What do we do with ugly, unused land in the hearts of our cities? You could camp there, of course – but the real challenge is to affordably fit new homes into the most awkward of spaces, and do it sustainably. In a world of custom-kit prefab housing, this is no pipe dream. Take a look at these 10 stunning examples of homes fitted beautifully into the tiniest spaces. Is one of these your dream home?

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Somewhere along the way, America the Beautiful land of the free, has morphed into Home of the big, bigger and biggest. Did it happen when no one was looking? Is it like those five pounds you gain over the holidays? Did they just sneak up on us?

Not exactly. In fact, it took years. Of buying, working, shopping, comparing and consequently, blowing our values way out of proportion.

It’s difficult to feel patriotic and proud when we’re seen as the land of Big Macs, buffets and ‘become rich fast because the guy with the most toys wins’. Sadly, the American Dream translates to bigger is better and more, more, more.

Especially in the dwelling department.

In the 1950s, the average size of a home in the U.S. was 983 square feet. By 1980, that number had grown to 2,330 square feet. The bigger the house, the better the…I’m not sure what.

But I am sure you know the homes I’m referring to. They’re huge eyesores lacking soul, integrity and efficiency. They’ve been not-so-affectionately coined McMansions, which is defined by Wikipedia as “a pejorative term for large new houses which are judged as pretentious, tasteless, or badly designed for their neighborhood.” Who can forget this massive Florida McMansion?!

Badly designed, period.

Energy consuming, uninspired, over-designed and shoved onto tiny lots right up next to their neighbors, like dominoes. Poorly built and inauthentic, most look like they belong on a movie set because their facades are just that, a facade.

What happened to ‘built to last’ and efficient use of space?

The ‘Case Study’ homes are the perfect example of integrity in architecture. Elegance isn’t the result of abundance, but rather simplicity. I feel like an old lady when I swoon over Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #22 (image above) and say those were the days.

But they were.

Lest I scare you away with my Negative Nelly attitude, I have noteworthy news that should inspire even the most pessimistic among you. It appears as if America the gluttonous and insatiable is prepared to start slimming down.

In fact, the prediction for the next decade is that homes will be built and bought, smaller and smarter. Dare we feel hopeful that home buyers will insist upon more affordable and environmentally friendly options in the years to come?

A recent real-estate survey (conducted by Trulia.com) found that home buying trends are indeed changing for the better:

Just 9 percent of the people surveyed…said their ideal home size was over 3,200 square feet. Meanwhile, more than one-third said their ideal size was under 2,000 feet.

Also, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) says:

…for the first time since 1992, there has been a decline in the number of homes built with three or more bathrooms. The average size of new homes also fell in 2009, while homes with two stories peaked in 2006. And nine out of 10 home builders surveyed by NAHB in 2009 said they’re planning smaller or less expensive homes than they have in the past.

All I can say is, it’s about time. McMansions. RIP.

Let the party begin! Wait, what? What do we do with all the empty, foreclosed and bank-owned monstrosities?

Get creative, that’s what.

(Data via CNBC.com, SignOn San Diego, and NAHB.)

Images: ChicagoGeek, Arcadia Housing Blog, and Great Buildings

The post The Not So Mighty McMansion. RIP. appeared first on EcoSalon.

It was during a springtime stroll past rows of charming brownstones shaded by big flowering trees that made me fall in love with my alma mater, Boston University. I love the aristocratic flourishes and the feeling that generations of residents have added to the building’s history and character. And for two years of college, I adored living in a beautifully rehabbed brownstone, complete with bay windows and crown molding. But like many older buildings, brownstones aren’t always the most energy efficient.

Which is why I was eager to read about Eco Brooklyn, Inc. in a New York Times article. The green contractor uses guerrilla green-building techniques to balance budget and economic concerns when rehabbing buildings. In other words, they salvage old building materials rather than buying swanky new ones.

The goal of Eco Brooklyn’s founder, Gennaro Brooks-Church, is to achieve a “zero-brownstone.” That means zero waste, zero new building materials, and zero energy (thanks to improved energy-efficiency). Several other architects and contractors mentioned in the piece have similar goals as well.

Obviously, there’s still a significant investment of time and money required in rehabbing an older home, but there are also federal, state, and city tax incentives for making improvements such as energy-efficient windows, solar electric systems, and geothermal heat pumps. So, maybe “green” and “brownstone” aren’t a contradiction in terms.

