Well, little did I know that putting my home on the market would cause a little fuss!    I was amazed at how many people checked out www.riverroadhouse.com when apartment therapy ran an item about it.   Although they call it a "mini Turkey Hill" and I’ll basically leave my comment about that, well, to myself. 

And then the NY Post put it in the real estate gossip column, which I have to say was kinda cool.   Braden Keil usually writes about people buying multi-million dollar apartments in NYC or listing their $20 million dollar spread in the Hamptons in his column.   And here he is talking about my modest $400K home:

It’s easy being green

Environmental lifestyle guru Danny Seo is selling his eco-friendly Bucks County, Pa., bungalow for not a lot of green.

The noted interior designer, who has his own radio and TV shows and has penned five books, is listing the cozy, restored two-bedroom home on a small hillside lot for $425,000.

The maintenance-free property is surrounded by Japanese maple trees, ferns and evergreens.

Inside the 1,000-square-foot 1920s cottage are an upstairs sleeping loft with views of the Delaware River, exposed ceiling beams and a stone fireplace. Seo’s updates include a kitchen with energy-efficient appliances, central air conditioning, a marble bathroom and a renovated screened-in porch. There is also a separate outbuilding that could be used as an office or artist’s studio.

If that wasn’t enough, a copy of the DVD "Simple Steps to a Greener Home," which chronicles the renovation and restoration of the home, is included in the sale.

For more information, visit riverroadhouse.com.

But I digress.    All the interest has been great, but it’s always brought up a lot of peculiar questions about my house, too.   

People like the dining room chairs.   They really like them.   Correction: they like my $5 scratch-and-dent Ikea chairs.    And I think I know why.

I reupholstered some floor model Ikea chairs I bought on super-clearance about a year ago with some cashmere and wool sweaters I picked up at Goodwill.   It was easy: just unscrew the seat cushion, wrap a sweater over the cushion, staple gun into place underneath, trim off excess, screw back on and voila!  Sweater chair.

People are asking what the chairs cost.   Or if I’ll include it in the sale.   People!    Go to Ikea (or look in your basement for a chair), spend $5 in the scratch and dent and do it yourself!   It’s the easiest project ever and the results are really great.

A few months ago, I tested something called a Rechargeable Water Bag that I used for a houseplant.   Basically, you put the large bag in a bucket of water, it swells up, and it slowly waters your plants at their roots over 30 days.  Each time you rewater the plant, the bag recharges and you never have to really worry about your plants again.

So, I figured I would remember to water this guy at least once every month.    Wrong.   

Today, as I was waiting for the water to warm up in the shower, I noticed I could easily just plop the plant in the shower and let the cold water coming down water the plant and then swap it out once it gets warm.

If you have one of those shower/tub combos, you could easily fill up a watering can with cold water this way, too.  Once it’s full, your water would be warm enough to shower…and you’ll have a watering can full of clean water for all your thirsty plants.

We recently did a photo shoot in Bucks County, PA at stylist Lynn Butler’s home.    I spied these terra cotta candles in her kitchen and took a snapshot; she sells them on her website through her company The Product Gallery. 

I’ve just shot an email to my friend who makes candles through his website www.itsasoy.com.   You see, I have a whole collection of weathered and antiqued terra cotta pots sitting in my craft room.   But like most terra cotta pots, they have a drainage hole on the bottom (and I am guessing unlike the candles in this photo).

So what can I use on the bottom of the pots to make sure the melted wax doesn’t pour right through when I make them?   Or is it enough to prop them on wax paper, pour the wax, let it cool and then peel them off the wax paper?   

I’m either going to make a terrible mess or be the luckiest crafter alive.    More to come…

Here’s a sweet idea: candy tin gift boxes.

I put together this eco idea for Cosmogirl magazine, but the story got nixed and I was stuck with these images.  So I thought I’d share themw ith you.

Save all your metal candy mint tins and cover the top with a piece of woodgrain contact sheet paper.  You can find the contact sheet paper in most home improvement stores; just trace the top, cut, and peel off the backing and place on top.   This will conceal the words ALTOIDS on top of the box.

The boxes are just big enough to hold a gift card and the smaller tins can hold things like earrings, cash and other small gift items.

Put a whole stack together and tie with ribbon and give a week’s worth of mini gifts.     When the recipient is done, they can toss the tin into the recycling bin since it’s 100% recyclable tin.

I did a fun segment on the Saturday CBS Early Show over the weekend sharing tips on getting ready your house (and yard) ready for Fall.   

