Dreaming Green» Dreaming Green Eco Fabulous Homes Designed to Inspire by Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher

re-nest: Paul and Lisa’s Green Dream Home

Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 23:13:48 +0000

Paul and Lisa’s elegant Manhattan home is proof that going green doesn’t have to come at the expense of style. (It also proves that if you’re going to gut renovate a dilapidated 1885 Manhattan townhouse in a single year, it comes in handy when the owner is also the architect.)

See the article and new, updated photos at re-nest

Architectural Digest Home Design Show – Free Consultation with Paul Gleicher

Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:42:07 +0000

Speed dating for design clients: Not a romantic date but a chance to share your design dreams with noted Architect Paul Gleicher and hear his vision for carrying out your renovation project or new homes construction. Want to go green? He’s an expert! Like a modern sensibility without an austere environment? He’s your man.

From Friday March 19th through Sunday March 21st, Paul Gleicher will be setting up shop at Pier 94, 12th avenue at 55th Street, New York City at the Architectural Digest Home Design Show and spaces are limited so sign up for a time slot when you first arrive at the show.

Affordable Green Tips…

Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:13:21 +0000

Stop Dreaming! Here are some simple ways to a healthier, cleaner and greener home! Have some ideas of you’re own? We’d love to hear them…

1. Place shoe racks at your front door, so you don’t track dirty toxins from the street into your home.

2. Use organic baking soda as a cleanser in your kitchen and around the house

3. Recycled doorknobs and cabinet fixtures can be found in local salvage stores, and they’re cheaper than buying new

4. Paint all walls with low VOC paints

5. Air drying your laundry saves energy and adds a nice fresh scent to your clothes

6. Replace wall-to-wall carpet with area rugs. For larger spaces, use FLOR carpet tiles

7. Auction off your old appliances on eBay or craiglist, giving them a new life and saving you money

8. When installing cork floors, consider buying sheets of cork and cutting them to make your own mosaic. This option is far less expensive than buying cork mosaics.

9. Install motion sensors, so lights that you might forget to turn off when leaving a room, turn off automatically

10. Consider a spare and simple style that doesn’t require buying too many expensive home accessories

11. Salvage wood from local demolition sites to use in your own home

12. If you have limited yard space, plant a mini-organic herb garden in a large metal pot outside

13. Bamboo is a less expensive and more renewable alternative for flooring

14. Marmoleum is the way to go if you’re looking for an inexpensive and eco linoleum substitute

15. Install ceiling fans to cut down on your air conditioning costs

16. If you must cut down a tree on your property, think of creative ways to use its wood in your home

17. Limit meat on your menu to save money for organic food

18. Replace your bathroom fixtures with low flow fittings

19. Insulate, insulate, insulate your windows to reduce both waste and your home heating and cooling bills

20. Lower your thermostat and bring on the sweaters!

21. Whenever you can, buy local

22. When refinishing your floors, use non-toxic wood finishers

23. Placing shades on your windows will help keep your house cool in the summer sun

Have some tips of your own? Let’s hear them…

Lisa Sharkey Interviewed on Blog Talk Radio

Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:02:58 +0000

Ellie Crystal interviews Lisa Sharkey on Ellie’s World Blog Talk Radio. Listen here.

Visit the Ellie’s World Site here…

Dreaming Green is on sale now. You can order your copy here:

Green Tip#3 Pretty Paint Should Be Seen, Not Inhaled…

Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:30:09 +0000

Everybody loves a fresh new coat of paint, but nobody likes the smell. Now, you can have the color without the dangerous scent caused by something known as volatile organic compounds.. they are the chemicals that off-gas into the air and are harmful, not to mention allergenic. Nowadays, healthy paints are just as easy to purchase even from the big companies. Sherwin Williams’ Harmony Line and
Benjamin Moore’s EcoSpec are the most popular of the healthy lines . Most of the healthy paints are only available in lighter colors… but the good news is those colors are most soothing for your home.

