My guest Lydia Corser is a green interior designer and the owner of Greenspace, a green remodeling store in Santa Cruz, California. Combining creativity with a focus on green interior design since 1995 has proven to be a fulfilling combination for Lydia. After helping launch greenspace, Lydia purchased that business in 2007. Today, she is as happy to mix paint as design a green kitchen. Lydia received her Bachelor’s of Science degree in Wildlife Biology in 1986, and an Advanced Certificate and Associate’s Degree in Science in Interior Design from West Valley College in 1998. We’ll be talking about toxic chemicals in interior decorating products and how to choose safe products for your home. www.ecolydia.com, www.debralynndadd.com/debras-list/greenspace
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Create a Beautiful Toxic Free Home
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Lydia Corser
Date of Broadcast: July 15, 2013
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio, where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world. Even though there are toxic chemicals all around, we don’t have to get sick from them, or be unhappy about them, or have them affect our body, mind or spirit. We can take control of our lives, and choose to not have toxic chemicals in them.
We could remove toxic chemicals from our homes, from our bodies, and have the lives that we want. And that’s what this show is about.
I’ve got lots of wonderful guests every day. I’m just amazed at how incredible my guests are. So I hope that you’re joining me, so that you can hear all of them. And if you’ve missed any of them, you can go to my website, ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, and listen to the archives because we’ve got just amazing, amazing people saying wonderful things every day.
Today is Monday, July 15, 2013.
Let me go back. Every day, Monday through Friday.
So today is Monday, July 15, 2013. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida. The sun is shining. No thunderstorms on the horizon. So we’ll have power and no problem with that.
And today, we’re going to talk about how to make your toxic-free home beautiful.
I’ve got a great, green interior designer standing by to talk to us. But before we go to her, I want to give you one of my favorite quotes. And this is from William Morris.
William Morris was a designer in England at the time in the late 1800s, just when there was a shift going on between artisan production and industrialization.
So he was looking at the beauty of artisan designs versus the machine-like design and mentality of industrialization and fighting against it in his life.
And he said, “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
When I was in England, I visited his house, and he did have a beautiful house, but it was very simple. His designs—they’re hard to describe, but if you were to see them, you would recognize them. You just probably don’t know they’re by William
Morris. They’re arts and crafts-y designs.
And he also said, “The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.”
And that’s what we’re talking about here is taking an interest in what you have in your homes, how they’re affecting your health, how they’re beautiful or not beautiful.
And he also said, “A good way to rid one’s self of a sense of discomfort is to do something. That uneasy, dissatisfied feeling is actual force vibrating out of order, it may be turned to practical account by giving proper expression to his creative character.”
So if you’re feeling uncomfortable about toxic chemicals in your life, the thing to do is to do something, that there is so much that can be done. We’ll talk about that Monday through Friday on this show. And just do one of those things, and see how good you feel about it.
So my guest today is Lydia Corser. She’s a green interior designer, the owner of a green remodeling store in Santa Cruz, California called Green Space.
Hi, Lydia. Thanks for being with me.
LYDIA CORSER: Hi, Debra. Nice to be here. Thanks for having me.
DEBRA: You’re welcome. So tell us a little bit about yourself and your life, and how you came to be a green interior designer and not just an interior designer that puts toxic materials all over the people’s homes.
LYDIA CORSER: I know a lifelong environmentalist. And I have an undergraduate degree in wildlife biology with botany and English minors. And then discovered after college, when there was a certain president in office who thought that once you’ve seen one tree, you’ve seen them all, that I couldn’t get a job in my field.
And also, I’m a very creative, artistic person, and science really wasn’t probably the best path for me that I had decided in high school that I had to save the planet.
And so that was the best path that I could see at the time.
And after working for a while to pay down my student load, I ended up taking an introduction to interior design course and loved it.
So I went back and got a degree in interior design, and finished in 1998, five months pregnant with my daughter. And in the midst of that, realized that the built environment is responsible for 30%, at least, of the waste on our planet, and started to think about indoor air quality because sick building syndrome was becoming more and more widely known, and decided to focus my career on green interiors.
And at that point, only really commercial interiors were being supplied with green materials. And so it was quite an uphill battle, and I had to focus all of my student projects in design school on my own because there wasn’t as much knowledge as there is now.
And when I got out of school, I used to say that I was a green interior designer. People used to ask me if that meant that I only worked with the color green. So you can see how far we’ve come.
DEBRA: We have come quite a bit—yes. Go ahead with your story.