Who knew letting fallen leaves gather in the sewer system, which flushes into lakes and rivers, would be bad for the environment?    The leaves decompose in our waterways, become fuel for algae, and giant algae blooms come alive in the Spring.     Just running your lawnmower over the leaves on your yard so they become beneficial mulch is the simple and easy solution.

Watch the video online and learn how to transform a sock into a draft dodger and disinfect your bird feeders in one simple step.

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3288173n

I’ve been working away with Method cleaning products for a bit now.  We just wrapped a photo shoot where I recycled their entire packaging into fun and exciting craft projects.  You’ll have to check them out at www.methodhome.com.

Another fun collaboration was this Plastic Bag Rehab reusable tote bag we created together.     Don’t you love the design and color?

The bags are not for sale, but part of a holiday promotion we’re doing where if you purchase $20 worth of Method products between now and the Christmas holiday, we’ll send you this bag free (minus shipping and handling).   You can learn more at methodhome.com in a few days…

What I LOVE about this tote is that it folds up incredibly small, so you can stash it in your car’s glove compartment or in your handbag or–in my case—briefcase.    And it’s super strong and durable, so it holds really heavy groceries, too.

Tell me whatcha think. 

UPDATED:   The eco recycling projects I’ve done for Method are not up yet on methodhome.com.  I’ll let you know when we post them up.     In the meantime, I’ll post a sneak peek later this day at one of my favorite projects we’ve done.

After much thought and going back and forth in my mind, I’ve decided to list my Bucks County for sale on the market.

You can learn more about the house and see a photo tour at www.riverroadhouse.com.

I’ve done so much restoration and renovation to the house over the years, everything from turning an outbuilding into the ultimate crafting room, painting inside and outside the house, restoring the front porch and screening it in, doing a totally top-of-the-line green renovation in the kitchen, re-tiling the bathroom and so much more.

We shot part of my TV show "Simply Green with Danny Seo" right at this house and the best-of DVD is in stores now.    We did a Country Home magazine feature shoot her, shot the LIFE magazine holiday cover story here and even had the Bravo Crew from Live Earth film here. 

But as my work grows and the renovations are complete, I feel it’s time to move on.   I actually like living in work zones and seeing homes come back to life.  So I’m on the hunt for a fixer upper farm in the Bucks County area to do my eco-magic on yet again.   

www.riverroadhouse.com   

Okay, if you read this blog a lot, you know I am constantly grabbing the digital camera and shooting ideas and "things" that I find interesting.    I literally have hundreds of photos on files of things I’ve shot that I’ve totally forgotten why I even shot it.   It could be a candlestick that I thought the finish was interesting, but when I look at the same photo 6 months later, I have no idea why I thought it was interesting.

But this photo speaks for itself: cardboard birdhouses in the windows of Anthropologie near Rockefeller Center.    Will a bird ever call any of these homes, well, home?    Probably not.   

But it’s a great example of taking a cardboard shipping box you have around the house, cutting it up into squares and rectangles, painting it green (or whatever leftover paint you have) and then there you have it: bird house.

Funny how they lined them up on a branch as if they were birds….

How cool is this?  I was in NYC for work and decided to get off the subway one station early and enjoy the crisp, beautiful day.

I got off at 50th street and the first thing I saw was a billboard for Method cleaning products at the Duane Reade store.   So I immediately and quickly looked for my digital camera and took a shot of it.

You see so many consumer products being advertised in Times Square, it’s kinda cool to see something eco-friendly being advertised.   Method products are sold at Duane Reade in NYC now, so that may be why they are advertising them right outside the store.

Tomorrow, I’m going to see comedian Amy Sedaris explaining the art of hospitality.  I’ll take lots of photos and will tell ya the funny stuff she says.

I get ideas from everywhere.  Stores, a hotel lobby, a torn sweater in a donation bin at the thrift shop.  It’s all over the place.   Inspiration, that is.

Here’s a mirror I saw in a store recently with glued on wooden circles all over it.  I thought the texture and shapes were interesting, so I took a digital photo.

As I was looking at a pile of wine corks in my kitchen junk drawer the other day, I thought it would be cool to cover a whole mirror frame with wine and champagne corks.

So, I’ve been slowly yet surely saving them.    As you can see from the photo, you need A LOT of wine corks, so I’ve been going up to people in restaurants and asking them for their wine cork and begging bartenders to stash a few extra for me throughout the night.

I’m just about done scavenging for corks and I picked up a raw wood mirror from Ikea to test the project.  Results will be posted soon….