When you mention wood floors to most people, they conjure up an image of a narrow board, red oak floor. But times have changed. Now there are many, many choices of board width and species. And many of these choices come at a modest cost increase. I’ve used white oak, antique chestnut oak, antique heart pine, santos mahogany, jatoba (aka Brazilian cherry), Australian cypress, cumaru, lyptus, and other species you may not have ever heard of. The range of color choices and grain patterns is impressive. (more…)

      Sustainable building materials are more and more available these days. “Sustainable” means the materials are manufactured in environmentally responsible ways. They may be made from recycled materials, such as tile or wallboard. (more…)

      When it comes to “building green,” There are other energy-saving measures that can occur behind the scenes. Proper insulation, including draft blocking to prevent convective loops of cold or warm air within walls and ceilings will reduce heat loss in winter and heat gain in summer. (more…)

      Are your windows locked? We don’t tend to think of air leakage in the summer like we do in the wintertime. When it’s cold, we can feel the cold drafts wafting through the house. (more…)

These days, it seems like everything anyone sells is energy efficient, green, or sustainable in some way. Those are the words plastered on the products we buy because without those claims, a product is virtually unsaleable in this climate (pardon the pun) of environmental zeal. This is a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say, but sometimes it’s a bad thing. The good thing is that energy efficiency can save you money and possibly the planet, if you buy into that hysteria. Even if you don’t conserving resources is simply a responsibility we all have. (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…)