Image: rutlo

The post The Green Brownstone: An Oxymoron? appeared first on EcoSalon.

We’ve heard the frustrated cries of cash-strapped friends: “I want my home to be more energy-efficient but it’s so darn expensive!” and “I would buy furniture that’s made from recycled materials but right now all I can afford is that particle board dresser from IKEA!”

However, Dan Phillips is out to prove that eco-friendly homes can be both affordable and attractive.

The Huntsville, Texas man formed Phoenix Commotion and has built over a dozen homes using at least 80-85 percent of recycled or salvaged materials. Picture ceilings lined with a geometric cacophony of picture frame corners in every color, floors made from old wine corks, and address numbers made from cattle bones (we did mention he’s in Texas, right?).

And the best part is that the owners (primarily minimum wage workers who would otherwise float from apartment to apartment or mobile home to mobile home) are required to participate in the building process so they’ll feel a sense of pride in ownership.

Phillips’ wild, whimsical creations follow two simple rules: they must meet building codes and follow the laws of physics. He keeps homes small and simple and tries to maintain a level of energy efficiency, which makes them attractive to future buyers. The rest is left to his imagination and that of the new homeowner.

Images: Phoenix Commotion

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From the Hill…

I just couldn’t let this one go by. And it pains me to bring it up. But let’s talk about a few inconvenient truths.

Who’d have thought that President Bill Clinton was the eco-friendly “bad boy” of the Clinton-Gore administration? He made intimate phone calls to his special friend from inside the White House during his scandal; Vice President Al Gore took a private jet during his. How could our anointed Captain Planet turn his back on (in addition to one other key figure) Mother Earth?

Masseuse Molly Hagerty has been dishing about the Nobel Peace prize-winning climate change guru’s ‘crazed sex poodle’ behavior. I won’t go into the gossipy details of the alleged massage because it has no relevance here.

But, some facts have arisen about the other, more globally pressing issues about the Harvard-educated family man becoming entangled in this controversy. He was staying in Portland, Oregon, and asked staff at the luxury Hotel Lucia to find him a masseuse. Two things. One, the Hotel Lucia is lovely, lively, hip and chic. But just because it’s located in the Emerald City, doesn’t make it a green hotel. Maybe Gore forgot to do a simple search for one of these environmentally friendly lodgings. Also worth noting: Staying at the Doubletree is not any greener simply because the word tree is part of its name.

Plain and simple, Gore hasn’t been practicing what he’s been preaching all these years. Witness the purchase of his bachelor pad in San Francisco in 2006.

Gore paid $3.9 million for the apartment atop the grand St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco in 2006. There is a swimming pool, a health spa, a roof deck and even a butler available to bring refreshments along with his order of double standards. He enjoys an opulent personal lifestyle while lecturing the public on green morality.

It’s a complicated situation being a public personality. The spotlight can illuminate, yes, but it can also seduce and reveal the bad in someone as well as the good.

Tabloid fodder aside, it’s the double talk with regard to core message that’s difficult to stomach, let alone abide. San Francisco is one of the greenest cities in the country. So what kept Gore from finding, or erecting, a sustainable living space? Building a green house doesn’t take much more than money. Heck, even Glenn Beck built and lives in one.

University of Manchester Professor Geoff Beattie published a study about environmentalism and attitudes versus actions. In it he differentiated between how people felt about being “green” and what they actually believed and did about it. Sean Coughlan at the BBC reports:

Researchers, at the university’s Sustainable Consumption Institute, made video recordings of people talking about issues such as global warming – looking at how their words matched their body language, such as hand gestures and expressions.

The study found that while people could control their speech to express green opinions, their unconscious gestures suggested their “true thoughts and feelings” lay elsewhere.

Explicitly, people may want to save the planet and appear green, but implicitly they may care a good deal less.

Given it is these implicit attitudes that direct and control much of our behaviour in supermarkets and elsewhere, these are the attitudes that we have to pursue and understand and change.

It’s common knowledge that people (politicians, especially) will say one thing and do another, often the opposite. It’s just difficult to observe, in hindsight, when some of those people take a very public stance, muscle their way to icon status – and make less good on their word. The lesson here: If you’re going to fall from grace, make sure you have a cushy seat on a private jet to make your descent a comfortable one.

Editor’s Note: This is the latest installment in Christopher Correa’s weekly column, Hill/Street Greens, examining the environmental deeds (and misdeeds) of Washington, D.C. and Wall Street.

