This Green House

I loved this little video on a man who is taking living small to heart for both his own life and his career.

Little houses

I am an absolute believer in living in smaller, finely crafted spaces.  You may want to also check out “The Not so Big House” website if you’re not familiar with it how these concepts can be applied to more typical homes.

Not So Big House

Sarah Susanka has a recent book in the series called “Not so Big Remodeling” that demonstrates approaches to customizing your home with efficiency and quality as the primary considerations.

Not So Big Remodeling

I highly recommend it for anyone beginning to think about enhancing and improving their home!

Here is a “little” house we worked on that has a great feel both inside and out. We built a second floor addition with two bedrooms, office/loft space, bath and laundry room:

You never know who or what may be visiting our office!

“Houses….they grow in the sun and sleep in the stillness of the night, and they are not dreamless. Does not your house dream?” Kahil Gabran, The Prophet

My current cooking craze is soft shell crabs! I am just loving them! My favorite recipe is pan fried with roasted onions, fennel and red peppers and a roasted garlic and red pepper remoulade sauce.

Cut up the veggies into medium chunks, coat in olive oil and sprikle generously with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Put on a baking sheet  and roast at 400 degrees for an hour. Throw half a dozen unpeeled cloves of garlic on the sheet to roast at the same time.

Mean while soak your crabs in butter milk for at least an hour.

When the veggies come off you can peel the garlic and put in a blender along with a roasted red pepper or two (you can roast yourself or use store bought roasted reds). blend until smooth and slowly drizzle about a 1/4 cup to a half cup of olive oil in until smooth and creamy. Adjust for salt and pepper.

Mix together equal parts self rising baking flour and corn flour or meal, some kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Put in a plastic bag. Heat up a half inch of safflower oil in a saute pan. Dredge each crab in the bag and put on a plate ready for the fry pan. Put the crabs in and fry until golden brown, about 2 minutes a side; don’t crowd them in let there be space between while cooking.

To serve, put some veggies on a plate, top with a crab and drizzle with the red pepper sauce.

JUST DELICIOUS!

These are photos of a recently completed kitchen project in an antique home in Lunenburg Massachusetts. The kitchen features painted and glazed cabinetry, foam insulation in the walls and ceiling, highly figured granite countertops, and “Homegrown” FSC certified maple flooring, grown right here in managed Massachusetts forests!

Cooking up an Eco-Friendly Design
When people think of green building projects they may picture arrays of solar panels, perhaps wind turbines, contemporary architecture and an abundance of skylights…Most of Thomas Buckborough’s clients want to remodel, perhaps only one room, and most are think it isn’t easy going green…read full article

As of April 22nd any renovation or painting companies working on homes older than 1978 will be required to comply with a number of requirements set out by a new EPA program. The program is part of enforcing the 1992 EPA lead law. Thomas Buckborough & Associates is now a registered “Lead Safe Certified Firm”, in addition we have two “Certified Renovators” on staff. Here are the highlights of the new program:

• Contractors who perform renovation, repairs, and painting jobs in pre-1978 housing and child-occupied facilities must, before beginning work, provide owners, tenants, and child-care facilities with a copy of EPA’s lead hazard information pamphlet Renovate Right: Important Lead Hazard Information for Families, Child Care Providers, and Schools

• Contractors must take training to learn how to perform lead-safe work practices and become “Certified Renovators”.

• After April 22, 2010, federal law will require contractors to be certified and to use lead-safe work practices. To become certified, renovation contractors must submit an application and fee payment to EPA.

• Provide a copy of your EPA or state lead training certificate to your client.

• Tell your client what lead-safe methods you will use to perform the job.

• Learn the lead laws that apply to you regarding certification and lead-safe work practices beginning in April 22^nd, 2010.

• Ask your client to share the results of any previously conducted lead tests.

• Provide your client with references from at least three recent jobs involving homes built before 1978.

• Keep records to demonstrate that you and your workers have been trained in lead-safe work practices and that you followed lead-safe work practices on the job.

How do you use your kitchen? There are many different lifestyles led in our modern society, but all of them center around meals and the preparation of them. Kitchens are where life takes place today. They function not only as a place to cook and prepare meals but as family gathering spots, social gathering points with friends, organizational centers, homework centers and much more. Kitchens have become the place that most reflects a family’s personal aesthetic. They are the most detailed room in a home and can reflect a style not unlike the clothes chosen to wear in the morning. A style that shows who you are and what you are about — to your family, your friend — to the world. Homes and kitchens in particular, because they are where everyone goes in a home, whether you live there or are visiting, have the ability to elevate our souls, to lift our spirits when we are in them. A kitchen that is made to work for you and how you live and reflects your personal style can deliver so much more than people generally think about. So….how do you use your kitchen?

These are photos of our new custom concrete counter tops in our showroom. I LOVE them!! They are 80% recycled content. They were custom crafted by “Alpha Stone” out of Turners Falls Massachusetts. Dan Gobillot and his right hand man Bobby Turk, are true concrete artists and craftsmen. More of their work can be seen at www.alphastoneconcrete.com.  The finish is hard to appreciate in photos so come in and see them live! It has many surprises as they hand grind used bottle and other stuff up themselves for the aggregate mix and replace some of the cement content with fly ash. The fly ash gives the mostly charcoal finish a slight green tint. As an added bit of detail they added brass shavings from a friend who works in a machine shop. After curing the finish is then ground and sealed. It is a very beautiful and subtle finish.  It reminds me of something that was mined from a lava flow under the ocean. Very cool!

This is an interesting article on what kinds of projects people are doing that have good value .

6 ways to ensure a remodeling project pays off

Let me know what you think!