Hi....sorry to take so long to respond. That kind of a week. [g] barb, fire retardants, I know. When did everything start having that applied? I just can't for the life of me figure out how they require that on all clothing and even on furniture. To me it's like poisoning everyone just in case they 'might' be in a fire. Even if you are in a fire, is fire retardant going to save you? It just doesn't make sense to me at all. Yes, finding organic is only half the problem. The cost and what you want being available is still an obstacle. Hi cyn427 :-) thanks for that link. I'll check it out. I guess I feel that they have gotten off balance in the way they approach this issue. How many people go their whole life without ever being in a fire and to try to protect the entire population by adding something to every product would be fine if they were not adding something that was potentially harmful. I also have to wonder about any statistics that can actually show that adding fire retardants have reduced deaths and injuries from fire. Yes, I am actively avoiding products from China too. Good idea. ideefixe, Great to have at least two names of companies who sell something without it. oopsie913, guess I'm not following your line of thought, in asking whether something that is free of pesticides is actually better than something that has pesticides. Pesticides are poisons that kill insects and are poisonous to humans as well in large enough amounts. And even if they don't kill you, what does a constant stream of these in small amounts do in a human body? Seems pretty simple to me, no poisons, vs. poisons, which is better? I think you could be right, some of the organic beds are just thick rubber with organic cotton around it. I don't think we could sleep on something like that either. Back problems in our family need firm mattresses. I hope there will be more available at some point. Thanks for that link, I'll check it out. mpmg46, I didn't realize that about products from Ireland, that's great! I'm going to have to look into that. chicagoans, I'm with you, I don't believe it's hype either. So many clothes now have this 'no wrinkle' finish and I was reading the other day that it is made from formaldehyde. Formaldehyde has been linked to illness and the EPA has identified it as a carcinogen and yet it continues to be allowed in so many products that who knows how much of an exposure you have to it. Even in amounts as small as 0.1 ppm, it produces symptoms. That is a tiny tiny amount. I try to find clothes without that finish. It's hard to find men's pants without it now. Yes, I'm glad they now offer the VOC paint. I love that! Thanks for the conversation and information. :-)

oliver yes I'm a KD Circuspeanut - no have not tried that one. You might say I'm from Missouri. Also a note I forgot to mention- if you are chemical sensitive waterborne does NOT mean you won't have problems, nor does anything that says no VOC. That simply means that it does not have volatile organic compounds which are bad for the ozone layer. Everything I have ever looked into that had low or now VOC did have isocyanates, which are not bad for the ozone, just bad for you. In a former life it was my job to research all of this sort of stuff for a trade organization back when "non toxic" was the buzz word instead of green. I moved to Missouri then. As an aside my better half happened to forward me an interesting (timeley) piece, follows: Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days." The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations." She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day. Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day. Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But too bad we didn't do the green thing back then. We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day. Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day. Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then. We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then. Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint. But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then? Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart young person...

The problem with cork is that you can almost never find it not sealed with polyurethane which is toxic (google what the EPA has to say about it). If you clue down cork squares, you might be able to finish them yourselves with a natural wax, but what a pain! Even the "natural" linoleum now comes covered with polyurethane. Non toxic flooring options are few and far between.

With so many different flooring types in a small space, I'm thinking I'm either going to have to do something that matches the wood of the parlor or more of the vinyl tiles, which I'm not crazy about but they will probably last a long time. I may eventually take look at cork for the bedrooms. I would do linoleum in a heartbeat if I didn't already have a lot of patched together flooring in the "open concept" parts of the house. Dad just put in the vinyl before he moved out two years ago, so I'm stuck with that. It's in the kitchen, entry way and informal eating area on the other side of the kitchen. Dad only redid the floors due to the laundry room flooding and ruining what was there, which was the wood. He wasn't open to "out of the box" linoleum which is what I would have wanted. At the time I did not know I was moving into the house. Not sure the vinyl tiles will go any better with grasscloth than a wood floor. Actually they are not vinyl per se, I don't know what to call them, they are some kind of plastic resin. Faux marble. High end for that type of flooring. I guess we can afford engineered wood . . . they sell that in most home supply places.