There are hundreds of green tips and ideas in our book, “Dreaming Green Eco Fabulous Homes Designed to Inspire”

On sale now. You can order your copy here:

Green Tip of the Week #2 Light up Your Life…

Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 12:32:28 +0000

Are you worried that your rooms will be lit like stuffy offices if you use compact florescent bulbs? We were too until we chose the proper light fixtures that allowed the warm textiles of the shades to serve as filters, giving the rooms a more natural looking light palette. Choose lamp shades with gold hued linings and loosely woven materials for your overhead hanging fixtures and you will be a lot happier about the light in your life.

There are hundreds of green tips and ideas in our book, “Dreaming Green Eco Fabulous Homes Designed to Inspire”

On sale now. You can order your copy here:

Green Tip of the Week #1 Sleeping with the Enemy…

Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:51:50 +0000

From energy conservation to the greenest ideas in eco-responsibility – We’ll share our tips right here every week. We want to hear your feedback. Even better – We would love to hear your own green tips and ideas. Submit them below and we’ll publish them right here on DreamingGreenBook.Com.

Green tip of the week #1:

Did you know that most mattresses contain formaldehyde? That’s the stuff they use to preserve pigs brains for your kid’s science class. Are you sure you want to sleep on it too?
When you need a new mattress try something organic and non-toxic. It may cost a little more but since you do spend a third of your life in bed, why not make it a healthy place to catch z’s?

cforms contact form by delicious:days

There are hundreds of green tips and ideas in our book, “Dreaming Green Eco Fabulous Homes Designed to Inspire”

On sale now. You can order your copy here:

Extraordinary Experiment

Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:12:53 +0000

The 2,200 square-foot house located in New York’s Hudson Valley was originally conceived to be a small energy efficient house where Michael McDonough could camp out on the weekends with his wife, Corinne Trang, and their four-year old daughter, Colette. But the more Michael researched energy efficient systems, the more he wanted to push the envelope and experiment with green concepts. “I was excited by the new building technologies introduced over the last fifteen years,” explains Michael. “It occurred to me that no one had looked at all of them at once by vetting them out and putting them all in one building.” Out went his idea for a simple weekend house, and in came the concept of a livable lab.

You can read more about the McDonough-Trang e-House plus 16 more rural, suburban and urban green homes in our book, “Dreaming Green”

On sale now. You can order your copy here:

Press: Our Green Townhouse in the News

Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:20:13 +0000

Click Image to Read

Good Housekeeping Magazine’s “Your Good House” Article on Our Green House

Click Image to Read

New York House Magazine Article on our Green Townhouse

On sale now. You can order your copy here:

Our Green Townhouse

Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:53:22 +0000

My husband, Paul and I have long had a love affair with Manhattan’s idyllic Upper West Side. We think the family-friendly neighborhood, with it’s scenic blocks of nineteenth-century brownstones and its easy access to parks and schools, is the perfect place to raise our children, Greg, Doug and Casey. But finding the town house of our dreams in our beloved neighborhood was challenging. When we started looking five years ago, we knew we needed to find a wreck because that was the only way we could afford a house in our price range, but, boy, did we get one.

The four-story c.1885 home that we purchased had been converted to rental apartments and stripped of all its original character. Thankfully, having an architect in the family has its benefits, and Paul could see beyond the flaws. Knowing he could completely transform the space, we happily prepared ourselves to tackle a major renovation.

Early in the process we decided that almost every aspect of the renovation was going to be green – from the gut job to design. We wanted a healthy house with chemical-free, natural materials. First on the agenda was disposing of hazardous waste properly to avoid contaminating any landfills, so we called in an enviromental engineer who helped us remove the and the leaky oil tanks in the cellar. Next, we saved what we could from the old house, and even items we couldn’t use, like warped and cracked wood Joists, which we donated to a salvage flooring company. To provide cleaner more dust-free air quality than forced air, we went with an ultra-efficient boiler and slim-profile radiators.

Asthetically, we longed for a gorgeous and sophisticated house with rich textures, beautiful shapes and glorious color that would work for our lively family.

You can read more about our green townhouse plus 16 more urban, suburban and rural green homes in our book, “Dreaming Green”

On sale now. You can order your copy here: