Product Placement and Advertising Policy

Our first focus is on telling a good story about our house. We like to show our readers what we're doing, talk about how we're doing it, and sometimes explain the principles behind what we're doing.

This is not a for-profit venture. We do not accept any advertisements on this site. No banners, no text ads, no paid mentions or links. We do not participate in "link exchanges" and we will not put a link to a web site here in exchange for any kind of compensation. All links are to vendors we know and love, to sites we think have good content, or to information we think our readers will find useful. All contractor recommendations (or non-recommendations) are based on our personal experience with contractors we have hired and from whom we got no discount (if it ever happens, we will specifically note any discounts we've gotten).

We may accept products from manufacturers for review, with the understanding that:

a) we may not ever use the product
b) we may use the product and not write a review of it
c) we may write a review that is extremely unflattering to the product

Manufacturers considering sending us products for review should understand that we garden organically and while it would be untrue to say we don't clean our house, we don't use a lot of "cleaning products" for doing so. So quick-green lawn chemicals and air fresheners are not likely to show up on our blog and you might want to save your time and expense. Not to mention avoiding the distinct possibility of a bad review.

Only under extreme circumstances will we sign an NDA or participate in a publication embargo. Such NDAs must name who is covered, the period of time for which they are covered, and release us from coverage if the information under non-disclosure is leaked by a third party. Also, since this is not a news or product reviews blog, the information being imparted must be of exceptional relevance and importance to us and our readers.

If a product does show up on this blog, we might be reviewing something we've used, or talking about a product we are considering buying or have bought for ourselves but not yet used. We do not write about products that are being promoted to us by vendors based on press releases. When the product has been given to us by a vendor, that will be noted and taken into consideration, as will the price we would have paid for the product (since cost is always a factor).