Now that life is back to some normalcy after the panic of thinking I had to move, I've started thinking about tidying up the office area and making it more...inviting to work in. Mostly it's the Gigi lounge since Gigi spends a lot of time in there just lying about. She's got her own little play and sleep area with a nice long window to lie in front of and watch the world go by.
The room looks fairly unfinished and I do have to wait until the window finishing is complete before doing too much. However, I am going to start with paint. I've been searching for a low VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) or even better a no VOC paint which is easier to find than I thought.
Why no VOC? Well, I'm very concerned with the quality of my indoor air just as I am concerned about the quality of my outdoor air. Paints can continue to release toxins into the air years after they've been applied. Yes, I know it's a "small" amount, but it's still a quantity and if I have an option to not contribute to that then I opt for a no VOC paint.
With that out of the way, now I can think of colour.
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For much of my life as a painter, I've painted with oil paints, and sometimes I've used nasty additives such as alkyd resins and varnishes like damar plus solvents like turpentine. I keep my workspace well ventilated, but still I sometimes worry about what the stuff has been doing to me. For a while when I lived in my studio space, I painted exclusively in acrylics, and I still use acrylics fairly regularly, because they have certain properties that work out for me for some paintings. Unfortunately though, they are not really a replacement for oil paints, which have a capacity for a far greater variety of surface quality and texture and as well, they dry wonderfully slowly and change character during the drying. In other words, I'm not likely to stop. We recently painted the interior of a good chunk of our house and used latex paints for the works. Everything is cloud white, and I'm pretty sure those pigments are inert.
It's true the lighter the colour the safer.
As for the oil paints. I understand. They are so rich.
My parents use to be potters full time and my step-dad did wonder aloud how working in such a dusty environment (the clay) might affect him long term. He works making orthotics now which I don't imagine is much better.
I suppose I'm thinking about my interior air quality because pretty much anything seems to set off my allergies. We have a lot of carpeting here which is just awful for me and half of our place is below ground so I try to get air circulating in the living room as much as possible. The upside is that the cats love the carpet. It's one big scratch surface.
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