Houses built in northern climates should be designed to capture natural light, to brighten and warm the rooms used during daylight hours. Winters can be gloomy and light deprivation can cause a wintertime depression. By simply allowing as much daylight into the house as possible, a properly oriented house can relieve these symptoms and lower the consumption of electricity required to operate artificial lights.  (more…)

      Well, I’m off to Los Angeles to attend a publishing seminar followed by BookExpo America. BEA, as it’s called, is the second largest gathering of book people, i.e. writers, publishers, agents, etc., in the country. Maybe I’ll find another book that shows you how to design the perfect house for yourself, but I’ve never seen one and I don’t think it exists. Mine is the very first one! (more…)

      Want to have some fun drawing on your computer? Check out SketchUp. It’s an easy to use, intuitive program that not only lets you draw easily on your computer, it lets you draw in three dimensions! Google bought SketchUp a short time ago and it is now offered in a free version with a lot of functionality. (more…)

       Recently, substantial increases in energy costs and a renewed awareness of our environmental responsibility have been quickly changing the way we think about our way of living and the methods and materials we use for construction. More and more, people are interested in building “green.” (more…)

    Sustainable and Green are terms that are being tossed around more and more frequently, especially in the world of construction and home design. If you have a product to sell, labelling it “green” is the first consideration in your marketing plan. But just what do these terms really mean?

    Wikipedia defines Green Building as “the practice of increasing the efficiency with which buildings use resources.” (more…)

    Would you buy a suit that was a couple of sizes too small? Would you pick your new shoes from a rack of “standard” sizes and colors, even if none of them actually fit or the colors weren’t right? Of course not. So why is it that we are willing to pick out a house from a handful of “standard” plans offered by a builder or developer. (more…)