• Design and installation techniques, tips, and shortcuts used by professionals• Provides step-by-step instructions, timeframe for completing plus skills and materials lists
• "Wisdom of the Aisles" on every page guarantees success
• Details how to design, layout, maintain, and work with a variety of materials in building patios and walkways
• Features walkways using soft set paths, hard bed paths, brick and paver patterns, and boardwalks
Representing all facets of northeastern architecture and home design, highly regarded architects present their captivating ocean-side residences of Nantucket, rustic woodland homes in upstate New York, and Boston’s aesthetic modern dwellings. Talented local architects Patrick Ahearn and Kevin Schopfer explain their ?hybrid” approach, while Jim Kellerher of Axiom Architects shares his philosophies on the significance of conservatively sized spaces and the effects of hurricane rebuilds.
The true insider's guide to getting the quality new home you deserve. From choosing the right community through the final inspection, Home Building Pitfalls has the new home buying tips and tricks you must have to be on equal footing with your builder including:
How to avoid the "model home trap" used by every big builder
How to prevent your builder's assembly line construction techniques from getting in the way of the quality and craftsmanship you deserve
How to discover if your builder is telling the truth about claims of superior quality and customer satisfaction
How to prevent damaging mold growth that has become so common in new homes
The tactics used by new home sales people to "up-sell" and persuade you to unnecessarily spend thousands of extra dollars
How your builder’s attorneys are working overtime to make sure they have the upper hand... and what you can do to foil their efforts!
How you can protect yourself from the exclusions and exceptions in most new home warranties.
How to avoid the biggest scam you will encounter when buying a home - The Home Inspector Scam.
This year 1.2 million consumers will buy a new home, and they need real help in navigating the new-home minefield. The latest edition of Your New House includes charts, tables, black-and-white illustrations throughout, as well as updated prices and new trends in home buying. Also added is information on the dot-com shakeout, including what it means for online mortgages and home listings; more Web addresses for all major product manufacturers; and the best websites for deals on products like carpet and lighting. “The best book available on how to buy and build a new home.” — Chicago Tribune 
Let Barb Schwarz----the creator of the Home Staging concept----show you what it takes to make it in the Home Staging industry.
Keep construction on track with helpful checklists
Whenever a major earthquake strikes or a hurricane unleashes its fury, the devastating results fill our television screens and newspapers. Mary C. Comerio is interested in what happens in the weeks and months after such disasters, particularly in the recovery of damaged housing.
This volume describes how individuals, networks and groups in Eastern Europe worked patiently for 40 years to erode and finally overthrow their discredited governments in the "velvet revolutions" of 1989. They proved the effectiveness of social resistance and "people power", and the author considers the significance of their success for international politics. Part two consists of interviews with people who were directly involved in the everyday struggles for democracy, offering new information and personal insights into their motivations and actions.
Some 40 percent of North Americans live in homes built prior to 1940, and when it comes time to remodel or restore our older homes, homeowners and contractors can find themselves lost in a morass of wildly divergent information and opinion. With Green Restorations, author Aaron Lubeck brings his expertise as a restoration contractor and preservation consultant to this first-of-its-kind guide, leading the reader through the steps for restoring historic buildings using sustainable practices and green building techniques.
In a readily accessible room-by-room and system-by-system format, Green Restorations covers rehabilitation and remodeling questions applicable to old homes, focusing on the core techniques and debates often seen in practice. Here you’ll find the answers to restoration questions, such as:
Written in such a way as to be accessible for homeowners but technical enough for contractors, this book will appeal to anyone trying to green an older home while preserving its historic and cultural significance.
Aaron Lubeck is a partner with the award-winning Trinity Design/Build, a restoration and preservation consultancy in North Carolina. He is a member of the United States Green Building Council, and has completed the first historic building to be LEED-certified in North Carolina.
Designing Your Dream Home gives you every question to ask, every detail to consider, and everything to check out before you design and build your dream home.
