel on the verge of a nervous break-down and I do feel quite certain the Steve is working himself into an early grave. Meanwhile, the tasks of a day are so numerous and so all-consuming that we feel like the respective childhoods in progress around us are slipping away while we are both busy just trying to keep life going.

~breaking ground for the addition, July 20th 2008~

My dentist says that I’m wearing the teeth right out of my head with unconsciously clenching them and my muscles are so tight that they strain and twitch. Steve has had a herniated disk in his upper back for years now. It aches at it’s best and greatly pains him at it’s worst. He’s been told that his only option is surgery, but that he wouldn’t be able to do any lifting at all for several months afterward. We can’t get by that way, so he lives on in pain. Our bodies all wear the strain of years of illness, struggle and strife.

~August 2008~

I love this land. Three out of four of my children have known no other and the remaining child doesn’t remember life before here. It’s been blessed with our blood, sweat and tears. It’s been the setting and the source of many stories that are sure to be told over the years, rich in familylore. It’s a good place. I’ve given birth to babies in both houses on this land. Each drew his/her first breath by the fire of what we called home. It’s been the scene of joyous reunions, heartrending sorrows and lots of everyday living in between. This house has been our salvation in some of our darkest times and I often feel that we quite literally owe our lives to it’s existence.

~September 2008~

Thanks to this house, we are now well enough that we have the possibility of going out into the world to find housing we can tolerate. But it’s still scary. It’s scary on a lot of levels and for a lot of reasons. The truly terrifying part is that we risk reversing all of the strength and good health that we’ve gained being here. There is a chance that we may again have to watch our children suffer as our health deteriorates. We are going to do our very best to protect everyone but in a situation like this there is a certain element that has to be left to chance.

~August 2009~

As my dear, sweet husband put it, “It is awful and it's going to break my heart too and my blood is literally in that house but we can't do it anymore. We've done an amazing thing the past four years or so but I think it's time to try to live more normally again.”

And so we’re abandoning this house that we’ve worked so hard and sacrificed so much to create. It’s a very difficult and emotional decision, but I do believe that it’s where we need to go from here.

Cautiously we move forward, with heavy, yet hopeful hearts and many little prayers, in hope of a better life for us all.

The Healing Home Revisited

I know it seems as though I had abandoned this project. I assure, I have not. It's only that my focus has been elsewhere and I felt like I couldn't do these posts justice under those circumstances. At the moment I'm feeling a strong pull back home, in working to improve and refine this space that is ours.

We have a lot of projects going on right now! Some are pretty boring, but oh so important (insulation just isn't sexy, ya know? But I don't think I can over-emphasize it's importance...), others are exciting and creative and fun. We are in the midst of a whole-room project that I'm really excited to share. So, as before, these posts will be sprinkled in between my other regular posting.

And while we have that picture up there I might as well share the two wonderful products featured (workman not included. you have to find your own, that one is mine and you can't have him). That is Georgia-Pacific DensArmor Plus wallboard. And while I'm not overly thrilled about supporting or advertising for Georgia-Pacific, otherwise known as one of the leading manufactures of disposable paper goods (napkins, plates, whatnot), I do think that this is a great product.

DensArmor Plus differs from regular drywall in that it's comprised of a gypsum infused fiberglass back and core. The main benefit of this being that there is literally no paper involved, making mold growth highly unlikely. It's far heftier then your standard dry-wall, so be prepared for some extra work moving it around. In the reviews that we've read, contractors have considered it nearly indestructible when compared with regular dry-wall. And unlike with green board, the mold resistance comes from lack of suitable growing habitat, rather then chemical fungicides of extremely questionable safety. It is the only dry wall to obtain both GREENGUARD* and GREENGUARD Children and Schools* indoor air quality certification.

As with all products people's tolerances differ, especially people with chemical sensitivities, so you should always test things out before making a purchase. There are some acrylic binders used in manufacturing DensArmor Plus, which can be an issue for some. On the whole, I think it's a promising product that could be a good option for a lot of people.

The second product is by Murco Wall Products. Their M100 Joint compound is the only one that I've found that is entirely insecticide/fungicide free, with no preservatives. We've been using this product for years now, even before we got sick, and it's always worked well for us. The two downsides to this particular product are that a) you have to mix it yourself, and in this day and age where "ready-made" is the status quo, some people find that aggravating, and b) most people will have to have it shipped directly from the company in TX, due to the weight of the product that can mean a shipping cost nearly or greater then the product itself. It still seems a small price to pay to ensure purity and health.