Image: socketsite

The post An Inconvenient Roof: Al Gore’s Controversial Lodgings appeared first on EcoSalon.

A Bay Area family talks of moving to Portland, Oregon where they have friends and family and can secure a nice-size house and even land (what a concept!) for what it might cost to buy a two bedroom condo in San Francisco. But it just doesn’t seem to be the right time to sell the 40’s era family home Gary Hauser grew up in, and now shares with his wife and daughter. It also doesn’t seem to be the right time to invest in something new. The answer? Rent with no repent.

“We’re thinking of renting out our house while renting something either in Portland or an apartment in a sunnier location in San Francisco until the market picks up,” Hauser says. He may be onto something as renting could very possibly be replacing buying as the new American dream.

Rental Savings

There are strong arguments for renting instead of buying including the steady climb of mortgage interest rates along with the difficulty in securing in loan.

Rising Rates

An average 30-year-fixed went up 12 basis points to 5.23 percent April 1, while a 15-year fixed climbed to 4.53 percent and a jumbo 30-year fixed loan jumped to 5.92 percent. And while housing prices might be lower, renting costs have dipped as well, making it easier to get a better deal on a nice house in an upscale hood.

“It’s just a chain reaction since properties are going down in value, the property owners will eventually lower their rent to keep up with the market,” says Stop Stupid Stuff, a mortgage tutorial site.

While more people may be able to afford buying right now, the mortgage sites argues you can actually save a great deal by renting in certain locations.

“Some would argue that the difference in mortgage and rent is not that much that makes renting a bad idea but if you are living in a posh location where the mortgage could reach $5,000 a month, you will be able to rent a property within the same location with less than $4,000 a month,” it tells us. ” The $1,000 difference per month is just too large to be ignored.”

According to James L. Harrison of the Real Estate Blog, if you can afford not to sell your home, you can benefit from a steady cash flow that you can apply to your expenses and taxes while retaining ownership and making a profit. If you are relocating, you avoid the risk of selling and losing money, and can simply enjoy the income until you come back. He argues you also unload a lot of headaches assumed by the renter.

“You shall no longer have to pay the mortgage interest payments, insurance payments, property taxes, maintenance, repair and cleaning services,” he says. “You might be surprised to know that all costs of collecting your rent like traveling, local transportation, maintaining, and repairing your rented property can be deducted form the tax. Moreover, the depreciation expense is also taken care of my the amount of rent that you are getting. Hence, you have a good tax shelter, and save a lot of money.”

Disadvantages to Renting

Playing Landlord

The biggest disadvantage is having to play landlord, according to Alla Gershberg, MBA and a principal with the Paragon Real Estate Group in San Francisco. “Managing a rental house and tenants can be a hassle and cost a lot if you choose to hire a professional property manager,” she finds.

She adds that once you decide to sell, it can be tricky. “If you decide to sell because of rent control laws, evicting tenants to sell the home later may be problematic, prohibitively expensive or even impossible. If it’s impossible to evict the tenants, then you have to show it while it is tenant occupied, which can bring up multiple issues pertaining to appearance, showings and open houses. It makes it virtually impossible to perform any staging of the home to make sure it shows in its best possible light.”

She adds that rental properties rarely show as well as owner-occupied properties and renters often neglect basic upkeep and maintenance. Agents also find most buyers don’t want to buy tenant occupied homes and those buyers willing to deal with the issue expect a significant discount on the price.

“Renting for an extended period may affect the $250,000-$500,000 exclusion from capital gains for ownership occupied properties upon sale.”

Like most agents, Gershberg discourages clients from putting off selling homes  because it can be difficult to predict when the market will actually pick up, and meantime, the rental market also can weaken at the same time. She figures in terms of making an investment, you will probably fare better in the end from selling.

“It depends on the property,” she shares. “Rents in good neighborhoods are doing well but unlike multi-unit rental properties, single family home rents typically don’t generate income commensurate with current values. In other words, you could invest the proceeds of a current sale more profitably than the return one gets from rental income on a single family home.”

Renting a Room, Good Compromise

Until you decide about renting or selling, it might pay to simply rent a room in your house to eke out some extra income, just as our grandparents did during war time and the Great Depression. It will also give you a sampling of what it is like to play landlord, including collecting monthly rent and asking your tenant to do his or her part to keep up the room and shared grounds. Just follow the m.o. of best landlords, and do a good background check!  Remember, you can also take something in trade for that great green gardener, organic chef or babysitter that happens to need a room. It could be a great win-win situation.