Designing and building a home can be stressful and expensive, but knowing what to consider ahead of time will save you stress, time, and money. Beginning with the questions to ask before you purchase land all the way through your final punch list, this guide addresses the entire process. With this step-by-step and room-by-room guide, the design process will come together in the most efficient way possible. Features include detailed checklists for every room, common mistakes to avoid, design details that pay big dividends, and unique "lifestyle questions" that reveal what you really need and want from your new home. Remodelers and renovators will also find value in these tips and suggestions. Also provided is such vital information as terms, symbols, abbreviations, measures, and dimensions that are often unfamiliar to the layperson.
The best-selling and highly regarded reference to sustainable construction gets an update! It’s refreshed with a completely revised introduction, a bright new cover, and extensive online resource tie-ins. Plus, it’s now printed on recycled paper with agri-based inks, so it’s greener than ever!
This groundbreaking book doesn’t just tell you about ?green” house-building techniques: it actually shows you, with more than 1,200 step-by-step photographs that follow the actual erection of an alternative building from site selection to final-touch interior details. Readers will get a clear sense of the real world challenges as Snell and Callahan create a lovely country cottage using four methods: straw bale, cob, cordwood, and modified stick-frame.
Along with sidebars throughout, there’s a thorough discussion of the fundamentals of building construction, alternative approaches, and designing a beautiful yet environmentally responsible home. Building Green was the first book of its kind?and it remains heads and shoulders above other titles in this field.
Buying a new home can be an expensive endeavor. Many people dream of building their own home but mistakenly believe that doing so is not cost effective. However, by building your own home you can save 20 to 40 percent or more. By reading The Complete Guide to Building Your Own Home and Saving Thousands on Your New House you will discover that your dream can become reality. From basic planning to construction methods, this new book will take you through all the steps of building your own home. You will learn how to choose a site, draw up a construction time line, apply for construction loans and financing, obtain essential insurance information, buy inexpensive plans, find and negotiate with subcontractors, comply with building codes, select features and fixtures, choose the style of the house, decide on the size of the rooms, prepare plans, and get permits. You will learn about building materials and foundations, floors, walls, paint, windows, decks, garage doors, roofing, flashings, chimneys, plumbing, wiring, ceilings, floors, railings, and attics. In addition, you will learn how to design a home that will meet your needs, perform constructions tasks safely, and build amenities. We will inform you about common problems to watch for, including foundation, roofing, walls, stairs, sidewalks, driveways, heating and cooling, electrical capacity, and wiring. This book will detail money-saving options and environmentally friendly techniques, while at the same time allowing you to monitor the quality of the materials and the workmanship, fine-tune the design, and make sure the results are exactly what you had envisioned.
As energy costs rise, more and more companies are looking to create green offices buildings ones that use resources efficiently while simultaneously creating healthier working environments. The energy use statistics are staggering: The heating, cooling, and powering of offices accounts for 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States and are responsible for more than 70 percent of the country s total electricity usage. Office computers consume $1 billion of electricity annually. Moreover, recent surveys demonstrate that employees are fed up with their companies energy-wasting ways: One-third of workers are more inclined to work for a company that is going green, and approximately 50 percent want their employers to be more environmentally friendly. How can you attract workers and reduce your costs at the same time? By going green; the tips in How to Design and Build a Green Office Building will show you how. In this book, you will learn how to protect the building occupants health, how to improve employee productivity, how to use resources more efficiently, how to reduce your impact on the environment, how to select a site for a new building, how to protect and maintain the current landscape, how to use recycled content, how to use natural lighting, how to install high-efficiency lighting systems, how to select heating and cooling systems, how to select materials, and how to use dimensional planning and material efficiency strategies. You will also learn everything you need to know about water savings, energy efficiency, environmentally-friendly building materials, indoor environmental quality, building shape and orientation, alternative energy sources, dual plumbing, green building guidelines, gray water systems, water-conserving fixtures, the costs and financial benefits of building green, foundations, floors, and roofing. In addition, How to Design and Build a Green Office Building provides you with thousands of low or no cost ways to make your office more environmentally friendly. Whether you are building a brand new building, remodeling an existing one, or even just looking to make small changes that will have a big impact, you need to read this book. Employing the techniques in this book will ultimately save you money, increase your productivity, and attract more employees.