*GREENGUARD Environmental Institute recognizes indoor products that have low emissions of VOCs (volatile organic compounds).

Color

The playroom color progression:

::All primed and ready to go, with a couple of sample splotches painted!::

::The following two pictures are both of the first color, it appeared very different in different light. On the right hand side of the first picture, you can also see the one small wall of the dining area that we finished. For that wall we used an AFM Safecoat paint in the color Ivory Yellow. Eventually the rest of the first floor will be the same color.::

These two pictures show the walls with two coats of AFM Safecoat paint. We have some good friends who recently finished up building their home and my parents have been working on remodeling theirs. Both of them had extra paint that they didn't need and they passed it along to us. So, I've been mixing our own color combination, based on what we were given. This was a combination of a dark, deep orange and and untinted paint. I was actually looking to achieve a lighter color, but I was more then happy to take what we could get.

::The next layer of color::

After Steve did the main paint color, I came in to do a decorative finish over top. I used a combination of Bio-Shield's Wall Glaze and Earth Pigments. I had bought these many years ago to finish the dining room in our old house, but got sick shortly thereafter and never used them. Having access to all of these "free" supplies is what allowed us to continue with this project.

I was trying for a lazure effect similar to what is found in a Waldorf school. I applied the pigment with a sea sponge in large circles and then rubbed and smeared and blended it with a rag.


::The second layer of earth pigments::

The first picture here is the most accurate for color. The second two are lit with artificial light and not accurate representations of the final color. But they do give you a better idea of the painting technique.

It is darker then I would otherwise have done (had I been buying paints instead of using what we had on hand), but it's also very warm. It took a little while to get used to, at least for Steve and I. I likened it to being inside a pumpkin! The kids loved it right from the start. Now we are all quite content with the space.

Reclaimed Slate Floor: Part III

The final installment of our slate floor series.

Just as a quick review, the layers to the floor are as follows:

• well sanded, rough-cut hemlock 1-by sub-floor
• Homasote (for more information on this product, see my post here)
  
• slate tiles placed into a cement mortar bed
• grout in between the tiles
• AFM Safecoat's Grout Sealer
• AFM Safecoat's Mexeseal Tile Sealant

And now the details!

The Homasote was both glued and screwed down. In looking for an appropriate adhesive, I spoke at length with the gentleman from the natural building supply company we were working with. He highly recommended a product called Solvent Free Titebond Multi-Purpose Flooring Adhesive. He explained that it works very much like a traditional adhesive, is comparable to AFM's adhesive, as far as chemical exposure goes, but at half the price. We went with it and have no complaints. I was out of the area when it was being applied and stayed away for a while afterward, but any fumes that it did create seemed to clear quickly and it did not cause any on-going health problems for us. We have a can leftover and do plan on using it again in the future.

For both the mortar bed and the grout, we went with the standard options available at our local hardware store. We did check and try to get the cement with the least additives, etc. We felt like the traditional products would be fairly safe, once cured, especially it would be mostly covered by tile and then well sealed.

::The floor with the "haze" on it from applying the grout.::

After some of the comments I received on previous posts, I want to clarify that we did not install this floor on our own. Neither Steve nor I had any experience with tiling and we felt it best to have some professional help. B the Builder was kind enough to oblige, despite his general aversion to tiling! For my part, I tracked down the slates, researched the materials and designed all of the boarders. There is a pattern around the edge of the room and a slightly more intricate pattern around the hearth. For the center of the room I just asked that he lay the tiles in a random manner. Steve stepped in towards the end, working to scrub the haze and then taking over and doing all of the sealing.

Now that we've seen the process first-hand, we both agree that we'd feel comfortable attempting future tiling projects ourselves.

::the corner around the hearth::

These pictures were taken shortly after it was sealed. The finish did become less glossy over time and more like the matte finish that you would tend to expect of a slate floor. Of course, it's never again been as clean as it was in these pictures either!

::general view of the pattern::

One note about the grout sealer; when Steve first applied it, it left a film all around the edges of the tiles that drove me crazy. I'm happy to say that with time that did clear and we are both quite pleased with the results.

