place to hang art

Tired of seeing granite in every home? Want something a little different? Interested in bamboo or cork flooring? Can’t decide? Why not try Corboo-a bamboo and cork combo.  Check out the Columbus source for green products –greenovate

following taken from Columbus Monthly

For kitchen and bath
Greenovate claims to be Ohio’s leading supplier of green building materials, serving both residential and commercial customers. Owner Tyler Steele says there are a lot of environmentally friendly—and beautiful—options available for homeowners.
“A popular option we’re seeing is recycled glass countertops,” says Steele. “We’ve been working with a number of manufacturers of these.”
The countertops are made by mixing glass with concrete. “At the end of the curing process, they are all custom made for the needed kitchen space and the surfaces are ground down,” Steele says.
Because the countertops often are locally made, the customer can contribute to the construction. “The homeowner can provide their own beer bottles,” Steele says. They also can add other personal touches, like their children’s handprints, in the concrete.
“These days, in a world of granite being standard, we see a lot of folks that are interested in making more of a personal statement in their home and this is a great way to do that and create a durable, long-lasting surface,” Steele says.

Under foot
When it comes to eco-friendly flooring, the two most popular options are bamboo and cork, Steele says.
A popular bamboo floor made by EcoTimber recently received high marks from Consumer Reports when it was compared to all prefinished flooring—not just green flooring, Steele notes. It’s made with fibrous bamboo that been compressed and prefinished.

“This one particular line of flooring has incredible durability,” Steele says. “And it comes in good price points.”
Cork flooring is actually made from the same material as cork stoppers for wine bottles, according to John Woods, hard surface buyer at Levi’s 4 Floors. “The wine stop would take the premium part of the cork and what’s left over would get ground up and manufactured into flooring,” he says.
Like bamboo, cork is highly renewable. In recent years, it’s been gaining in popularity, but cork as a flooring option actually has been around a long time.
In fact, Woods says that part of its appeal is its longevity. He notes that cork flooring installed in the main building of the Mayo Clinic in 1912 is still in use today, as is cork flooring installed in the Toledo Museum of Art in 1931.
If you’re having a hard time choosing between bamboo and cork, you soon will be able to pick both. Woods says that Levi’s 4 Floors likely will start carrying Corboo (cork plus bamboo) within the next few months.
Meanwhile, various floor coverings made from natural fibers are growing in popularity. Carpets made of jute, sisal and seagrass are among those found on the market today. Another choice that’s becoming more abundant includes rugs created from recycled plastic.
But for those who prefer a softer feel under foot, Steele says that wool is making something of a comeback as a green option. Greenovate has wool carpets available as both rugs and wall-to-wall. Wool was a popular floor covering in the 1930s and 1940s before inexpensive synthetic carpets mostly replaced them.
“What we’re seeing are folks looking for more natural materials, and one of the easiest ways to make it more natural is to incorporate a wool carpet in your space,” Steele says. “These wool carpets are sustainably created.”
Another old-school flooring that is gaining interest is linoleum. Linoleum is made from renewable, natural materials like solidified linseed oil and pine rosin. It largely has been replaced in modern home construction with flooring made of synthetic materials. “These things are coming back in vogue,” Steele says.

Around the house
When it comes to green furniture, many manufacturers are offering more environmentally friendly choices.
Carolyn Mann, at McVay’s Ethan Allen, says the furniture store offers several products that involve all natural fibers. The company also is moving away from stains that contain toxic chemicals.
“There are water-based stains that we’re putting on more and more of our [furniture] and, within a year, we’re hoping that all our finishes will be water-based stains,” she says.
Piras says that while making choices about furnishings, consumers should think about their longevity as well as their materials. She notes that antiques are the original “recycled items.”
Buy things that last, she says. “You should be trying to buy the highest quality that you can afford and get the best products,” she adds. “Good design lasts a lifetime.”
But, be alert. Knowing what’s green isn’t always easy. Environmentalists use the term “greenwashing” to describe businesses or products that tout themselves as green without truly adopting green practices. Sometimes greenwashing is deliberate; other times it may simply be an ignorance about what makes something environmentally friendly.
Some designers confuse the terms “natural” and “green,” Piras says. Cotton, for example, is natural, but often is very costly environmentally because of farming techniques used to grow it.
Many synthetic fibers may not seem green, but they might be made from recycled material. And, again, durability also is an environmental issue. “You have to weigh those things because [a product] may have ‘green’ roots, but if it wears out in five years, rather than ten years, then it’s not so green,” Piras says. “Because then there’s one more thing in the landfill.”