Ranches is a unique combination of outstanding designs and proven ideas for renovating, remodeling, and building a ranch-style home. Featuring over 20 examples of updated homes and new ranches, the book is illustrated with inspiring original color photography and before and after floor plans.
What Your Contractor Can't Tell You is a comprehensive guide to getting the best results while building or renovating a home. Most homeowners spend about 20% of their time on the plan and 80% of their time on a messy, traumatic, expensive construction phase. Pros spend 80% of their time on the plan and 20% on a smooth construction phase. But the homeowners can't know what goes into a solid plan unless someone tells them. This book is based on a simple premise...if homeowners knew even 10% of what the professionals in the construction field know, they could avoid 90% of the problems. Creating a dream home shouldn't be a nightmare. Hiring a contractor is an enormous investment and a high-risk endeavor involving decisions that will last forever. This book equips homeowners with the information and strategies needed to turn their vision into a home or a renovation that can be built on time and within budget. Chapters give detailed coverage of critical topics: design; selecting and supervising the architect and contractor; cost estimates; budget; plan specifications; contracts; dealing with town officials; and keeping track of everything along the way. For each stage of the project, there is detailed information on common pitfalls and how to avoid them, as well as insiders' tips which reveal what most contractors can't tell you. This book was previously published by Warner Books (2004) and titled What the "Experts" May Not Tell You About Building or Renovating Your Home.
Build your dream house without getting a headache!
From selecting the property and meeting with an architect through resale considerations and construction, So You Want to Build a House walks you through every step of the building process painlessly, on-time, and on-budget.
Today, a new generation of architects and builders is emerging, intent on creating homes that meet human needs for shelter while causing only a fraction of the environmental impact of conventional housing. "The New Ecological Home" provides an overview of green building techniques, materials, products, and technologies that are either currently available or will be in the near future. Author Daniel Chiras provides a wealth of up-to-date, practical information for home buyers, owner-builders, and anyone interested in building for a sustainable future. Included are chapters on: - The Healthy House - Green Building Materials - Wood-Wise Construction - Energy Efficiency - Earth-Sheltered Architecture - Passive Solar Heating and Passive Cooling - Green Power: Electricity from the Sun and Wind - Water and Waste: Sustainable Approaches - Environmental Landscaping
Each featured home reflects individual personality, priorities, and lifestyle. Whether by the water, on a mountain, or in a forest, field, or town, these homes emphasize quality of place over quantity of space.
THE NEW ADOBE HOME PRESENTS THE SOPHISTICATED, elevated use of adobe through a variety of elegant homes in New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Mexico. These homes comprise a combination of history, furnishings, art, and interior and exterior spaces with adobe construction, adobe style, or detailing. 
In 2010, major league baseball in Minnesota heads outdoors for the first time in nearly two decades—and at one of the finest baseball facilities anywhere. Target Field explores the Minnesota Twins’ long journey to getting a new ballpark and celebrates the groundbreaking achievements of its design and construction. With first-hand insight from the designers, engineers, workers, and team executives who made it all happen, the book gives an insider’s tour of the features and amenities that fans will enjoy for generations. Target Field brings to life the smells of real grass and mustard-slathered hot dogs, the sounds of the ball hitting the bat and the roar of the crowd, and the sights of a glorious new home for the Minnesota Twins.
The best-selling and highly regarded reference to sustainable construction gets an update! It’s refreshed with a completely revised introduction, a bright new cover, and extensive online resource tie-ins. Plus, it’s now printed on recycled paper with agri-based inks, so it’s greener than ever!
This groundbreaking book doesn’t just tell you about ?green” house-building techniques: it actually shows you, with more than 1,200 step-by-step photographs that follow the actual erection of an alternative building from site selection to final-touch interior details. Readers will get a clear sense of the real world challenges as Snell and Callahan create a lovely country cottage using four methods: straw bale, cob, cordwood, and modified stick-frame.
Along with sidebars throughout, there’s a thorough discussion of the fundamentals of building construction, alternative approaches, and designing a beautiful yet environmentally responsible home. Building Green was the first book of its kind?and it remains heads and shoulders above other titles in this field.