::far corner of the room::

Reclaimed Slate Floor: Part II

Getting ready to start work:

This is the sub-floor that we started with. Our home contains absolutely no ply-wood. In most cases where ply-wood would be used, we used rough-cut hemlock from a very local, small, saw mill. We certainly didn't save any money this way, but we felt it was the best choice considering our situation. And it did result in a very solidly constructed building!

Our "unique" sub-floor presented a bit of a challenge, since it was not the typical, even and uniform surface. Before anything else could be done, the whole thing had to be sanded down as best as possible. Even after all of the sanding we still needed some sort of an underlayment. This was another difficulty as most of the products typically used were far too toxic for us. Finding the information that we were looking for, including full ingredient lists and safety data proved to be very difficult. We were also under time constraints for this project.

We ended up going with Homasote. This product has it's good points and it did work out well for us. I think there are probably better options out there, but I didn't have the time of resources to find them.

Homasote, the good points:

• It's made almost entirely of recycled materials
• It is completely recyclable
• In general it has really good ratings on it's MSDS-as low as possible for it's eco toxicity and on the very low end for personal toxicity (the main concerns being dust when cutting, which is always a concern with this type of product)
• It was readily available at our local hardware store
• Very reasonably priced in comparison to other products of this sort.
• Relatively easy to install
• The company itself has a fairly good history (to the best of my knowledge), including being the oldest manufacturer of recycled building materials in the US. They also recycling the water used in the manufacturing process.
• formaldehyde free

Homasote, the draw backs:

• The main drawback is that several of the ingredients are less then ideal. It's mainly composed of recycled post-consumer paper and newspapers, which are pretty chemical laden to begin with.

• The newspapers are mixed with paraffin wax, which is a petroleum product. Most people consider it to be fairly benign, but our family avoids it, and as many other petroleum products as possible, as a general rule.

• This probably wouldn't be an issue for most people, but my initial research lead me to believe that wheat was also used in it's production (I am still unsure if this is correct or not). This is probably a wonderful choice for a lot of people out there. Within our family, there are several people with serious wheat allergies, so this too is an area where we need to use caution.

• And finally, after we had installed it, I found a reference to it being treated with a very small amount of "copper based bio-cide". I've never been able to figure out the exact chemical they are referring too. And, in looking again for the sake of this post, I can no longer even find the place where I saw it mentioned.

The Homasote is the gray colored board shown in the bottom corner of this picture:

After researching our options, full-well knowing that it was going to be covered with several layers and be quite well sealed in, we decided that it was a reasonable option for us. I did insist on a great deal of precaution being taken with the installation. All of the cutting was done outside and all of the dust cleaned up afterward. The room was sealed off from the rest of the house, well ventilated to the outside and thoroughly cleaned afterward, including running our air purifier on high for quite some time.

I thought I could get away with two posts on this subject (I originally thought it would be just one! Silly me!), but I'm finding that there is still a lot left to say, so stay tuned for Part III!

Reclaimed Slate Floor: Part I

Getting to the more practical side of our Healing Home series, the first project that I would like to share with you is our slate floor. This is one of my favorite features of the house so far.

This room made up the entire first floor of the original Little House. It's 13' x 13', with the hearth taking up approximately 5.5' x 5.5' in one corner, just to give you an idea of the scale we were working on. Once finished, this room will ultimately be a combination of a mudroom for the family, and a studio for me.


Living in the middle of the woods, with soon to be four children, in a part of the country that has an entire season devoted to mud, this floor really needed to be durable and easy to clean! Obviously, the first priority was that it be safe. It was also important to me that the entrance to our home and my work space be beautiful, even through all of the muck!

We had decided on slate, long before we even knew we would be adding on to the Little House. In fact, I started collecting slates before we even broke ground for the Little House itself. If you are planning on using salvaged materials for your home, it can take years to find just what you are looking for. It's wise to start looking as soon as you decide that you will be building or remodeling. Make a regular habit of checking newspapers, freecycle, craig's list, your local dump, salvage yards, anywhere that you might find something of value. And there are things of value out there if you look hard enough! Sometimes it just takes a little patience and perseverance.

Why slate?

