Ever hear of color-blocking? It's a technique that uses squares of color to pack some punch. It can be a cheap and easy way to give your room a whole lotta WOW!
The Wall
Head on out to the home improvement store because you're on the prowl for paint. But no need to mull over a million mind-boggling tiny color swatches. Most paint departments, like at The Home Depot, have "Oops" racks stocked with cans of already-mixed paint that picky people rejected. And they're practically giving them away: $5 per gallon, $1 per liter. The colors can be funky, but that's what you're going for here. Pick out half a dozen or so contrasting colors--just go for the luck of the draw. As long as it's an interior flat latex, you're good to go. Our color combo? We went for a pumpkin orange, sage green, lovely lavender, pretty pink and periwinkle blue. Five colors, five liters ... five dollars. That's a five-spot to paint the whole room!
Next up? Mark off the areas you're going to paint. Grab a pencil and a yardstick, and draw away. Rather than going for uniformity, make blocks of varying sizes--squares, rectangles and L shapes. Figure out which colors you want where, put on your coveralls, and break out the rollers. Dropcloth, please!
The Door
We confess--we're not perfect-circle creators. That's where Wall Candy comes in. The company makes easy-to-apply decorative adhesives (eyespyteen.com), and the beauty is that if you don't like where you've stuck 'em, they peel right off. Yep, peel and stick! And while we love the Dotti-Licious line, we won't be held responsible for flashbacks to your Colorforms days!
The blue-floral squares to the right of the door? More Wall Candy. The shiny pink-meal squares to the left of the door? Vinyl placemats! We hit the discount store, picked up a couple two-packs at $2.50 a pop and stuck them to the wall with double-backed adhesive squares.
The Decor
After you're done devouring your box of vitamin-fortified whole grain, save the box. You're turning it into a super-inexpensive wall-hanging! We filled eight empty cereal boxes with styrofoam peanuts for sturdiness, then covered the boxes in colorful fabrics (from a clearance rack at only $1 per yard). To make your own, just lay the box on a piece of fabric large enough to cover the box, then wrap it up like a birthday present. Carefully secure the edges with a hot-glue gun (don't bother with Scotch tape--it won't hold!). Stick your creations to the wall with more squares of double-backed adhesive (one to each corner and one centered), and walls are a bore no more.
We also needed to hide some unsightly shelving. So we simply stitched a hunch of bandannas together, folded them over in pleats and tacked them to the wall above the shelf. Fast, colorful and easy!
The Floor
Keeping in line with the color-blocking theme, we went with colorful carpet tiles. It's called Toy Poodle, and you can get it at interfaceflor.com. What we love about it? It's peel-and-stick, and might as well be called floor candy. It's not cheap ($14 per square), but it's a total do-it-yourself project. If you don't have the cash to do a whole floor, just order a few tiles for an area-rug effect.
And More
Going for the splurge? We love, love, love Pottery Barn Teen's locker-look pieces (pbteen.com) for back-to-school cool. That's where we got our bedding, too, and the everyone-loves-it lime phone. We filled the rest of the room with accessories from Wal-Mart. For around $50, we scored lamps, a clock, a bouncy ball and a bright-red mascot. He's pretty happy in his new home....
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
Reused it
Aflatbed truck pulling out of Hayward lumberyard in Salinas, California, carries familiar-looking building materials--siding, insulation, studs, and beams--destined for a home construction site. But something is different. The siding is wood-textured fiber cement, the insulation is made of salvaged cotton blue jeans, and the studs are certified to be from a sustainably harvested forest. Resource- and environmentally friendly building--also known as green building--is gaining popularity in the West. Now even the commonest materials such as carpet and paint have green options and are being competitively priced.
Green building is about reducing environmental impact, whether in remodeling a home or planning a community. It's everything from energy-efficient and health-conscious design to using salvaged materials. There's no "green" architectural style, either, so you can still follow your personal taste when it comes to creating your home's look. Here's our guide to using earth-friendly materials.
Respectful remodel
Resourceful
The story of Kristin and Kenan Block's renovation of a 1904 Seattle home is one of research, road trips, and recycling. Their goal was to add a master bedroom on a new third floor and to extend and remodel the kitchen on the first. They wanted to keep all of the new features in character with the age of the house and specified that the remodel be as green as possible.
From the front, the new third floor is simply a gabled extension of the dormer. Serendipity and a collector's eye were key elements in outfitting the interior. The Blocks found the long kitchen sink at a salvage shop during a vacation in Vermont, and they lugged back the folding train-compartment sink--the highlight of the guest bathroom--from a Portland store called Rejuvenation, which specializes in salvage, house parts, and reproduction lighting.
Most of the interior and exterior materials are recycled or salvaged, including the beams, fir flooring (which was remilled), siding, cabinets, sinks, bathtubs, decorative sash windows, antique leaded glass, and interior doors.
Kristin sums up: "I think we saved money buying recycled products, but we sometimes spent more trying to get them installed."
