New Kitchen Smell?

New primer and paint on the walls and ceiling, new flooring, new cabinets, and our kitchen smells like... food?  If any have you have moved into a new home or done a full kitchen renovation before, often this is not the case and I must admit it is a nice byproduct of having a green kitchen.

The main reason: VOCs.  Back in our cabinet post we discussed VOCs: basically nasty off-gassing pollution bad for you and the environment.  They also smell.  Some people love the smell of fresh paint, or that new house or new car smell but unfortunately that is pretty much all VOCs.

With our "EVO" low VOC cabinets from Aya, the only thing we could smell in them was wood.  Apart from the cabinets, we were also really pleased with the other low VOC products we came across:

- Lepage Green Series Acoustical Seal.  Has ultra-low VOC rating.  If you noticed that our acoustical seal was white and not the traditional black in our insulation pictures that is why. Works really well though.  The only difference we found was while it seems to remain permanently flexible it doesn't stay malleable as long. So if you put a bead behind a vapour box or barrier set it in place immediately.  There was a couple places where we may not have pressed it flat until the next day when we came back to drywall and it left a bit of a raised bead compared to traditional sealant.

- Avanti paint and primer.  Again very pleased with the performance.  The primer is no VOC and the paint was low-VOC.  The primer claimed to be odour-free as well that must only apply once dry because there was still an odour during application.   But both products applied well and will probably be used throughout the house.  As an added bonus they are manufactured in Quebec so we are buying local as well.

Kitchen: primed and ready for paint