• From a health standpoint it's about as inert as you can get.
• By using mostly salvaged slates we managed to lessen our environmental impact.
• Slate is extremely durable, which is both good for us as homeowners and good for the earth.
• Easy to clean, easy to care for.
• It's a natural material
• It has a beautiful understated elegance to it, a sort of rustic, farmhouse aesthetic that greatly appeals to us.
• Once it's lived out its existence as our floor, it can still be reclaimed for many other purposes, whether it be in the form of a different floor, a back-splash, or even just as stepping stones along a garden path.
  

The slates themselves came from a variety of sources. They were one of the first things that I started collecting when I knew that we were going to be building. I wasn't even certain what exactly we were going to use them for, but I did know that we would use them. I got a couple of boxes off of ebay; leftovers from someone's remodeling project. A lot of them came used from our local salvage building material stores. We had two such stores (I highly, highly recommend looking into similar resources near you!) that we frequented during the building process and over time my stash grew up nicely. It was nearly three years before we were finally ready to do the floor. I ended up ordering a bit of extra, directly from a quarry, but the majority of the floor is made up of salvaged slates.

My criteria for the tiles themselves was pretty simple. They all needed to be the same thickness (very, very important!). Ours are all 1/4", which is pretty standard. I actually really love the look of random size and color, so I was very open to what I found. I basically narrowed my specifications down to all of the naturally occurring slate colors with the exception of the reds and rusts. I find the gray/green/purple color combination very pleasing and the red shades just made it too varied, and didn't quite suit my vision for the room. There is quite a bit of black slate in there too, but I think it offsets the other colors nicely.

I think that's about it for the "why", stay tuned for part II, where I will detail the "how" with a over-view of the supplies and products we used for each layer.

What is a Healing Home?

First off, I want to say that there is a book by Suzy Chiazzari titled "The Healing Home: Creating the Perfect Place to Live with Color, Aroma, Light,and Other Natural Resources" . I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve never read it. Judging by the premise, it sounds like an interesting read. I feel a bit awkward about using a phrase, and perhaps a concept, coined by someone else. Though I do get the feeling that the book is coming at it from a very different angle then I am. The fact of the matter is that I’ve yet to find another descriptive phrase that encompasses what I’m looking to convey. I’m afraid that’s one of the limits of my own creativity.

Diving right in here…

I’m still working on the answer to this one myself, but I find little pieces of it here and there as I go along and this is what I have gathered so far...

I’ve heard many times over that the key to healing from Chemical Sensitivities rests in safe housing. After living through the process myself, I firmly believe this to be true. Four years ago I couldn’t get out of bed most days. I was on oxygen regularly. It wasn’t uncommon for me to be too weak to speak or raise a glass to my lips. I suffered neurological impairment to the point that I couldn’t remember how to spell my own child’s name, and couldn’t make my hands cooperate in zipping a zipper.

I still have my limitations and I still have to be very cautious, but after 2 ½ years of living in a healing home, I’m now able to be out and about in public, to care for my children and generally lead a productive and satisfying life.

As a domestically minded person, I firmly believe that the right sort of dwelling, the sort that is nurturing and health giving, can have a huge positive impact on quality of life for any number of ailments, not just the ones with an obvious association! The reverse also seems to quite obviously be true, but for now we are going to stick to the positive side of things!

You can build the safest house on the planet and it can be sterile and cold. You could build an incredible, eco-friendly home that slowly poisons its inhabitants. You can create a home that is chemically neutral (as much as that’s possible), eco-friendly, and completely inaccessible for the people who wish to live there. There is many a home that has been dreamed of or conceived, that for practical or financial reasons can never be materialized. For all of that effort, none of these houses would be healthy. What does make up a healthy home?

For one thing the entire process and the home itself needs to be looked at holistically. You can’t just say I want to build a green home, go out and follow that desire, and expect to achieve a healing home. You may get lucky, and end up with one by default, if so, I think it’s highly likely that you were actually taking other matters into consideration, whether you realized it or not!

I will go into detail about the various aspects of a healing home in the future, but for now I want to just give you a general over-view of the criteria as I currently see it. I also want to give a context through which to view our various projects. So that together we can see where we were successful and where we may have fallen short.

• First and foremost is has to be safe, safe from any substances, people or phenomena that are likely to cause bodily, mental, or spiritual harm.

• It has to be affordable to within the means of its inhabitants.

• The Healing Home should make use of a wide variety of natural materials.

• It should co-exist well, within a greater community and the local ecosystem.