LYDIA CORSER: There’s not much more to tell. I have a certificate as a certified kitchern designer, so I’ve done a lot of kitchen and bath work. One of my favorite things is also color consulting. And the store was really the embodiment of my frustration at the distribution channels for green materials. I was carrying the things around in the back of my car. And as they became more available, I wanted a place where people could come and know that everything was pre-screened green. That’s what I tell them.
And so I’m not just looking at toxins. I’ve looked at a lot of different aspects of products to decide what to have in the store. It’s a struggle because there are so many different priorities that people are weighing, and there are no perfectly green products.
None.
DEBRA: Exactly.
LYDIA CORSER: So that’s my story. So I’ve had this store for about almost seven years now. And I’m one of the very few to survive in the Bay Area. The economy has been really hard on the construction industry, as you know. But we’re hanging in there.
DEBRA: Good. Good for you.
LYDIA CORSER: Thank you.
DEBRA: So usually, the guests that I have are focused on some toxics issue. And you’re coming from a green perspective. I just want to say something about the term green, and the viewpoint of green. And you can comment on this too, if you’d like.
There was a period in my life where I, starting in 1987, after researching things, toxic and non-toxic, I said, “Oh, my god.
There’s an environment out there, and I’m affecting it, and it’s affecting me.” And I decided I needed to be green.
But what happened, as I brought all those green criteria into my work, many, many years ago, before the word green was even being used in 1987, what I found was that people who were considering the environment were considering recycling and resource use and clear cutting forest, and all these other things that are very important issues. But what I found over a period of time was that the issues of toxics were not being given the same kind of consideration, like some of those other issues.
And so what I decided to do was just go back to focusing on toxics. Not that the other issues aren’t important, but to me, if people are putting toxic chemicals in the environment from the manufacturer or use of consumer products, that’s doing more to harm life than anything else.
We’ll talk more about this when we come back from the break.
My guest is Lydia Corser, green interior designer and owner of Green Space, a green remodeling store. She’s also online. You can find Green Space on my website, DebrasList.com, and we’ll talk with Lydia after the break.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest is Lydia Corser, green interior designer and owner of Green Space, a green remodeling store in Santa Cruz, California and online.
So Lydia, let’s continue what I was saying before the break and tell me your viewpoint about what the word green means.
LYDIA CORSER: Well, I think environmentalists and green people and toxic experts can talk all day about semantics. I think that it’s really an evolution of thought, as you described it. You start out from one perspective and more and more people now are coming from the perspective where you and I have arrived, that these toxic chemicals and synthesized chemicals that we’ve been creating, humankind, are just the most important thing to focus on really, as ingredients in everything—in food, in indoor air, or finishes, in interiors, and so many aspects of our lives—what our cars are made out of. Everything.
So even though I came from an environmentalist point of view, I’m very much on the same page with you, and I’m feeling like even the US Green Building Council this year, their major focus is on health. They finally figured out how to reach people. And I just can’t believe that it’s taken so long that I’m so happy about it because that’s been the thing that I have used to talk to people about this stuff, and to warn them about what carpet and all these different materials that we use on interiors are comprised of.
And it’s, as you know, a great struggle to find products that are made from natural materials in non-deadly combinations. And I am happy that I can offer them to the public, to the retail store. It’s great.
DEBRA: I’m happy that you’re offering them too because they’re not the kind of products that you can find by going into regular stores. And I wish there were stores like yours in every community in the world.
LYDIA CORSER: But really, the best thing would be is if we didn’t need stores like mine, and they were everywhere, and those were the only choices that we had.
DEBRA: I totally agree with you. And just in that regard, I want to say that in 1990, I started a business that I’m no longer part of, but I started a business with some partners where the idea was we were going to open green boutiques—a chain of green boutiques. And so we started doing R&D and I finally said to them, “You know what? What is really needed is for there not to be a need for green boutiques.”
And I think that what’s going to happen is these green products—at the time, we were looking at selling things like recycled toilet paper, and things like that which you couldn’t buy at Staples, but now, you can.
And I said, you know what the future is going to be is that these green products are going to be in regular stores, and there would be no need for green boutiques.
And that is actually what happened.
LYDIA CORSER: To some extent.
DEBRA: To some extent is that we now see these products that I was thinking we needed a boutique for, are now mainstream source.
So that idea didn’t fly. The company went off to do something else to sell green products actually to mainstream stores like Wal-Mart, Target, and places like that.
But that’s how far we’ve come, where in 1990, which isn’t so long ago, in 1990, I felt we needed a green boutique. And now, we can find those products, a lot of those products in regular stores.
But still, the interior design products are more difficult to find—things like paints and carpets and all those things you sell.
