Taking the Toxicity Out of Home Design
Forget the big-screen television. Ix-nay on the designer drapes.
Mary Cordaro’s home-improvement budget is all natural.
She has lived for several years with her screenwriter husband in a 1,600-square-foot home in Valley Village. Rather than fill the place with the usual comforts, Cordaro uses it as a laboratory for her job as a “building biologist,” consulting with business people or homeowners on how to make spaces less toxic and more environmentally friendly.
Cordaro has focused especially on keeping the bedroom free from the contaminants and chemicals found in most home furnishings, down to the last bit of down.
“When you are sleeping, your body is at its most vulnerable, and environmental hazards affect you most,” she explained.
Cordaro’s home is one of 20 in Southern California selected for “Homes for the Future: A Tour of Sustainable Living in Southern California.” The event is put on by Eco-Home Network, a nonprofit group that promotes the financial and environmental benefits of “sustainable” homes.
Among a list of sponsors and supporters for the tour is Ed Begley Jr., whose Studio City home just north of Wilacre Park is famous for its environmental focus--and the electric car parked out front. Begley hosted a news conference Thursday morning to announce specifics of the tour, which will include homes with a range of emphases, from solar power and photovoltaic cells to mud-ball roofs and special water filters.
The only other Valley location on the tour is a home at 8300 Valecrest Drive in Sun Valley that is “the best example of what every person in the mainstream can do,” in the words of Eco-Home Network spokeswoman Kathy Darling. It features an organic, “drought-tolerant” garden, low-flow shower heads, skylights and light fixtures with compact fluorescent bulbs.
Participants in the self-guided tour may visit any of the 20 sites in any order from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
More information is available by telephone at (310) 542-2520 or via the Internet at https://www.ecohome.org
