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Click to see the latest on Kathy's Remodeling Blog
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 I like contacting past subjects of Pardon Our Dust, my remodeling series in the L.A. Times, and asking them: Hey, how's it going?
Typically I see a house shortly after a remodel is finished when the people are thrilled with the project. After all, most of the time they have contacted me, suggesting their own home for the series (and this is my favorite way to find my projects). So there's a fair amount of glee all around.
But after a remodel has been lived with for a year or two, some weaknesses are bound to emerge. And some joys more fully appreciated.
So with the launch of this "How's that remodel working out?" series, I bring you comments from some of my favorite POD features to help you with your own plans.
The first responses come from Trish Cohen in the Hollywood Hills. I wrote about the tower she built with her husband, music attorney Martin Cohen, who has since passed away. Martin had owned the several-acre property for decades, but it was not until Trish entered the scene that the house started to take on a graceful beauty.
The remodel I wrote about was a two-story tower, which was built off the master bedroom. The bottom of the tower functions as a large closet, with a spiral staircase leading to the second floor of the tower, which is an exercise room overlooking the bedroom.
I asked Trish: What is the best thing about the tower? What do you wish you'd done differently? Here's what she said: The best thing about the tower is its look. I live in a relatively small farmhouse and the tower has given it a Tuscan look. As the tower was built to accommodate a closet, I've certainly made good use of it and I have plenty of room now for my clothes. The upstairs part of the tower is used as an exercise room and I use it a lot and really enjoy being up there on the treadmill looking out over the hills of Hollywood.
My only regret, other than losing my husband, is the fact that we didn't put a hidden ironing board into the closet, a safe, more shoe racks and a center piece with drawers. I have since put in another shoe rack and the center piece.
Thanks, Trish!
See more SoCal remodels
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 It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. You can imagine these SoCal homeowners all jazzed up about a new pebble and resin coating on their driveway. They may have read marketing materials about how the new surface would add value to their home, set off the architecture and set the house apart in the neighborhood of big and nice but somewhat homogenous houses.
The pebbles do set the house apart, but not in a good way. With the resin giving way and letting the pebbles loose to find new homes on the sidewalk, gutter, or adjacent lawn, this house looks way worse than it would have with the native concrete driveway. Notice the pebbles coming off the front of the steps? So it's not just the car tires loosening the stones.
Anyone else had this kind of problem? Or know what causes it? Or how to avoid it?
Resource: SoCal paving contractors
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 In Burbank, blogger John Park has generously kept us up to date on his stylish remodel with Park Haus Addition blog. Now he's in the punch list phase, where all those things that are not right are made so before the job is declared done.
In a way, John and his family are fortunate the skies poured out an unseasonable torrent recently. He got to see that one of his exterior doors leaks. Oops. According my own experiences and my contractor sources, there are several reasons water leaks under an exterior door:
1. The inside and outside plane are the same. Ideally, the outside should be lower than the inside, or slope away from the house so rainwater will do likewise. Water is not mystical. It behaves according to the laws of nature every single time.
2. The door opening is not flashed properly. Flashings are materials from 4 to 12 inches wide, often with a sticky backing, that help seal up the gap between the door system and the wall.
3. There are no overhangs. In this case, with its sleek and contemporary architecture, that is probably so. Wide overhangs are more than a design statement or protection from sun. They also help keep rainwater away from the house.
4. There is no sill pan. A sill pan is kind of like a gutter underneath the sill or threshold that channels water away from the house. Sill pans are not required by code, but many in the "building science" field think they should be. If you are remodeling or building, you can request sill pans for each window and door. You'll pay extra, but then again, how much does it cost to repair a leaking door? A lot!
5. All of the above. The more of these issues that are present, the more likely a door or window will leak.
Sill pans are made by many companies, including JamSill, Dow, Marvin and Endura.
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Click to see the latest on Kathy's Remodeling Blog
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 Many of us are just waking up the importance of green building (thank you Ed Begley Jr. et al), but the L.A. Times was all over this years ago.
Check out this Cheat sheet to the lexicon:
Dual-flush toilet — A type of water-conserving toilet that is relatively common in the commercial sphere but is only now becoming available for the home. After each use you have a choice of low flush (using as little as 0.8 gallon) or a more powerful flush (about 1.8 gallons).
Energy Star — An energy-efficiency rating system sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency. A high Energy Star rating means that the product -- from small household appliances to entire homes -- is designed to minimize its energy consumption. Using as little energy as possible helps protect the environment, conserves fossil fuels and saves you money on the electric bill.
Forest Stewardship Council — A third-party certification for wood, wood products and forests. The FSC tracks the wood from its forest of origin all the way through the chain of custody to where the product is sold. If a product is FSC-certified, you can count on its having been harvested and produced in a stringently eco-sensitive manner.
Formaldehyde — A toxin found in many adhesives, such as those in plywood and panel board; it also can be found in paints, caulks and other building materials. The World Health Organization recently upgraded it from a possible carcinogen to a known one. When present in the home, it tends to "off-gas" and pollute the indoor environment. These days there are plenty of formaldehyde-free alternatives, such as nontoxic paint and the plywood alternative wheat board.
And there's more . . .