This story appeared in the October 2009 issue of Columbus Monthly Homes.

taken from Realtor Magazine 2009-2010 Cost v. Value report

1. Tidy up kitchen cabinets.

Potential buyers do open kitchen cabinets and look inside. Home owners can add rollout organizing trays so when buyers peek in, they feel like there’s lots of room for their stuff.

2.  Add or replace tile.

“By retiling very inexpensively, you make a room look way cleaner that it was,” says Javier Zuluaga, owner of Home Repairs and Remodeling LLC in Tempe, Ariz. “Every city has stores that offer $1 to $2 tile, so home owners have to pay only for the low-cost tile and labor to replace a dated backsplash or add a new one. We also use inexpensive tile to upgrade bathrooms.”

3. Add a breakfast bar.

When a wall separates a kitchen from a family room, suggest cutting out an opening to create a breakfast bar. “In one home, there was a cutout in the wall between the kitchen and living room,” explains Matthew Quinn, a sales associate at Quinn’s Realty & Estate Services in Falls Church, Va., who handles estate and real estate sales for family members whose loved ones have passed away. “We left the structure of the cutout, added an oversized granite breakfast bar, and put chairs in front of it. That cost about $600.”

4. Install granite tile instead of a slab.

“Everybody is hot for granite kitchen countertops, but that can be a $5,000 upgrade,” says John Wilder, a general contractor and owner of Fence and Deck Doctor in New Castle, Ind. “Instead, home owners can put in 12-inch granite tiles for about $300 in materials and get very high impact for little money.”

5. Freshen up a bathroom without retiling.

“With a dated bathroom, I recommend putting in a new medicine cabinet for $100 to $150, light fixtures for about $100, a faucet for $50 to $75, and a vanity for $200 to $300,” says Wilder. “And instead of replacing the tile, the existing grout can be lightly scraped and regrouted, which leaves a haze that can be buffed out and will make the tile look brand new. Also install glass shower doors. A French door adds a lot of panache and elegance for $250, and people will notice the door, not the tile. With all that, you’ve done a bathroom remodel for $1,000 to $2,000.”

6. Freshen up the basement.

“If home owners have cement block or poured concrete walls in the basement, suggest they have a contractor fill in cracks with hydraulic cement and then paint with waterproofing paint,” recommends Wilder. “They can then add a top coat to add color. They can also paint the basement floor with a good floor paint, which spiffs it up. The basement may not be finished, but it’s no longer a damp dungeon.”

7. Add a room.

Look for large spaces that can be enclosed to create a new bedroom for just the price of creating a wall. “One time, we closed off a half-wall to an office and added a door to the other side of the room, thus creating another bedroom,” says Quinn. “That $400 procedure, which took a contractor one day, netted about $40,000 in the sales price.” Zuluaga has also added bedrooms inexpensively. “In a two-bedroom house, there was an archway that led to a third room that was used as a den,” he explains. “It had a dry bar where there would have been a closet, so we took out the dry bar and created a closet so the owners had a third bedroom.”

8. Spruce up cabinet fronts.

Suggest home owners update tired-looking kitchen cabinets. Reconditioning is the least expensive move for under $1,000. “If the wood is starting to look shabby from use or contaminants in the air, we take out the nicks and scratches, recondition it with oil, and put new hardware on,” explains Heidi Morrissey, vice president of marketing and sales at Kitchen Tune-Up in Aberdeen, S.D. For $1,500 to $4,000, owners can replace the cabinet doors and drawer fronts, and for $4,000 to $12,000, they can have all the cabinets refaced. “With refacing, owners can change the color of the cabinets by replacing the door and having a new skin put on the boxes,” says Morrissey. “If they have oak cabinets today, they can have cherry the next day.”

9. Replace light fixtures.

“In a foyer and in bathrooms and kitchens,” says Wilder, “replacing overhead light fixtures provides a lot of pop for a little money.” If the kitchen has track lighting, Zuluaga suggests the home owner spend $450 to $600 to have an electrician replace it with recessed canned lights on a dimmer switch to add ambience. For about $700, Zuluaga also suggests installing pendant lights over a kitchen island or peninsula.

10. Tech-up the garage.

“Sometimes we replace the garage door opener with a remote touchpad entry system,” says Zuluaga. “That costs about $425 and makes it look like a high-end system.”

Well the chief economist for the American Institute for Architects is seeing a stabilizing real estate market.

