Green You Home

The new covered porch shelters east-facing windows from morning rays. When the sun moves west, the porch provides a shady, AC-free retreat.

The porch columns are not chemically treated to repel rot or harvested from some far-off rain forest. Instead, they're made from the naturally rot-resistant trunks of Eastern Red Cedar trees grown nearby.

A roof should overhang walls by at least one foot. That keeps the sun off windows and exteriors, which helps the house stay cool in summer.

It also protects siding from the weather, meaning you may be able to go twice as long between repaintings or re-sidings.

The house you fix up will probably be much greener than anything you build in its place, no matter how cutting edge the new design or how much recycled material you use.

Sure, some old houses just can't be saved. But even a building with serious problems can give you plenty to work with.

You might, for example, be able to salvage the first floor and build around it. With a total teardown, all the stuff that went into building the old house, including the fossil fuels the original construction crew had to burn, goes to waste. (Construction material is one of the largest contributors to landfills.

A kitchen should match how you really cook
Unless you regularly prepare five-course meals with the help of a sous-chef, you'll likely find it most convenient to work in a kitchen that's no more than 20 feet long, with countertops no more than four feet apart.

Bedrooms are for beds
The best bedrooms are designed around the spot where you'll sleep, not around the sitting area that you probably won't use as often as you think. Chairs in bedrooms have a way of just collecting the laundry you've been meaning to put away.

More rooms can be better than one giant space
Instead of a high-ceilinged great room that combines a kitchen, dining room and living room, use the same square footage for a combination of rooms with standard ceilings. Divide them with french doors that you can open out when you want family togetherness.

If you're building or renovating, the construction costs can be $100 per square foot lower than those for a double-height space. By getting rid of all that air overhead, you'll save on energy too.

Smart Window Tips

True, today's best windows are twice as energy-efficient as those installed just a decade ago, but because windows make up only a fraction of your home's exterior, your actual energy savings will be no more than 25%, and maybe just 5% or 10%. Considering that replacements run $300 to $1,200 a window, we'll all be using hydrogen power before your new windows pay for themselves.

Still, there are other reasons to replace windows: New ones open and close easily. They tilt in so you can clean from indoors without climbing a ladder. They don't rattle when trucks drive past or ever need exterior painting. And they can even increase your property value if you do the job right.
Preserve your home's character

You can't count on recouping the full cost of new windows when you sell - a 2007 National Association of Realtors study found that sellers got back about 80% of the expense.

But choose the wrong ones and you can shatter your house's salability. "Like mantelpieces and built-in cabinets, original wood windows are important architectural features," says Atlanta realtor Bill Golden. "Replace them with a downscale product and you downscale the house."

Avoiding this trap is simple: Buy windows that mimic the ones you're tearing out. Although vinyl windows ($300 to $800 installed) are the least expensive option, they have a plain-Jane look that's fine on a simple tract house but not on a classic prewar. Wood replacements ($400 to $1,000) need periodic painting.

So you're best off with a clad window ($500 to $1,200), which is made from wood with a pre-colored, no-paint-needed aluminum coating outside and a wood finish on the inside, giving you classic beauty that's also low maintenance.

The same goes for window style: If your old ones have "divided lights" - that is, multiple pieces of glass separated by dividers - your house will look best if the new windows display the same pattern.

Trouble is, true divided lights are available only on custom windows ($2,000 and up); the standard solution of snap-in grilles (a $25- to $50-a-window add-on) looks the part only from the inside.

For a well-dressed house, get simulated divided lights (a $200-a-window add-on), which have permanent grilles on the inside, outside and between the panes - and can pass for the real thing.
Think green

While it's not worth buying new windows solely for the energy savings, you should go for efficient ones if you're replacing them anyway.

In most of the country, says Dariush Arasteh, a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, you should spend an extra $10 to $20 each for windows that have argon gas between the panes and a low-e (low-emissivity) coating, an invisible film that blocks heat from going through the glass.

Small-kitchen blues

Maximize the space

Sometimes kitchen congestion can be resolved by updating an old-fashioned floor plan that's chopping up ample square footage with too many walls and other obstructions.

    * Annex other spaces Walk-in pantries, mudrooms and laundry rooms that abut the kitchen are often worth sacrificing for an expanded kitchen, says Charlotte, N.C. contractor John Harmon. Construction costs can be as little as $2,000, depending on the situation. And thanks to stackable laundry machines that can be tucked away in a closet and cabinets that can store as much as an entire closet in a fraction of the space, they won't be missed.

    * Move the sliders Replacing sliding-glass patio doors with a single swing-out door ($3,000 to $4,000) or relocating your backdoor out of prime kitchen territory ($5,000 to $7,000) can free up vital wall space for new cabinets and a countertop without adding any floor space.

Add on economically

If the only solution is more physical space, you may be able to do the job for less than the $400-a-square-foot (or higher) cost of a full-scale kitchen addition and remodel.

    * Add adjacent living space If what you really need is an eating area or a space next to your existing kitchen, build a family room, den or great room alongside it. The open floor plan will make the kitchen seem bigger, and the person cooking (or microwaving, as the case may be) will feel like part of the household activity. And because the new space won't require all the labor and materials involved in reconstructing a kitchen, the project will cost about $200 a square foot.

    * Hang a bump-out If your plans for the kitchen require just a little more room, you may be able to hang the space off the side of the house by suspending the additional square footage from the existing structure, much like a bay window. As long as the bump-out doesn't extend more than three feet beyond the main exterior wall, it should easily cost $2,000 less than if the contractor had to excavate the yard and pour a new foundation, says Walter.

Whatever technique you use to expand your kitchen, once it has an open, spacious feel, it's sure to become an even more popular hangout. Heck, it might even inspire you to break out a cookbook. Top of page