Images: The Truth About…, All starplr, TV Rage

The post Rent Now, Sell Later? The Benefits In a Still Shaky Market appeared first on EcoSalon.

1. Reface Rather Than Replace Cabinets

Innovative companies can work with your existing wood and reface those cabinet doors with sustainable woods rather than trashing and starting anew. Read this post for more tips for the kitchen cabinet facelift.

2. Swap Decor with Family and Friends

You don’t need a piano and I don’t need that daybed in the TV nook, so let’s trade and recycle our stuff and get what we really need. It’s a match made in eco heaven when it doesn’t cost you a dime to swap decor, especially with people who have a good eye like you do, and are low on storage space. It’s how they did it in the olden days before widespread consumer waste and climate change. Here’s more.

3. Baby Steps Can Equal Full Grown Changes in a Room

Rearrange the furniture, buy a few new pillow covers, paint a wall. These easy fixes will refresh your pad without sinking lots of cash. As you’ll discover in this handy how-to post, it can all be done for under $30.

4. Repurpose Excess Upholstery Materials

Those fabric rolls are not doing anyone any good just sitting in the closet. Cut them up and redirect them to your interiors for pillow covers, framed art, bedding, even wall coverage like the picture shown above, if you have enough for adequate padding. See these great ideas for repurposing your excess.

5. Clean Before You Replace

Perhaps that rug can come clean with eco spot remover techniques. Why rip it out if it’s still useful? Another option is to cover a damaged section of the carpet by layering with a small, affordable area rug, one made of eco fibers that won’t cost the same as new carpeting or a large are rug. Go shagging for answers here.

6. Seasonal Accents Make Great Distractions

A collection of seasonal organic blooms and greens from your garden, lanterns, greeting cards, photos and tablecloths – they all can act as happy distractions in a room that is begging for a redux. Don’t have a garden? Head to the farmers’ market, the flea shop, the vintage shop in your hood, and spend little to stage your spaces with renewed charm. Head over here for inspiration.

7. Paint can Perk it Up

Even a dingy clawfoot tub can look ultra modern and cool by finding the right low VOC paints and giving the bath a new coat. You will find sprucing up furniture with paint can be a great cheap fix that refreshes your spaces.

8. Be a Thrift Shopper

It’s no wonder second hand shops in cities nationwide do well during hard times. These are outlets that actually offer discounts while more upscale sights like 1st Dibs are peddling vintage treasures that cater to those with lots of spare cash. Do some research and check out the shops in various neighborhoods to find out where nifty castaways are being parked.

9. A Room of Her Own

Sometimes just carving out one room of your own in your dwelling can suffice until you have a bigger budget to fix up the place. Are you craving that Project Runway sewing room? How about a closeted dressing room out of a spare bedroom? Having a blast doing just one space for yourself can be very rewarding, even if it is a multi-use corner for working, painting and reading. Own it with visuals on the walls and a fun rug that speaks to you. Experts say you will accomplish the most in a space you gravitate towards.

10. Spa Makeover

So you can’t afford to tear out the old tile and tired tub to make way for stone and steam. Use zen decor touches and nurturing elements to turn your blah bath into spa bath: Ideas include indulgent, organic towels; sensuous beeswax candles in an array of holders; yummy creams and oils displayed in a vintage tray; and my favorite Nob Hill Day Spa element – a large pitcher of spring water filled with sliced cucumbers or lemons and a pretty glass.

Image: Elle Decor

The post 10 DIY Tips for Redecorating on the Cheap appeared first on EcoSalon.

“It’s funny how new furniture has a way of restoring people,” says the sweet, pastel-coated spread (above) appearing in online and print magazines.

Why the reminder to hug a couch today?

It’s all part of a $20 million ad campaign launched by Ogilvy & Mather to spur Americans to focus on the bird in the hand, namely homes they now own and can play with even if the economy ain’t recovering and we can’t bid on new real estate.

Decor spending is in the toilet with showrooms hurting and closing in all major cities. According to the Commerce Department, sales of home furnishings fell 12.9% over the last year, and they’re still dropping. Sales were down .9% in July from June.

But don’t be part of that sluggish market when furniture can lift your spirits to new heights. A new pillow can make you thinner and an upholstered headboard will make you rich. Remodeling your bathroom can cure halitosis. Don’t even get me started on that imported bidet!

