This Green House

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!

Check out this photo portfolio:

Edward Burtynsky OIL
Corcoran Gallery of Art

The photos are both a beautiful and disturbing commentary about how our society has regarded and treated the environment we live in. Post your comments, I’ll be interested to hear what you think of them.

Sprayed in open cell foam insulation fills all of the voids and minimizes any air leakage. It’s also superior for sound proofing for the same reasons, it leaves no place for the vibrations of sound to leak through.

I found these wonderful stone knobs for our bamboo storage cabinets in the showroom. The knobs are water-tumbled stones from rivers and beaches around New England from a company called Sea Stones.

The search is on for more unique and earth-friendly knobs and handles.

We are finishing up on the wood floors and are really pleased with how they look after a good sanding. Bio-Shield offers some great green products for the home…the showroom floor uses their hard oil finish with a hard wax finish on top. It is old fashioned approach with updated ingrediants for what Bio-shield says is a commercial grade durable finish. It is lovely!

“The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

The showroom is beginning to take shape! We’ve had Paul Moretti and Mark Nash in to work on the kitchen displays, display cabinets and wood floor patching over the holidays. Christine and I have started to talk about marketing the showroom, signs and educational programs that could be held in the near future. And, we’ve had C.A.M. Electric from Acton in to work on wiring; including showroom LED spotlights. It’s been a busy place and we know it will get busier!

Just received some samples for a wonderful new line of natural fiber carpets including sisal, seagrass, coir (made from coconuts), and hemp. They are very beautiful. Here are some images of them. The seagrass has a soft silky texture; very cool! Click on the images to enlarge; you can see how yummy they are!

Painting the walls of the showroom stair well and entry with clay paint from Bio-shield. I love the color, it looks like soft doe skin with the technique I used. It is brushed on in a random arrangement so that bits of the light color of the previously painted wall show through.

I’m going to try milk paint made in Groton MAss with a crackle finish in the main kitchen display room.

My weekends spent chiseling away at the old chimney are now over!  Removing the chimney was quite a production….and a lot of dust.  We have made a lot of headway over the last few weeks; the window is in place, the sub floor under the chimney is ready for flooring and we’re prepping to do some foam insulation.   Paul Moretti came by to help put up the exterior trim around the new window.  Thanks, Paul!!  The cabinets are on their way,  I’m finalizing counter tops and I’m testing new Bioshield clay paint colors.  The showroom is beginning to come together!

Most people would demo a chimney and fireplace and be done with it.  Not me!  I went for the piece-by-piece method with the chimney and uncovered a cool bake oven in the process!  Masonry ovens have been built in American homes since the first colonists landed here.  Oven traditions date back much farther – to at least Roman times.  And for me, uncovering a historical cooking “utensil” is sacred work.

By methodically uncovering the fireplace oven I’ve been able to study the mason work of the oven dome.  You have to respect that kind of craftsmanship.   Old American Houses and How to Restore Them,  a book  by Henry Williams, gives a detailed description of how the oven was built.  “It is said that this dome was constructed  of  rectangular bricks by first filling the bottom of the oven with wet sand and molding it to shape.  Bricks, well mortared, were laid over the sand and left to set.  Then the sand was taken out.”

Makes me wonder about the breads baked in it; how they were prepared and, of course, what I would cook.  One of the photos I took of the oven includes an old photograph of the original fireplace.  Life was simple then.  Not a coffee maker in sight!

“One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passersby see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way.” Vincent van Gogh

So the fireplace is still present… even if only for a short time.  I hope to get at it again this coming weekend.  Changes are happening and the design center is still moving forward.  The new cabinets have been ordered for the kitchen set ups and should be here the beginning of November.