Before we get into all your safe alternatives, let’s just talk about what are some of the toxic chemicals that you have found in interior design products that you felt we need to not be exposed to.
LYDIA CORSER: You’re even more of an expert than I am on the actual chemistry. Volatile organic compounds or VOCs, as you know, are known carcinogens that are aromatic. And they can also just be severe irritants because some people have sensitivities and they’ve become very acute because of prolonged or intense exposure to various things.
So those are the things that are the most dangerous really, formaldehyde and so on. There’s a long list.
So I try to focus on products that have zero VOCs whenever I can find them or minimal VOCs that contain plant oils and things that are less harmful.
DEBRA: I do that as well. So you said that you screen things, that everything is already screened for green. Can you tell us more about your screening process? I know that for myself that what I do is my first question is always, is it toxic or not toxic?
And I choose the ones that are not toxic. And once it passes that screen, then I look at the other green things.
So what is it that you’re looking at? And if we run into a commercial, we’ll just continue after the break.
LYDIA CORSER: I look at the exact same things. I look for stuff at materials safety datasheets. I actually use your book, Home Safe Home, frequently to look up chemicals. That’s why I’m a little intimidated about this part of our conversation.
But every day, in this kind of work, is very humbling. So we’re learning all the time.
And so that’s what I look at toxins first and foremost.
So in flooring, it’s going to be the adhesives and the finishes because the materials are typically natural, but the binders and then the way they’re finished on the top to make them durable.
And then in any liquid like paint stain, again, the adhesive or finish, same kind of thing, looking at the chemical composition and trying to find things that are going to be what customers need, as far as durability and maintenance, while not poisoning them.
And then I look at—I like to look at where things are manufactured. I try to find out about the social and economic justice aspects of products. And I look at proximity, if they’re made locally or in the US, or in North America. That’s better because there’s less transportation. And a carbon footprint, which also affects our environment and the air that we breathe.
DEBRA: So we’re going to take a break now. And we’ll back with Lydia Corser in just a few minutes. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Lydia Corser. She’s a green interior designer and the owner of a store called Green Space that sells green and non-toxic products that you would use in the interior of your home.
So Lydia, let’s just go and talk about some of these wonderful products that you have. Basically, the types of products fall into categories of paints and stain sealers and finishes and as an alternative plaster. Then there are floorings, there are countertops and tile. And then you have some other products, solar tubes to bring light into the space, and mattresses.
But I’d like to focus on—obviously, we’re not going to have time to talk about everything you have here because you have so many products. But let’s start with paints and what you put on your walls because I know that that’s a big source of toxic exposure for people. In fact, I think that carpet is the number one thing because if people have carpets, synthetic carpet in their home, it’s an ongoing source of time-released toxic chemicals that goes on for years.
But I think that a lot of people get a big toxic exposure when they paint, or put a finish on a wood surface. And then that continues to outgas and outgas, sometimes for years.
So let’s talk about pain first, and then let’s go on to flooring.
So tell us about the various paints that you offer.
LYDIA CORSER: Well, we have, in most of the categories, with carpet too, we have from the greenest of the green, I call it the crunchiest granola, to the lighter green products. And that’s to the paint too. We carry milk paint, which is made from milk casein and mineral pigments. And that works really well for wood finishes.
We have a lot of beekeepers in our area, and they are using it like crazy on their beehives, which I’m happy about.
DEBRA: That’s so wonderful.
LYDIA CORSER: Yes. Children’s furniture and all those kinds of things. And then it can be sealed with tung oil from the Chinese nut. And that makes it really durable interior or exterior.
And then we also carry a clay paint, natural clay paint. So it has kale and clay and mineral pigments. And it’s a lovely, lovely wall finish.
Not everybody has the appetite for venture that some of these natural products require. Often they require a little gentler use, or more maintenance, which, unfortunately, in our zip, zip world, people often sadly aren’t willing to invest.
So we do carry two brands of more mainstream paint. They’re both zero VOC paints. And our tinting machine, we have a very sophisticated tinting machine and matching system. So we use zero VOC pigments in our paints, so that they maintain their zero VOC status as they become—
DEBRA: I think that’s an important point to make because there are zero VOC paints, and then they put VOC pigments in them. And that’s something that people need to be aware is going on.
LYDIA CORSER: I’ve had people come in to the store just distressed because they bought a brand of pain that was carried in a more mainstream store that I also carry, and it’s a zero VOC brand, but when it was tinted, and especially in the darker colors, it becomes, of course, more and more noticeable because there are more and more VOCs to create those colors. And the outgassing, I think, you can probably speak more accurately than I, but I read one study that said that paint can continue outgassing for at least three years.
