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Follow Jen and her family as they renovate their "new" old home, trying to keep health and environment always in mind. This is the first article in her new series for our blog.

Jen Rabulan-Bertram:

Tripping over boxes and piles of who-knows-what wasn’t so uncharacteristic of our everyday life in our small 800 sq. ft. city apartment. After relocating from Virginia to live and work in the NYC-area in 2001, the husband, Jeff, and I set up camp in Hoboken, NJ in a quaint one bedroom railroad apartment. Our apartment, on the second-floor of an old brownstone, wasn’t big by any means, but it was our first home together. It was the home where we lived right after we got married in 2003 and the same home where we brought our first born in 2007.

As the kid grew, so did the litany of kid furniture, his toy collection and the pile of little boy clothes. And as the stuff multiplied, the walls closed in around us---and fast. As much as we adored city-living and the convenience that it provided, we knew very well that we’d outgrown our 1-bedroom railroad apartment.

Because our family's needs changed and proximity to the city was no longer a necessity, I reluctantly agreed to head to the suburbs in pursuit of more space for the family. Just 35 miles from NYC and even closer to my husband's office in NJ, the neighborhood we narrowed our search to surrounds a lake, and is comprised of some homes that were once seasonal cottages and bungalows.

For any homebuyer, it’s tough finding a house that suits your family’s needs, but it's even more complicated when looking exclusively in one neighborhood. In our search, homes in our budget that somewhat fit our needs were either already updated with nowhere for us to grow or they were in disrepair with a glimmer of promise. Because we consider ourselves handy, resourceful and DIYers, we opted to go the fixer upper route.

In February, after touring a countless number of homes for sale in the lake community, we stumbled upon a worn down, but seemingly solid four-bedroom cottage-style house that sat on a hill, on a tree-lined street. It wasn’t love at first sight, but we fell in love with the idea of making it our own.

With the extended delays on closing, we had an ample amount of time to research our trajectory of this renovation, with much of it being green and as sustainable as possible. In addition to referring to Healthy Child Healthy World's resources during our renovation, I've found Regreen.org's guidelines to be helpful in regards to the impact of each renovation project. 

Ultimately, greener homes are healthier places to live, better for the environment and can save money in the long run, and according to Regreen.org, remodeling an existing house is inherently greener than building a new one. (We've got that one covered.) Not to mention, there are a variety of state and federal programs that give homeowners the incentive to make their homes more sustainable and energy efficient. And because nothing ever goes as planned, we're also living IN the house as we tackle all of the renovations, making it just as crucial to choose supplies and resources that aren't as toxic or harmful.

We've taken the last two weeks to get our primer up, so-to-speak; cleaning up 20 years of filth, ripping up six rooms worth of pet-stained carpet, and spending endless hours sanding floors. We haven't moved in officially, and our walls might be bare, but they're freshly painted, with zero VOC paint to boot. 

Follow along as our family renovates this 1940s house---inside and out---to make it our new home. Over the next few weeks, we have a long list of projects to tackle, some of which include: painting every single wall, restoring the original hardwood floors ourselves, furnishing our empty home, choosing energy efficient appliances, fixing up the exterior, landscaping the neglected yard, and my favorite---create a greener playspace for our kid who, at 3, has never had a bedroom of his own until now.

Jen Rabulan-Bertram, a Healthy Child Healthy World Parent Ambassador, is a freelance writer and the blogger behind The Next Kid Thing. She also launched a new blog, Suburbish.com to document her family's transition to the suburbs and progress of the renovation of their "new" old house.

Photos: Top-- The house on a hill, on a tree-lined street. Our family is tasked with renovating our new house that's been neglected for years. Middle-- In lieu of buying new flooring for the downstairs, we chose to restore the original hardwood floors. This is what the floors looked like after hours of sanding. bottom--The freshly-painted playroom pre-sanding, just waiting to be completed and played in.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and not necessarily those of
Healthy Child Healthy World.