(Photo: The Jahnke green home in Claremont)
Continue reading "The green glossary" »
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 If you want wood floors, and you want to be "green," the trend is toward choosing wood that is FSC-certified. That means the wood comes from a forest that is judged by the very strict Forest Stewardship Council to be operated in a sustainable manner. What does sustainable mean, anyway? It's a way of meeting the needs of today without negatively impacting the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
But there's an even more sustainable method of "harvesting" wood, and that is from old buildings or structures built up to 100 or more years ago. Resource Conservation Group is a Los Angeles company that sells such wood. They take down buildings all over the country from old whiskey storage facilities to New York apartment buildings to dairy farms in Washington and bridges in Texas.
According to the company, they "carefully dismantle each structure by hand, saving nearly 100% of the material. Even the bricks and tin roofing sheets are salvaged. With many of the buildings having been put together with bolts rather than nails, there is very little damage to the material during the dismantling phase. The larger beams are usually sold as-is and the other material is milled into flooring or used to create furniture of the highest quality."
See the difference in old growth vs. new growth pine in the images above. Each ring on a tree represents a year of growth. The top (old growth) is tight and strong. The bottom (new wood you'd buy today) is looser and weaker.
You can find more reclaimed wood through the amazing WoodWeb lumber exchange.
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 It was a treat to see Michelle Kaufmann's new green prefabricated cottage, the mkLotus, at West Coast Green last week. Kauffman, a Bay Area architect, is a leader in designing beautiful, functional, healthy homes that can be built in a factory and brought to your site on a flat-bed truck or two.
Set up and landscaped in San Francisco's Civic Center Plaza, the 700-square-foot house was a vision of style and sustainability. But the whole time I'm touring, I'm also thinking: How much does this thing cost? The answer wasn't apparent. No giant price tag could be found.
But after sleuthing through her website, I finally got my answer. The standard mkLotus house is $175,000, plus an additional $25,000 for the cool NanaWall folding doors and $24,000 for the solar power system. So it looks like the house I toured would cost about $225,000, not including the land, the foundation, shipping or "setting" the house in place.
So, uh, that's a lot of money for a bitty little house. As commenter Sheila pointed out recently, houses made in factories should theoretically cost less, but they usually cost more.
My hope: With economies of scale, when hundreds of thousands of these things are pumped out every year, the cost will go way down. Look what happened with compact fluorescent bulbs. Just a year or so ago I paid more than $10 for each one and now they're what, four for a dollar?
I want to install a freestanding office on my property and so was interested in this option. However, until the wealthy "early adopters" start buying these green prefabs and bringing the price down I will, regretfully, have to pass on the opportunity for now.
See a bunch more photos on Inhabitat
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 Sustainably speaking, it's probably a good idea to move a house rather than tear it down and haul it to the landfill.
But when your house hits a bridge on the way and gets stranded on the Hollywood Freeway, well, there's got to be some regrets.
According to the story, the owner, Patrick Richardson, was trying to save money by moving the house himself from Santa Monica to the Santa Clarita Valley. I'm not sure this is the best DIY project one should undertake.
See the story in the L.A. Times
(Photo: Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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 I love the idea of using recycled water jugs to make nearly indestructible outdoor rugs. I have a polypropylene rug on my deck that looks like it's made of natural fibers and adds a cozy feeling. And if it gets wet or the sun shines on it, so what? The very thing that makes plastic so bad for the environment (the fact that it will languish in a landfill for eons) makes it perfect for those things you'd rather didn't break down from mold and rot.
However . . . I'm starting to wonder if all these plastic furnishings are a good thing. There is some talk that plastics seep into our bodies and then our bodies freak out, not knowing what to do with these odd materials. So if we're surrounding ourselves with rugs and furniture and cabinets and moldings and even clothing made of recycled plastic, is that a danger?
Here is an L.A. Times article titled Plastics may not be so fantastic for kids and comments from L.A. Times readers.
What do you think?
(Photo: Ballard Designs)
Continue reading "Recycled plastic in rugs, cabinets, countertops: Is this such a good idea?" »
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I got a great question from reader Scott W. and rather than directing it toward just one decorator or designer, I thought I'd throw it open to one and all. Here's the question: Question: What trends are ending (all-stainless-steel appliances, for example, is one trend that I hear might be ending) and what trends are beginning?
Designers? Decorators? Trend watchers? What are your thoughts?
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 An article by Elizabeth Douglass in today's L.A. Times says buyers are seeking out solar-powered homes and solar industry officials say growth is going through the roof.
And it makes sense that when the housing economy is shaky homeowners are looking for stability. What could be more stable than the certainty that the sun is gonna shine? I don't mean to be glib, but the sun is one natural resource global warming is not going to destroy. Our self-destructive tendencies are powerful, to be sure, but our reach is not that great.
Still, only 5% of new homes in sunny California are built with solar. That is up from 1% in 2004, but well below the 50% the Million Solar Roofs program aims for by 2017.
If you're interested in solar power for your home (my new motto: Live the change), you can check out the Solar Power 2007 expo tonight from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Long Beach Convention Center. It is free to the public this night only.
And here's another sign that solar is hot: The solar power show's conference sessions are sold out. But thanks to the miracle of the Internet, you can watch webcasts. Cable TV mogul Ted Turner is one of the keynote speakers. Click below to read the whole L.A. Times story.
(Photo: Orange county tract homes, by Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)
Continue reading "Do sun-powered homes sell faster in a slow market?" »
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I like contacting past subjects of Pardon Our Dust, my remodeling series in the L.A. Times, and asking them: Hey, how's it going? 