• Provides step-by-step instructions, timeframe for completing plus skills and materials lists
• "Wisdom of the Aisles" on every page guarantees success
• Details how to design, layout, maintain, and work with a variety of materials in building patios and walkways
• Features walkways using soft set paths, hard bed paths, brick and paver patterns, and boardwalks
Barns strike a sentimental chord among the populace, perhaps as reminder of our nation's agricultural heritage, most definitely as symbols of solid and imposing timber frame forms. While many of these architecturally significant buildings are succumbing to neglect and development, others are getting a new lease on life. This coffee-table book presents over thirty barn conversion projects by creative architects, developers, and homeowners who have capitalized on the flexible space offered by barns. Over 300 striking photographs provide fresh design ideas for the conversion of barns into residences and business spaces. You will see a Pennsylvania stone bank barn converted into a stunning residence, an abandoned dairy barn made livable complete with office space in the old silo, and a Victorian era barn which now links the old farmhouse to the new living space. In addition to stunning homes, you will see barns utilized for office space, retail, and even a non-denominational chapel. A wealth of wonderful ideas is offered for maintaining the historic integrity of these structures while providing for today's vastly different needs. This is a design treasure for architects, builders, contractors, and homeowners, to help them visualize the transformation of historic agricultural buildings into new and treasured landmarks.
At the beginning of the new century, there's a groundswell of popular nostalgia for period houses with an authentic pedigree. Regional styles of old homes in all parts of the country have captured the imagination of homebuyers who are disillusioned with the cookie-cutter sameness of new home construction. Many are turning to the history and tradition of their own neighborhoods for inspiration in old houses--themes that will inspire and inform them in building a new home that will preserve a sense of place and the feeling of "home."
Old Homes of New England paints a stunning portrait of the charming and important old homes of the region, featuring storybook cottages in white clapboard as well ancient mansions in brick and stone. Cherished for its intimate, community-centered spirit, New England lays claim to some of the most wonderful architecture of the country—and, significantly, its buildings are among the nation’s very oldest. Featured here are twenty-five of the most beautiful examples, ranging from the storied House of the Seven Gables of 1668, in its magnificent colonial splendor, to the Corwin House of 1675, nicknamed the "Witch House" for its direct association to the infamous Salem witch trials, to the bucolic Cogswell farmhouse of 1728. Each house exemplifies its style, which range from early colonial Pilgrim, Puritan, and Shaker, to later Georgian, Federal, and Greek Revival. With richly crafted interiors formed from old woods, fine plasterwork, thoughtfully set beams, brick, and stonework, the houses return us to a more gracious time when the simple pleasures of staying at home were paramount, a time to which many of us, even now, long to return.
Many people dream about building their own home and in recent times more people than ever are realizing this dream. The ability to control the quality of both material and labour, having a home that is of their own design and the overwhelming sense of achievement are the main reasons that people do it. However, building a house - whether people actually do the work themselves or subcontract the work out - is a challenge, particularly for those who have no experience of the building industry. "The New Home Builder" is the guide they need.This book contains clear, concise advice and informative diagrams that will help at every stage of the process, from financing the build to choosing fittings. Written by Paul Hymers, a qualified Building Control Officer, this practical guide has all the answers for the growing number of people who want to fulfill their dream and build their own home.
Keep construction on track with helpful checklists
More and more homeowners today want houses that are healthy to live in and cause minimal damage to the environment. That’s what green building is all about.
Your Green Home is written for homeowners planning a new home—whether you are working with an architect or builder, or serving as your own general contractor. Intended to improve the overall environmental performance of new houses being built, the book sets out to answer some of the big-picture questions relating to having a home designed and built—and getting what you want.
Your Green Home covers:
• Home location and its relationship to the community
• Site design
• Construction systems
• Building design to optimize energy performance
• Renewable energy systems
• Material selection
• Indoor environmental quality
• Water efficiency
• Material selection
Written by the founder of BuildingGreen—North America’s premier green building authority—this book will prove useful not only to future homeowners, but also to designers and builders seeking to meet this demand. Building professionals well-versed in green building may find this a useful book to give to potential clients to convey the scope and principles of green building.
