Ho.Find: Food Paint + Green Depot

Yesterday, I told you that we moved into a new apartment, which, btw we lovingly named: "L'Aponeota" - stands for the Apartment of the Nerd and the Otaku. I am bent on making the interiors of this apartment very "green". In search of green products and finishes, I found a very interesting finish: Food-based paint. Anna Sova sells a paint that has 90% ingredients derived from the same ingredients that go into milk, chocolate, fiber bars and donuts! This paint is healthy and has zero VOCs! I personally get a very bad migraine with new paint smell and there have been times when a strong smell triggered an asthma attack. So I'm all for no VOC stuff!

Anywhoo, while looking for a place to buy these Anna Sova paints, I stumbled upon 'Green Depot', which is like Home Depot but only retails 'green' products. Isn't the concept amazing! Now I can find all green products at one place! Yay! Allow me to give you a quick tour of this shop:

View from the street

The Building: According to the Green Depot blog, the building at 222 Bowery St was built by YMCA in 1885 to be its Young Men's institute. From there on, the building housed a myriad of functions before becoming the LEED Platinum certified Green Depot Flagship store. (Apparently, this is the first LEED Pt. retail building in NYC and the second in the country)

The Architect: Studio Mapos LLC

What are VOCs? It is that new paint smell... See the informative sign below

Anna Sova food paint!!!

They have three more brands of paint that have no/low- VOCs and between the four brands you can pretty much find which ever color you are looking for.

An array of paint colors

They have another concept that blew me away! They carry their own cleaning supplies product line and once you empty your bottle, you need not buy a refill pack...

Green Depot brand of cleaners

You can just go to their refill bar and refill your bottle! How cool is that? This is like one of those ideas where you go 'why didn't anyone think of that before'? Well, maybe they did, but this is the first time I'm seeing it in action. The initial purchase of the bottle costs about $6 and the refill cost is 12 cents per fluid ounce, so you can fill just how much you feel is necessary or about $4 for 32 oz. So no more plastic wasted with the purchase of the refill pack!

The refill bar

They also carry green building products such as OSB, tiles, counter tops, lifestyle products etc.. check their website for a full product listing.

Green Depot is located just opposite this iconic building: The New Museum. I love that rose!

Don't fret if you are not in NYC, they have other branches on the East coast. Click here to launch the store locator.