“It’s still too early to think the residential market has fully recovered, but there are two encouraging signs—overall business conditions are far better than they were a year ago at this time, and we are seeing improvement in those housing sectors that need to lead a broader improvement in the housing market: remodeling and alterations of existing homes, and at the entry-level of the new construction market,” said Kermit Baker, chief economist of the American Institute of Architects. Baker said homeowners are making improvements thoughtfully, not banking on recouping the entire cost at resale or over-improving with upscale features as they might have several years ago. And projects are typically smaller in scope these days. “The mentality is evolving that bigger isn’t better for my home, from an investment perspective,” Baker said. (RISmedia, march 15,2010)

Homeowners are realizing that not all improvements are recoupable when it comes time to sell. The key is to make improvements that make a great “livability impact”; changes that appeal to most buyers. But I think it’s best to make the improvements and enjoy them BEFORE it’s time to sell. There is a lot of value in enjoyment.

A survey conducted amongst architects has these ideas below as the most popular 5 improvements for bedroom and bath:

(reprinted from RISmedia)

For the most part, kitchens are being upgraded with practical improvements and features to make the space more usable. “A lot of the upscale stuff, like double appliances—two dishwashers or two refrigerators—or over-the-top appliances seem to have disappeared,” Baker said.

The five most popular kitchen products and features, according to the survey include:

-Recycling center, a designated place to put cans, papers, etc., which could be in the form of a nook or even part of the lower cabinetry
-Larger pantry space
-Renewable flooring materials
-Renewable countertop materials
-Computer area/recharging stations, dedicated to such tasks as recharging laptops, cell phones and PDAs.

The same desire for practicality and less glitz can be found in the bathroom. People are moving away from steam showers and towel-warming drawers and racks, and instead focusing on features that will help them better control their utility costs, Baker said.

The five most popular bathroom products and features include:

-Water-saving toilets
-Radiant heated floors
-Accessibility/universal design, or features that are adaptable and allow homeowners to age in place
-LED lighting
-Doorless showers.

I have to say that I am feeling a little validated that I am sticking with my desire to have heated floors in our master bath…..

Transform a home with these 6 eco-friendly repurposing ideas.

It’s all about functional design with these eco-friendly items.

From salvaging antique floors to transforming denim into insulation, reusing items in new ways helps the environment as you spruce up a home. Repurposing personal or industrial objects offers both functionality and aesthetic appeal. Here are five ways to incorporate repurposed elements into a home:

Give a Home Some History

Antique floors dating back decades—even centuries—can add historic charm to a new or remodeled home, while saving quality wood and tile from demolition. Tom Campbell, owner of Connecticut-based Old Wood Workshop, started salvaging floors, paneling, cabinetry, doors, and stone from buildings in his rural farming community in the early 1990s. Home owners have become increasingly interested in repurposing architectural elements, he says, and last year was his best in 20 years. “I love selling to clients who appreciate the products,” says Campbell, who sees his job as saving pieces of history from a bulldozer. Salvaged flooring can be used in restoration projects and to create a one-of-a-kind look.  Cost: approximately $12–$16 per square foot. www.oldwoodworkshop.com

Get Creative

Every person has an attic, garage, or storage space filled with items that can serve a dual purpose, says Bob Eckstein, an interior design blogger in New York. Do you have old bottles or scientific beakers? Fill them with different flavors of mouthwash for a splash of color in the bathroom. Come across an antique bedpan? Use it to hold sponges or potpourri. How about that old wooden ladder in the garage? Turn it into an outdoor trellis. “No one should feel intimidated by interior design,” Eckstein says. His philosophy costs nearly nothing—ideal for home owners feeling the economic crunch. It’s about using what you already have in new and interesting ways.  Cost: free. www.smartassideasforthehome.blogspot.com

Warm Up to Cotton

Old jeans are finding new life as home insulation material. Bonded Logic of Chandler, Ariz., manufactures UltraTouch Natural Cotton Fiber insulation, which is made from 85 percent recycled denim and cotton fibers. The Class A insulation contains no VOCs or formaldehydes and doesn’t irritate skin. “It’s very healthy and a great recycled product. Made from denim waste, it’s given a second life,” says Sean Desmond, director of sales and marketing at Bonded Logic. The insulation is treated with a 100 percent natural borate mineral solution that is mold and fire resistant. UltraTouch receives the maximum insulation performance rating and is sold at retailers nationwide.  Cost: $0.50–$1.50 per square foot. www.bondedlogic.com