“Things that fill our home also fulfill us. They become who we are. Giving us joy. Providing us with comfort.” That’s what the ad says, which has appeared in Metropolitan Home’s eco edition and other respected journals.

Meantime, a product information invoice attached to the sofa in the ad ironically says: “22 percent cotton, 13 percent giggles, 15 percent hugs, 11 percent afternoon naps.”

Okay, so now we know why those ad men make the big bucks. It’s genius to assign the same value to seating as quality family time and showing affection. There’s even a makeover opportunity if you tell your cheap, lazy ass friends to clear out that dilapidated jalopy of a couch from their college years and the hideous side chairs they inherited from a cousin. Don’t you want a hug and tickles, you slob you?

If I entered the sweepstakes I’d get myself out of the laundry room and make a real office in a prefab shed outside. But I’m so unlucky at these prizes. My mom always wins raffles, purses at luncheons, free dinners, you name it. Not me. Damn, and I could get Monica Pedersen to stage my office, whoever she is. I wonder is she is related to the Bret Pedersen who works with my husband. Now he could use a makeover.

According to Fast Company, the story behind the ad is rooted in the maverick Las Vegas way of doing things. While High Point, North Carolina, once ruled as the center of American furniture production and sales, the focal point has shifted to the World Market Center,  a 1.3-million-square-foot showroom and exhibition space in Las Vegas.

The Las Vegas group apparently commissioned the ad campaign as a stopgap measure for the hurting industry. It’s a $20 million gamble that just might pay off!

Image: Homeyet Lifestyle, Homeyet Lifestyle, Fast Company

The post Ad Urges Consumers Who Can’t Buy a House to Refill the One They Got appeared first on EcoSalon.

Some people have an incredibly creative ability to make a pretty sweet lemonade out of very, very rotten lemons. What I mean is this: I live in northern Arizona, and much of our electricity comes from coal power plants on Navajo and Hopi land. Not cool. Not a sustainable industry or healthy for the residents. But that’s another story. This story is about turning coal burning’s poisonous by-product into homes.

Navajo Flexcrete is a small, innovative company, based out of the tiny town of Page, Ariz. Using the extremely toxic fly ash (think arsenic, lead, barium and mercury) from the local coal plant, it’s harvested, saturated with water and used as a concrete-like building material.

Now wait, you’re thinking, won’t this make a toxic building? Yes and no.

I spoke with Ed Dunn, an ecological builder who uses Navajo Flexcrete, and he says that during the construction process, builders need to use a particulate mask (just as they use when cutting wood or regular concrete block), because cutting or drilling the Flexcrete blocks will let out some toxic powders, but once the block is sealed and painted, there is no off-gassing and the product is stable and safe. Flexcrete has an R-factor of 35, providing excellent insulation, perfectly suited for homes utilizing passive solar.

Granted, this is not the most perfect of ecological home-building products, but when you consider the current situation of the coal plant’s fly ash being dumped into a side canyon of beautiful Lake Powell, wouldn’t it be better used to make well insulated homes that are suited for the extreme heat and cold of the high northern Arizona desert?

And I’m sure the creators of Navajo Flexcrete don’t want to perpetuate the dirty coal business in order to have more fly ash for their product – they are simply using the toxic waste that’s already there and safely turning it into homes.

Alchemy, if you ask me.

Image: ASU

The post The Alchemy of Turning Toxic Waste into Homes appeared first on EcoSalon.

A new makeshift shelter has emerged in the form of resin-soaked cellulose recovered from recycled cardboard and newspapers.

Costing $5,000, the Universal World House was invented by design engineer, Gerd Niemoeller, as a quick dwelling for long-term refugees in Third World shantytowns. The paper house, developed at German’s Bauhaus University, was featured in the Times Online. It contains built-in single and double beds plus a veranda equipped with a private shower and bathroom. It’s apparently easy to assemble, earthquake-proof and stable enough to withstand strong winds. The interior features prefab panels that look like honeycomb patterns and an air vacuum fills each unit, similar to the construction technique employed in aircraft and high-speed yaghts. This allows for the combination of flexibility and strength.

According to the Telegraph, the paper houses have been tested in the worst slums of South African and one of the first settlements of the houses will be built in Zimbabwe in conjunction with the German aid organization, World Vision. Nigeria also has ordered 2,400 of the houses. Neimoeller is the founder of the Swiss company, The Wall AG, which has a patent on the mini houses.

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