Alex Wilson is president of BuildingGreen, Inc. and executive editor of Environmental Building News, the oldest and most respected publication serving North America’s green building industry. A green building expert since the 1970s, he has authored countless articles on the topic and several books, including Green Building Products, the Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings, and Green Development: Integrating Ecology and Real Estate.
Learn to build comfortable, long-lasting chairs. Chairs are ubiquitous, found in every home, office and building. Almost all are commercially made since many woodworkers shy away from making chairs, or even stools. Granted, there are not too many square parts to most chairs, and compound angles are somewhat intimidating. But the articles in this book, reprinted from "Fine Woodworking" magazine, should help dispel any questions or fears you may have about chair building. Not only can you build them, you can make them better than the average commercially made models.
Green living begins at home, and New Green Home Solutions tells you how. Most of the energy-derived pollution we produce comes as a direct result of our homes - how we heat them, how we cool them, how we keep them well-lit and full of things that make our lives so comfortable. The good news is that we have tremendous power to create change. Renewable energy design, better insulation and more efficient appliances could reduce energy demands by 60 to 80 percent. By embracing conservation and renewable energy, we can win our energy independence and help save the planet. 
Building a Home provides the answers! Drawing from their many years as marriage partners and parents, Bill and Vonette Bright offer: Simple steps to building a partnership. Practical help in managing finances. Sensitive insights into developing intimacy. Powerful principles for hanging tough through family crisis. And Exciting opportunities in the "golden years". "No couple in America is better qualified to write a book on this topic."--Pat and Jill Williams, Co-authors, Speakers
The 2008 global recession and the nearly universal awareness of significant climate change have begun to alter architectural thinking. Even though architects will continue to dream up seemingly function-free building forms for the most conspicuous consumers, mainstream architects are being asked to provide energy efficient, cost-driven forms that also delight the eye. The movement to preserve and reuse existing structures has gained momentum, and the incidence of new and old architectural juxtapositions has increased. Forward-thinking planners are advocating m ore concentrated urban density, in part to decrease inefficient use of energy for transportation. As this thinking becomes public policy, architects will be challenged to adapt historically significant buildings for new uses, often by creating additions to existing forms. Although not entirely new, architectural dilemmas concerning how new meets old will occur revealing issues that most architects w ho design new buildings have not often thought about. Historic preservationists and sustainability advocates seem to concentrate solely on single issues leading to aesthetically clumsy architecture while agency review panels and the public approval process continue to erode the integrity of building designs making the creation of truly excellent designs difficult. Reclaimed Buildings: New Meets Old explores these topics in depth, with a focus on architectural design. The book addresses the question of aesthetic sustainability given the new influences and design tools that have emerged during the first decade of the 21st century. It is written for practitioners as well as students of architecture, and includes examples and case studies of built works that have successfully wrestled with the question of how new meets old in architecture.
Peter Nelson, the nation's foremost authority on treehouses, and writer Gerry Hadden join forces to tell readers everything they need to know about designing and building the treehouse that's right for every individual or family. Step-by-step instructions for a children's playhouse, a vacation home, an office, and a full-time residence are included. of color photos.
Hurricane Katrina ravaged much of New Orleans in 2005, but thankfully the city's most treasured historic homes survived. Plantations & Historic Homes of New Orleans is a poignant tribute of these storied mansions, whose architectural beauty brings a unique flair to the Big Easy's most famous neighborhoods. From the French Quarter and Garden District to Uptown, Marigny, and Bayou St. John, many of New Orleans' grandest old homes and nearby plantations are featured in this book, showcasing the massive brick columns, intricate cast-iron balconies, wide verandas, sumptuous parlors, and humble servants quarters that give this area its charm. Open these pages and you'll travel to Destrehan, the oldest plantation house in the Mississippi Valley, originally built of hand-hewn bald cypress timber using briquette entre'pateaux, mud (clay, river sand, and Spanish moss) between post; the homes artist Edgar Degas and author William Faulkner lived in during their New Orleans' stays; and the 1850 House located in the Lower Pontalba building on Jackson Square. Learn about the building's namesake, a baroness with a tumultuous family life who managed to escape murder and was also responsible for building the American embassy in Paris.