Wash Where You Flush

Toilets are one of the biggest water hogs in the home. Seattle-based ecohaus has addressed this environmental challenge by promoting the Caroma Profile, a bathroom fixture that is part sink and part toilet. Users wash their hands in the toilet tank (cleaner than you might think). That water is then repurposed for future flushes. Its dual flush component reduces water consumption by an additional 40 percent to 70 percent. The toilet and sink combo is a great space saver in smaller bathrooms.  Cost: $499.99. www.ecohaus.com

Bottle the Light

U.K.-based artist Sarah Turner turns plastic bottles into lampshades that are modern works of art. The shades are individually designed and handcrafted, and each is typically composed of 10 to 30 bottles. Turner started repurposing bottles as a university student a few years ago when it struck her that she and her housemates were discarding used bottles at an alarming rate. Turner’s recycled ReDesign line includes shades for various lamp styles, from floor to ceiling. Her signature “Cola 10” shade is made from ten plastic Coca-Cola bottles.  Cost: $420. www.sarahturner.co.uk

reprinted from REALTOR magazine written by Erica Christoffer | February 2010

"screw top house" photo by J.J Sulin for Dwell Magazine

 Three of my favorite things: real estate, wine and prefab construction! Realtor.com made this guy a boatload of cash, my assumption of course. Once again the wisdom of good timing and a great idea makes for a success. He seems quirky and fun too! I guess most entrepreneurs are quirky.

 The following was written by William Lamb, reprinted from Dwell magazine online– March 5, 2010 issue.

Ask Roger Scommegna about the inspiration for the Aperture House, the eye-catching weekend retreat that he built on the sloping, grassy banks of Moose Lake, Wisconsin, and he cites an improbable source. The idea, he explains with a straight face, came from a squat, screw-top jug of inexpensive red wine.

In 2001, Scommegna cashed in his earnings from Realtor.com, an online compendium of real estate listings that he helped launch during the dot-com boom, and invested in a pair of vineyards in Mendocino County, California. A year later, Scommegna’s fledgling Signal Ridge Vineyard scored an unlikely hit with Three Thieves, a screw-top zinfandel with a bright red label and a retail price of $9.99.

The surprising success of Three Thieves gave the 42-year-old Scommegna an idea. If a good wine could be mass-marketed in an unassuming package at an affordable price, he reasoned, perhaps the same could be done with architecture. A narrow, 50-foot-wide lot that Scommegna purchased at Moose Lake, about 25 miles west of Milwaukee, would serve as the proving ground.

Scommegna pitched the idea to Vetter Denk Architects, the forward-thinking Milwaukee firm he had hired in 1995 to design his primary residence in Brookfield, an upscale Milwaukee suburb. “I said, ‘I want to build a home like this wine,’” Scommegna recounts.

“‘Simple packaging, and nothing fancy, because this is a screw-top jug. But I want good design, and I want it to be a surprise when someone opens up the wine or comes in the house.’ I just kind of wanted it to be quiet on the outside, big surprise on the inside. And then I left them with this bottle of wine.”

With Three Thieves, Scommegna set out to debunk the conventional wisdom that wine can only be good if it’s corked in an expensive bottle. The challenge that architects John Vetter and Kelly Denk set for themselves was to prove that a house could be quickly constructed from prefabricated parts and still be tasteful and architecturally daring.

Ten days later, Scommegna returned to Vetter Denk’s downtown Milwaukee office and was shown a cardboard model that, he says, “looked like three shoeboxes stacked on top of each other. As always,” he continues, “I needed to process it for a minute.”

It didn’t take long for the architects to sell Scommegna on the idea. Vetter and Denk planned the house along a regimented, four-by-four-foot grid that helped keep construction simple while allowing for limitless variations that could be adapted to any site.

They hired a local carpenter to create the 8-by-20-foot exterior wall panels from prefinished cedar plywood. The exterior panels, flooring components, and Parallam support beams (not unlike a plywood I beam) were all manufactured offsite and hauled to Moose Lake on flatbed trucks in March 2002. The building’s shell was assembled in less than 48 hours.

“The concept was to use prefabricated technology that for the most part has been used only to achieve low cost,” Vetter says. “Prefab has a negative connotation, a stigma. This is an opportunity to shift the paradigm and use the same technology to do these nice little pieces of architecture. That’s what the Aperture House is all about.”