DESIGN: J.A.S. Design-Build, Seattle (www.jasdesignbuild.com or 206/547-6242)
Building a new home
9. Hydronic radiant floor heater
Energy-wise
When visitors walk down the driveway to the front door of Marilee Rasmussen's two-story 1,500-square-foot house in Palo Alto, California, they also stride over the home's heat source. Beneath the payers is a geothermal heating system: its four 200-foot-deep wells contain a loop of pipes to circulate water heated by the low-grade warmth of the earth. The water, which is warmed to about 550, returns to a series of heat pumps that extract and boost heat and distribute it to a hydronic radiant floor-heating system, a water heater, and the heater for a narrow lap pool.
After losing its heat, the water recirculates within the in-ground pipes to be warmed by the mass of the earth. Going geothermal required a significant investment, but a local government incentive on heat pumps, along with the system's ability to serve both house and pool, made the installation worthwhile.
With the exception of a small guest bathroom, the main floor is one open living and cooking space that pivots around a central stairway. The radiant-heated floor works especially well in tall spaces like this because it heats objects and does not rely on forced air. Two bedrooms are upstairs.
DESIGN: Cartmell/Tam Architects, Los Altos Hills, GA (650/948-6930)
Anatomy of green
Earth-friendly home
This idealized house doesn't trumpet its greenness to the neighborhood. Regardless of architectural style or size, it's the shell of a house--the foundation, walls, windows, and roof--that provides the greatest energy and resource savings. The surprise is that in terms of energy efficiency, there's nothing wrong with wood-framed houses. They just have to be built correctly.
Alternative building systems such as straw bales, rammed earth, and structural insulated panels (SIPs) offer resource and energy efficiency. However, they are slightly more expensive than conventional wood-framed systems and are less utilized by mainstream builders.
Natural materials are often better for the environment, but not always: for example, fiber-cement siding uses minimal wood fiber, is more durable, and offers lower maintenance costs than real wood siding.
Green building is about reducing environmental impact, whether in remodeling a home or planning a community. It's everything from energy-efficient and health-conscious design to using salvaged materials. There's no "green" architectural style, either, so you can still follow your personal taste when it comes to creating your home's look. Here's our guide to using earth-friendly materials.
Respectful remodel
Resourceful
The story of Kristin and Kenan Block's renovation of a 1904 Seattle home is one of research, road trips, and recycling. Their goal was to add a master bedroom on a new third floor and to extend and remodel the kitchen on the first. They wanted to keep all of the new features in character with the age of the house and specified that the remodel be as green as possible.
From the front, the new third floor is simply a gabled extension of the dormer. Serendipity and a collector's eye were key elements in outfitting the interior. The Blocks found the long kitchen sink at a salvage shop during a vacation in Vermont, and they lugged back the folding train-compartment sink--the highlight of the guest bathroom--from a Portland store called Rejuvenation, which specializes in salvage, house parts, and reproduction lighting.
Most of the interior and exterior materials are recycled or salvaged, including the beams, fir flooring (which was remilled), siding, cabinets, sinks, bathtubs, decorative sash windows, antique leaded glass, and interior doors.
Kristin sums up: "I think we saved money buying recycled products, but we sometimes spent more trying to get them installed."
DESIGN: J.A.S. Design-Build, Seattle (www.jasdesignbuild.com or 206/547-6242)
Building a new home
9. Hydronic radiant floor heater
Energy-wise
When visitors walk down the driveway to the front door of Marilee Rasmussen's two-story 1,500-square-foot house in Palo Alto, California, they also stride over the home's heat source. Beneath the payers is a geothermal heating system: its four 200-foot-deep wells contain a loop of pipes to circulate water heated by the low-grade warmth of the earth. The water, which is warmed to about 550, returns to a series of heat pumps that extract and boost heat and distribute it to a hydronic radiant floor-heating system, a water heater, and the heater for a narrow lap pool.
After losing its heat, the water recirculates within the in-ground pipes to be warmed by the mass of the earth. Going geothermal required a significant investment, but a local government incentive on heat pumps, along with the system's ability to serve both house and pool, made the installation worthwhile.
With the exception of a small guest bathroom, the main floor is one open living and cooking space that pivots around a central stairway. The radiant-heated floor works especially well in tall spaces like this because it heats objects and does not rely on forced air. Two bedrooms are upstairs.
DESIGN: Cartmell/Tam Architects, Los Altos Hills, GA (650/948-6930)
Anatomy of green
Earth-friendly home
This idealized house doesn't trumpet its greenness to the neighborhood. Regardless of architectural style or size, it's the shell of a house--the foundation, walls, windows, and roof--that provides the greatest energy and resource savings. The surprise is that in terms of energy efficiency, there's nothing wrong with wood-framed houses. They just have to be built correctly.
Alternative building systems such as straw bales, rammed earth, and structural insulated panels (SIPs) offer resource and energy efficiency. However, they are slightly more expensive than conventional wood-framed systems and are less utilized by mainstream builders.
Natural materials are often better for the environment, but not always: for example, fiber-cement siding uses minimal wood fiber, is more durable, and offers lower maintenance costs than real wood siding.
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