DEBRA: Yes, I read that too, and longer.
LYDIA CORSER: We all thought that it was 30 days or something, but that’s absolutely not the case at all. So it’s crucial that people understand this.
DEBRA: And especially if you’re painting a whole house like if you’re remodeling and you paint every room in the house. That multiples the amount of VOCs.
But even if you’re in a room, say, you’ve just painted your bedroom, and then you go into that room every night, and close the door, that’s not a lot of ventilation.
LYDIA CORSER: And one other important is actually drywall, it goes underneath that paint because most of that has a lot of vinyl in it because it’s a plasticizer that makes it easy for the laborers to work, and it dries more quickly, and hot much especially, they call it hot mud, when they’re rushing to finish a job, they’ll use that, or if they have to do patch.
Vinyl, as we know, is a tremendously toxic substance. And the more supple it is, the more it has dioxin and all kinds of crazy things in it.
Sometimes people will get a whole house project done and not even realize that the drywall paint used, they’re really toxic chemical underneath the paint. And paint doesn’t seal that in because it’s supposed to breathe. And so it can come through, and then people end up blaming the paint even though they’re using VOC paint. It happens a lot.
DEBRA: It’s really important, and I’m sure you’ll agree with this, that if people want to reduce or eliminate toxic chemicals in their indoor home environment, they need to be looking at every single product that is being used in that interior.
I even had a subfloor that was being laid. I was turning a porch into a room, and so I had them lay strips of wood across the cement floor, so that they could then lay a hardwood floor on it. And I said, I don’t want any toxic chemicals.
And I walk in on them working on it, and they’re putting a toxic adhesive down on these strips that I’m having them lay. And I said, “What is this? I told you, no toxic chemicals.”
And they said, “Well, this is standard. This is the way we have to do it. Otherwise, it will squeak.”
And I said, “I don’t care if it squeaks. No toxic chemicals.”
And I made this very clear. This is something that they had agreed to. So you really have to watch it because a lot of these workers, virtually, everybody’s been trained in a toxic way. The only people who are not doing it toxic are people who have specifically decided to not do it toxic, and have sought these non-toxic products that learned how to use them. Otherwise, every worker you might hire has been trained to do it in a toxic way. And they’re just going to do what they were trained to do.
And this is what we need to be watching out for.
My guest today is Lydia Corser. She’s a green interior designer. And we’re talking about toxic chemicals and indoor environment and safe products. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Lydia Corser, green interior designer and the owner of Green Space, a green remodeling store in Santa Cruz, California, and online, GreenSpaceCompany.com, I think. Is that it? Did I get that right?
LYDIA CORSER: That’s it.
DEBRA: GreenSpaceCompany.com, or you can also find it on Debra’s List at DebrasList.com. Just type in Green Space.
Well, we’re in our last segment, Lydia, so I don’t think we’re going to get to flooring on this show. So I want to keep talking about paint because I’ve experimented with a lot of these natural paints, and I need to say that the milk paint is my favorite paint because even though it does take more attention, as you said, and that you have to fuss with it, and that you can’t just go down to the store, and have them put in the exact color out of the machine that you want, I had a room painted, and I had to mix the exact amount of paint that I needed because I couldn’t mix the same color again. And I had to mix two different colors in order to get the color that I wanted.
But let me tell you that the results were so worth it because not only is it beautiful, and it has this really softness to it, the texture on the wall, it has this beautiful softness that acrylic or latex paint doesn’t have. And you can take all the VOCs out, but it’s not going to look like this.
And the way it smells when I was putting it on the wall—I could put it on the wall myself, for one. And it smelled like a nice, warm mug of milk.
LYDIA CORSER: That is lovely, identifiable smell.
DEBRA: It’s such a wonderful, natural experience to know that I was taking milk, and mixing it with earth pigments, and making a beautiful color that I could have this creative experience with as an artist, and putting it on the wall. And every time I look at it, it just has this quietness about it. It’s like there’s artificiality about it. It’s just nature on my wall.
And another natural product that I have experienced with is the American Clay Plaster.
LYDIA CORSER: Yes, I have it in my own home.
DEBRA: Let me just tell you that if I could actually get it here without paying a million-dollars to have it shipped, because my house is in Florida, and American Clay is in California. It actually costs me more to ship them than to buy it.
LYDIA CORSER: Yes, they’re in New Mexico. That’s true, it is.
DEBRA: But it has the most gorgeous, gorgeous look to it. I have one of the blues, I forgot what it was called, but I put it in my bathroom, and I put it up high. I tiled wall up seven-feet with white sublay tile, and then above that because I have a very high ceiling, I put this blue clay plaster. And it looks so gorgeous. Oh, my god. And it was so easy to work with.