The filmic designation of “Aperture House” came from the patio doors framing panoramic views of the lake.  Vetter, Denk, and Scommegna worked hard to keep the house free of clutter and not to interfere with those views.

Bathrooms were relegated to the basement and upstairs. There is a full-size refrigerator, but it’s hidden in the basement utility room. A mini-fridge and matching freezer sit unobtrusively beneath a kitchen counter, and food and drinks are carried up from the basement as they are needed. “The whole concept was to be able to walk in the front door and see through the entire house to the lake,” Scommegna says.

Because the Aperture House was conceived, in part, as a dry run for a national effort to bring affordable, high-end architecture to the mass market, Vetter and Denk had to find innovative ways to keep costs down without sacrificing taste.

The interior walls, doors, and cabinets, for example, were made from finished medium-density fiberboard, a material that typically is hidden beneath drywall. Instead of having large, floor-to-ceiling windows custom-made at great expense, the architects framed the views of Moose Lake in conventional sliding patio doors.

Similarly, the floors were done in utilitarian concrete, covered here and there with shag rugs. Using a process called “integral color,” the concrete company added colored powder to the mix, infusing it with a sandy tint that complements the house’s earthy decor.

Scommegna says that, too, was part of the concept. “I’m hoping that when you are sitting here you get the feeling of simple, that you don’t get the feeling of fussy,” says Scommegna, who spends most weekends at the Aperture House with his wife, Pamela, 42, and daughters Nicole, 17, and Krissy, 14. “We don’t want to be fussy here. We want the kids to walk in with their Aqua Socks, drip water on the floor, and sit right at the picnic table here, and I sincerely mean that. It’s literally designed not to be fussy.”

Last May, the Aperture House earned Vetter Denk an honor award from the Wisconsin chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Since then, the firm has forged a partnership with a leading manufacturer of modular homes, and they are in the early stages of an ambitious plan to bring the Aperture House concept
to the suburban mass market.

The Aperture House itself, which cost more than $300,000 to design and build, is more “tweaked out” than its progeny is likely to be, Vetter says. The idea is to get the list price near $199,900. Scommegna calls that price the “sweet spot,” a term he also uses for the $9.99 price tag of his wine.

“We still have to fit in people’s heads,” Scommegna says. “I don’t think this home fits in people’s heads for mass production. But the concept is there and our partner is going to be there, and the design will be there.”

Vetter is confident that the concept will translate easily to suburbia. “It’s a little house,” he says. “It does everything you need it to do. It does it humbly, with nature, and it’s fun. You don’t need anything else. It’s perfect.”

Bio-Fuel Fireplace "Art"

Ok, very excited about the design, and green, possibilities of bio-fuel fireplaces for indoor, and more exciting to me, outdoor uses. Depending on design, these fireplaces can hang on a wall like an art piece or be part of a custom installation. Renewable, eco-friendly fuel –and the fireplace emits heat, unlike the silly electric fireplaces, which by the way, aren’t very green and don’t do much. Why not turn on the tv? Anyway, do a search on “bio-fuel fireplaces” . There are several companies that offer these.   AND there is some eligibiltiy for a tax credit of up to $1,500 based on the application of this type of fireplace. Can’t wait to get one!

Below is an excerpt from a website that i think explains the bio-fuel fireplace pretty well.

www.fireplacedesigninfo.com

Fireplaces have indeed come a long way. Homeowners today have a lot of choices. Although they can still choose to have a fireplace built permanently in their homes, those with smaller spaces can opt for the portable or wall mounted and eco-friendly fireplaces. These new styles of fireplaces are equally beautiful than the traditional ones and are capable of providing sufficient heat to families as well.

One type of fireplace ideal for smaller homes such as apartments and condos and smaller areas such as bedrooms is the biofuel fireplace. This is best for people with allergies. First made popular in Europe, biofuel fireplaces are now growing in use among homeowners in the U.S. and other countries.

The difference of biofuel fireplace from the traditional type is the absence of a chimney. Unlike the wood and gas burning fireplaces, this type burns biofuel instead. This means that it is an environment friendly alternative to the more expensive fossil fuels.

Biofuel is now a well known renewable form of fuel that does not pose hazards to the environment. The reason is that biofuel can be produced by using agricultural crops such as fruits, grains, potatoes, sugar beets and corn. And because the ingredients in producing biofuel are readily available locally, there will always be a steady supply going forward. You may be aware by now that biofuel is also popularly used to run vehicles. Apart from being environment friendly, biofuel has many other advantages.