• A Healing Home would ideally utilize technologies and systems designed for working towards energy independence and lessening global impact.

• A Healing Home takes wise advantage of local resources.

• A Healing Home is one that is filled with natural materials that inspire creativity, spirituality, and feelings of loving gratitude. It is a welcoming space to all that enter. It is a place of beauty and pleasure.

• A Healing home is highly accessible to it's inhabitants.

• On the other side of things, the people living in a home have a huge impact on the general feeling and over-all benefits (or potential harm) of that space. True healing can never take place in a home full of anger, harsh voices and fear. A Healing Home is one where the members of the household work towards a predominate feeling of peace.
  

No home will have all of these aspects perfectly functioning. The main idea is giving each element thoughtful consideration and trying to incorporate different aspects as you are able. I think that fostering mindfulness about even the most mundane aspects of a home goes a long way toward meeting many of these goals.

I know that a lot of this sounds highly impractical, but I promise that when we get down to the nitty–gritty my meaning will be clearer and it won’t seem like such a tall order. A challenge, to be sure, but not impossible!

These are just some of my beginning thoughts. I want to again encourage people to please add on to my theories or question them or outright reject them! I really would like to open up a dialog about this. Please feel welcome in adding on in the comments section.

I've been featured...

It seems that my blog, and specifically my Healing Home series, have been featured on The Canary Report, a website chalked full of information on MCS. Thank you Sussie, for the glowing review! For those of you who have not been to the site, you should head on over and do a little (or a lot!) of reading. There is some very important information to be found there, regardless of your current health status.

While I am very pleased to have made this connection, and I would be more then happy to share future posts with The Canary Report, it's brought to light something that I have perhaps been negligent in. I just happened to come across this, and while this particular experience was quite delightful, it's lead me to wondering where else on the web my photos and writing might be. Considering the fact that a large amount of my photography features my children, I'm finding this thought a bit alarming. While it is only a small step towards protecting us, I will be adding a disclaimer to my site asking that anyone wishing to reproduce what is found here, please contact me before doing so.

Regarding the Healing Home, I have a lot of information to share and many posts in mind! My plan is to work them in with my regular posting as I find the time and inspiration to do so. I've been jotting down ideas I'd like to share and subjects I would like to discuss for a while now, so I promise there will be some good stuff coming, but you might have to be a bit patient. These posts take a lot longer to write then a regular post, but I think you can probably expect the next installment before the end of the weekend!

The Healing Home

I'm very pleased to announce the advent of a new category, here at my little corner of the web! The Healing Home; a series of posts featuring practical ideas on building, remodeling, and living in a house with physical, mental, spiritual, and global health in mind... and oh, so much more! I truly hope that others will join me on this journey and leave comments on their personal experiences, making this a wonderful resource for anyone interested in reclaiming or sustaining health through thoughtful dwelling.

As many of you know, my children and I were diagnosed with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, along with a myriad of related ailments, back in 2004. Our path towards a diagnosis was a long one and our search for safe housing, equally long and daunting. After a year long, desperate search for a suitable home, we decided that our best option was to build what we needed, and thus the Little House project was born. In July of 2007, we were blessed with the opportunity to expand out tiny home. Work on both the original structure, as well as the addition has been on-going ever since.


I remember, when we first started down this path, being really shocked at what I perceived to be a distinct lack of practical information on healthy building practices. I've learned a few things along the way, and now I understand completely. I think the reasons are very similar to what I assume is the reason behind the lack reports on personal experience by parents raising chemically sensitive children: when you are in the thick of it, you barely have the time and room to breath and exist, much less document it. And once you are on the other side, you'd really rather not have to think about it ever again! There is too much living to catch up on!

That said, there is so much that we have learned through this experience that we really want to share, in the hopes of making the process just little easier on others. I am, by not means, an expert. But what I can offer is this...the details behind our own project. I can tell you all of the products we used, why we used them and how they worked out in the end. It's one of those simple little things that I know would have been a huge help to us at the time. I can only hope that it will be a help to someone else out there.


This is a complicated subject and I intent to cover a whole lot more then just building supplies. Everything from the global and environment impact of our choices to aesthetics, trying to live in harmony with your land and accommodating a family, both during the building/remodeling process and after, and much more.


It is my hope that you will enjoy and benefit from this series as much as I enjoy sharing it with you!