But just the look of it and the fact that it has variation to the color, and it has texture, so it’s not just this flat one shade. It’s just an amazing experience that every time I walk into my bathroom, I go, “This is so beautiful.”
And if I lived in New Mexico, and I could just go down and get the American Clay Plaster, I would have it on every wall in my house. It’s like you’re living with a different experience.
And so I want people to know that it’s not just about the toxic chemicals. It’s what on the other side of toxic chemicals, this whole other world of beauty and nature that gives you a different experience and a different connection with the natural world.
And I think that that has a value in and of itself.
LYDIA CORSER: It has tremendous value. It enhances our daily lives, and like you said, every time I look at my plastered walls in my dining room and my living room, I have a sense of accomplishment as well. And the softness and the variation and color in the dining room, I used the straw additive, and then you wash it back, so some of the straw shows, the size of the straw stocks, and then it’s just so beautiful.
And that’s where we eat every day. The clay actually is a filter for toxins. And you probably noticed in the bathroom that as it moistens, you can smell it. And then it will dry over time, and so it takes in moisture and then it releases it slowly.
DEBRA: That was one of the things that made me think that this was perfect for a bathroom because a lot of times, I remember when I was originally learning about milk paint, people would say, well, you can’t put it in the bathroom because it will mold because of the moisture.
And yet, the clay plaster is perfect for the bathroom because of exactly that what you just described. It will absorb the moisture, and then as the air dries, it releases the moisture back out. So it never gets wet like a semi-gloss wall that gets wet, it never grows mold.
I’ve had, how long as has it been, six or seven years, I’ve had my plaster walls, it has never grown mold. It has no signs of wear. Nothing. It’s just this permanent, breathing part of the living organism of my bathroom.
LYDIA CORSER: And that’s how we want to be looking at buildings and homes, as an organism, because every part interacts with every other part. And it’s a really important concept to embrace.
And looking at toxins, looking at energy use, looking at every part, they all affect each other just like in nature.
DEBRA: Well, that’s the way it is. In life, everything is interconnected whether we know that it is or not. And that’s one of the basic principles of thinking. There’s a whole different way of thinking about nature from a nature viewpoint versus an industrial viewpoint because an industrial viewpoint says everything is separate, and it all needs to be identical. Every can of paint that comes off the line needs to look exactly the same, and we need to be able to say, this is eggshell. And that’s the color in every single room.
And that’s not what nature is about. Nature really is about this big variation of beauty, and having things be different and unique and changing even, having things look different from season to season. It’s not about sameness. It’s about the life is going to come in differently.
Go ahead.
LYDIA CORSER: I was going to say just like William Morris. It was so odd to see that you opened to show with.
DEBRA: Yes. I’m sure you must know William Morris.
LYDIA CORSER: Yes. As you were talking about it, we just were in Paris and in the Louvre and some of the other museums they have, some of his work, of course, and he’s world renowned. And I was pointing them out to my almost 15-year-old daughter and explaining to her who he was. He was such a pivotal person, swimming against the tide of the time, and trying to get people to become really aware of their natural side, and the beauty and nature, and bringing that back into our daily lives.
DEBRA: Can you imagine what it must have been like that there was this time period in the late 1800s when there were people like William Morris, and Henry David Thoreau, where they were at this time where they were born into a time that was more nature-oriented, and then they’re seeing this industrial mega whatever, this huge thing, just coming in and taking over, and trying to fight against this?
And I just so admire these people from the past, and learn as much as I can about them because they had this vision of how we can be connected to nature because they experienced that themselves. And that they knew, William Morris knew, how to dye fabrics with natural materials because that’s the way he was trained.
And then to see these dyes come in, and why they’re all synthetic and all the colors are exactly the same, and all of that.
LYDIA CORSER: And horrendously toxic.
DEBRA: And horrendously toxic. And can you imagine what an affront to his sensibility that must have been?
And now, here we are a hundred and something years later, and 130, 40, 50 years later, and that there are people like you and I who are saying, “Well, this is a horrible experiment with all this industrialism. We need to get back to what works.”
And so I so appreciate that you’re doing what you’re doing because it’s exactly the direction that I think that we all need to be going. So I’m very happy that you could be my guest today.
LYDIA CORSER: Thank you. Well, I’m very happy to be here just as well. And I couldn’t do my job without you and your books. So it’s mutual, believe me.
DEBRA: Thank you. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And if you enjoyed this show, please tell your friends and come back tomorrow.