With lavish photographs of exteriors and rooms of special interest, gardens and curiosities, and detailed information about New Orleans' diverse architecture and history, this book is both a perfect guide for visitors and natives alike and an enchanting visual tour of one of the greatest cities in the United States.
Cordwood masonry is an ancient building technique whereby walls are constructed from "log ends" laid transversely in the wall. It is easy, economical, aesthetically striking, energy-efficient, and environmentally sound.
Cordwood Building collects the wisdom of more than 25 of the world’s best practitioners, detailing the long history of the method, and demonstrating how to build a cordwood home using the latest and most up-to-date techniques, with a special focus on building code issues.
Author/editor Rob Roy has been building, researching, and teaching about cordwood masonry for 25 years and, with his wife, started Earthwood Building School in 1981. He has written 10 books on alternative building, presented four videos—including two about cordwood masonry—and has taught cordwood masonry all over the world.
"Big house, little house, back house, barn"--this rhythmic cadence was sung by nineteenth-century children as they played. It also portrays the four essential components of the farms where many of them lived. The stately and beautiful connected farm buildings made by nineteenth-century New Englanders stand today as a living expression of a rural culture, offering insights into the people who made them and their agricultural way of life. 
Today, a new generation of architects and builders is emerging, intent on creating homes that meet human needs for shelter while causing only a fraction of the environmental impact of conventional housing. "The New Ecological Home" provides an overview of green building techniques, materials, products, and technologies that are either currently available or will be in the near future. Author Daniel Chiras provides a wealth of up-to-date, practical information for home buyers, owner-builders, and anyone interested in building for a sustainable future. Included are chapters on: - The Healthy House - Green Building Materials - Wood-Wise Construction - Energy Efficiency - Earth-Sheltered Architecture - Passive Solar Heating and Passive Cooling - Green Power: Electricity from the Sun and Wind - Water and Waste: Sustainable Approaches - Environmental Landscaping
For builders of natural homes (straw bale, cob, adobe, rammed earth, and other natural materials), this unique step-by-step guide takes the confusion out of choosing, mixing, and applying natural plasters.
From principles to practicalities, and with every stage of the process illustrated, The Natural Plasters Book details the entire process of plastering with earth, lime, and gypsum for a long-lasting and durable finish. Starting with an overview and history of the natural building movement, the book handles a wide variety of topics including earthen plaster versus cement stucco, tools and techniques of the trade, plaster recipes, and pigmenting plaster or painting walls with natural paints. First-time builders will appreciate tips on common mistakes (and how to avoid them) discussed at each stage of the plastering process. Special focus is paid to the importance of planning and designing for earthen plasters—before building begins.
The only comprehensive guide available on natural plasters, this book is written for the growing number of people who have decided to build their own natural homes as well as for professionals. Heavily illustrated with practical drawings and photographs, it also includes an extensive resource guide listing books, magazines, videos, builders, and suppliers.
Marketing Plans:
• Ads in Natural Home and Environmental Building & Design
• National print review campaign to natural building, self-sufficiency, and environmental magazines, newsletters, websites.
Cedar Rose Guelberth has been working with natural home construction and plaster techniques for 25 years and is a nationally recognized natural building educator and consultant. Dan Chiras is the author of fifteen books including The Natural House: A Guide to Healthy, Energy-Efficient, Environmental Homes (ISBN: 1-890132578, Chelsea Green, 2000). Both authors live in Colorado.
Also Available
The Art of Natural Building: Design, Construction, Resources
TP $26.95, 0-86571-433-9 • USA
Straw Bale Building: How to Plan, Design, and Build with Straw
TP $24.95, 0-86571-403-7 • USA
Inspirational houses from around the world: how architects and home owners can achieve harmony between dwellings and nature.
Our houses can be seen as living, breathing entities, extensions of ourselves and our families. This carefully considered publication provides the design inspiration to build and live in domestic spaces in a balanced, natural, sustainable way.
