Come See Us March 18 at the Mercer Greenfest!

Bring your kids and learn about how to care for your local ecosystem! Learn who and what is eco-friendly — and where you can shop local to make a difference.

Saturday, March 18, 2017

11 am – 4 pm

Rider University Student Recreation Center

2083 Lawrenceville Rd., Lawrenceville, NJ

For more info, visit mercergreenfest.org

Please stop by and say hi!
Here is our pic from last year — Jonathan Shenk, owner, and son, Gabriel Yoder Shenk.

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Having Fun while Showcasing Green Painting — at the Local Living Expo March 19, Lawrenceville, NJ

The Greenleaf leadership team was excited to be part of the Local Living Expo last weekend. This is our third year participating in the Expo, which focuses on supporting local and “green” businesses. We’re always delighted to meet new people. And we love to share our passion for using eco-friendly paints!

Local Living Expo Pic
Owner Jonathan Shenk with Managers Abner Tello and Ryan Munn at the Local Living Expo, held at Rider University this year. What a great team!
Local Living Expo pic
Jonathan Shenk and son Gabriel, who came to help out for the afternoon. Thanks, Gabriel!

DIY Staging Your Home for the Spring Market

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Make Your House a Realtor’s Dream By Following These Low-Cost DIY Tips!

First impressions are everything when it comes to selling your home. Do these minor repairs and improvements and make a world of difference!

1.  Paint your front door and trim for a great first impression. An accent color can make a big splash!
2.  Paint one accent wall in a room that needs some personality.
3.  Caulk and grout your bathroom where needed.
4.  Replace any rusted or worn light fixtures or fans.

5.  Upgrade light switch plates, doorknobs or other hardware that shows wear.

Green tip: re-using is recycling! Donate your household items. The Vietnam Veterans of American offer curb-side pick-up. Call 1-800-775-VETS or visit scheduleapickup.com

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Add space and beauty simply by following these three rules:spring flowers 2
1.  Declutter by putting mail in an attractive basket. Minimize your knick-nacks.
2.  Put a tall vase of flowers on the kitchen table. Height creates a feeling of elevation. Yellow is a luminous spring color and is associated with happiness and optimism!
3.  Lighten a dark room with a neutral or light-tint paint. Add personality and splashes of bright color using a fun set of pillows, vases of flowers, or a new accent rug.

Owner Jonathan Shenk Shares Greenleaf’s “Sustainable” Practices at Forum

Jonathan Shenk, owner of Greenleaf, shared our company’s environmental, or “green,” initiatives at “Creating Sustainable Businesses in New Jersey,” a forum held at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) headquarters in Trenton last Tuesday.

We are proud to share with you these “green” practices and initiatives from his talk.

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“From our inception we have educated customers and advocated for the use of ‘green,’ environmentally-sound paint products. This emphasis is noted in our name choice.

Nine years ago, these paints were harder to find, they were more expensive, more difficult to use, and offered lower performance and quality. Now every brand markets green paints and are phasing out their regular paints. The prices are now competitive and the quality is excellent.

Another important sustainable practice for a painting company is the safe disposal of paint products:

+ Paint thinners and oil paints must be disposed through hazardous waste collections. We recycle most of our paint thinner through a step-by-step filtering process.

+ Latex paints need to be mixed with a hardener before disposal.

We have recently started offering a service to customers where we will dispose of their old paint cans piling up in their basements. 

We also can sometimes find alternatives to disposing of unwanted latex paints: we can donate full gallons to Habitat for Humanity’s Re-store and sometimes our own painters are happy to round up excess paints for their side projects.

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There are several other things we do which are not unique to a painting company: 

+ We have several paperless practices: we communicate internally through dropbox. Our managers can access work site forms and job calendars on dropbox.

+ We are also beginning to shift our bill payments to be done exclusively online so no hard copies need to be printed out.

+We recycle our paper and plastic. 

+We conserve on energy by keeping office temperatures low during the cold season and opening doors for fresh air during the warm season. Turning out lights in rooms we are not working in.

We were pleased to see NJ take this initiative to support and promote sustainable business practices. We’re happy to be involved in this initiative and to connect and network with other like-minded businesses and people.”

Jonathan was invited to speak at the forum as a member of the New Jersey Sustainable Business Registry, which promotes sustainability planning and practices among New Jersey businesses. The welcome was given by Bob Marshall, Assistant Commissioner, DEP Sustainability and Green Energy (SAGE).

It’s So Easy Being Green

kermitRemember Kermit the Frog’s song? “Green” has a whole new meaning now, and it IS easy being green! Since earth-friendly practices are important to us, we participated in the launch of The New Jersey Sustainable Business Registry. It’s a directory of businesses that do what they can to recycle, treat waste appropriately, keep electricity use down, use eco-friendly materials, among many other practices. We are proud to be a part of this registry to highlight the importance of businesses being green–to serve our community and prosper without harming our delicate eco-system.

Since the founding of Greenleaf Painters, we’ve offered green paint options. Green, or low-VOC paints, are good for the earth AND for people. We highly recommend using these paints in your whole house, but especially places like nurseries or other bedrooms,

But promoting these paint options is not all Greenleaf does. We strive to be as green as possible in all of our practices: recycling, waste disposal, cleaners we choose for the office, and electrical usage.  Read more about Greenleaf green practices on the new registry, at http://registry.njsbdc.com/

In other completely unrelated news, Kermit the Frog took the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge yesterday. http://mashable.com/2014/08/20/kermit-ice-bucket-challenge/

(Photo courtesy of Disney)