Katie Marks

Katie Marks

Katie Marks is a California-based author who loves finding cool life hacks, sharing them with friends, and diving headlong into craft projects. If there is a garden somewhere, you can probably find her outside playing in it. She also enjoys cooking, reading, and being a full-time nerd. Don’t be fooled by her profile picture: She is a person, not a vegetable, who has written an incredible amount of insightful articles for Networx.com.

Among her written works, Katie has written about Earthships, which are highly sustainable buildings created entirely from recycled and natural materials, typically integrated together in a seamless whole (see her article “Extreme Earthships in Extreme Places” for more details: https://www.networx.com/article/extreme-earthships-in-extreme-places). She has also written about dressing up a home with wainscoting, in which she recommends adventuring into using unusual materials such lincrusta, hemp, sewn paper, fiber, and mosaics, if you are wanting to achieve a more unique look than that of wood paneling.
(https://www.networx.com/article/dress-up-with-wainscoting).

For those wanting recommendations for the best paint colors for the exterior of their home, I’d suggest checking out Katie’s article entitled “Go Bold With Exterior Color” (https://www.networx.com/article/go-bold-with-exterior-color), where she provides images and slideshows of homes that take advantage of the more saturated parts of the color wheel. This article provides exciting ideas for color schemes for those who have too big of a personality to settle for painting the exterior of their home in a dull grey or beige hue.


Katie also gives simple day-to-day tips for activities such as storing food properly (https://www.networx.com/article/store-food-right) and starting gardens (https://www.networx.com/article/gardeners-start-your-seedlings), where you can really see her passion for gardening shine through her writing.

See more of Katie’s articles below for more life hacks, home improvement tips and gardening how-tos!

Photo: Tara/Hometalk

Fun Garden Pots for Spring

Posted by Katie Marks | Feb 12, 2014

It's almost time to hit the nursery and pick up some splendid starts, flowers, seeds, and more for spring, but if you're like me, you might be facing a small problem: most of your gardening...

Tiny house, big heart. jenine a. in her tiny house in Healdsburg, California. Photo: Nicolás Boullosa/Flickr

Head to Tiny House Boot Camp!

Posted by Katie Marks | Feb 12, 2014

My obsession with tiny houses knows no bounds, and I'm particularly in love with upcycled projects made from materials people find around them in their communities. Upcycling and recycling...

Photo: Mike Baird/Flickr

Citizen Science: How Radioactive is the Ocean?

Posted by Katie Marks | Feb 11, 2014

As the nuclear plant at Fukushima Daiichi has been plagued with problems, including the release of radiation into the Pacific Ocean, many scientists from around the world have grown...

Photo: Kate Mereand-Sinha/Flickr

Grow Your Dream Garden...In A Window

Posted by Katie Marks | Feb 10, 2014

Forget a few pots of herbs on a windowsill. The modern window garden is a work of art and genius, a masterpiece of food production in a cramped space that allows you to grow an amazing...

Photo: normanack/Flickr

Heat Up the House With Compost

Posted by Katie Marks | Feb 10, 2014

When compost breaks down, one byproduct is a lot of heat ... so much heat that you can actually cook with it. Students at the University of Vermont started wondering why that heat...

Photo: Becky/Hometalk

4 Cute Gifts with Seeds

Posted by Katie Marks | Feb 07, 2014

Is there anything cooler than the gift of life? As we're getting ready for spring, it's definitely time to start thinking about lovely seasonally-appropriate gifts, so I rounded up...

Photo: kakisky/Morguefile

7 Unexpected Uses for Honey

Posted by Katie Marks | Feb 07, 2014

Honey sure is great stuff. Bees may make it to provide nutrition to members of the hive, but we've been liberally "borrowing" it for centuries, and using it in all kinds of delicious...

A striking herringbone wall pattern. Photo: Royal Designs/Hometalk

Dress Up With Fun Wall Patterns!

Posted by Katie Marks | Feb 06, 2014

I've been spotting a new trend popping up on more and more home design, home improvement, and home fashion blogs: wall patterns. These bold paint effects are easy to do, they're far...

Photo: Jordan Johnson/Flickr

Who's the Greenest Floor of All?

Posted by Katie Marks | Feb 05, 2014

Ah, those things we put our feet (or wheels) on. Floors do a whole lot for us without asking for much in return, and if you're thinking about replacing or upgrading yours, have you...

A side benefit of radiators... Photo: Liz West/Flickr

Install Thermostats on Radiators for Efficiency

Posted by Katie Marks | Feb 05, 2014

Does your Chicago heating system rely heavily on old steam radiators? You're not the only one -- across the US, this type of heating is common, with some systems boasting radiators...