Green Remodeling Ideas That Will Save You Money

"Going green" is more than just a passing phase - being environmentally thoughtful has become a way of life for many Americans, not to mention businesses that serve their needs. From recycling bottles and cans to investing in a do-it-yourself composter, homeowners all over the country are doing their part to help reduce emissions and protect the planet for future generations. 

There are plenty of small things you can do to make your home more energy efficient, but what if you want to go a step further? Whether you're building a new home or renovating your current place, these green remodeling ideas will save you money over that long haul and make your home more appealing to buyers when you're ready to sell - while saving the earth in the process. 

Solar Panels

They're expensive to install, but solar panels are worth the investment. Last April, the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory released its findings of an eight-and-half-year study of the California real estate market. According to the report, existing homes that were retrofitted with solar panels sold for an average of $17,000 more than comparable homes without them.

They'll also save you a lot of money over time. For example, a homeowner in Chicago who pays an average of $200 per month on electricity would spend more than $43,000 to have solar panels installed. After tax credits and rebates, the total cost would be just over $30,000. However, after just one year, that homeowner would save anywhere between $1,200 to $2,778 on electric bills. After 25 years, that savings could be as high as $116,560.

To find out how much solar panels could save you, visit: Solar-Estimate.org

Composite Decking

In addition to saving trees by using composite decking instead of wood, you'll save yourself a big hassle. Wooden decks need to be sealed every couple years to keep water out, and eventually the elements will cause at least a few boards to rot and splinter. 

Composite decking, made from a blend of wood waste and plastic, doesn't require the same upkeep as traditional wood deck boards. You won't need to seal it, which eliminates the time and money you'd spend resealing plus fewer chemicals will be released into the air. And since the deck won't rot, no trees will be cut down and used to replace it after a few years. 

The average cost of a composite deck addition is $15,579, according to Remodeling Magazine, but you can expect to recoup more than 60% of your cost when you sell your home - more than if you replaced your roof or added a master suite. 

Synthetic Grass

It sounds crazy, but using fake grass in your yard is a real thing. It looks surprisingly real, and is great for homes in dry climates where it requires a lot of extra effort - and water - to grow the real thing. According to online retailer Artificial Turf Supply, the synthetic stuff costs about twice as much to install as sod. In a 1,500 square-foot yard, ground prep, sod and a sprinkler system would cost $4,750 a year while artificial grass would run just over $10,000. 

But over an eight-year period (the warranty period of the synthetic grass listed on the site), the cost of maintaining a sod lawn would cost more than $14,500. During that same period, there would be no additional costs to maintain the fake stuff, which means a savings of more than $4,000. After 15 years, the savings skyrockets to $13,000. Basically, artifical turf pays for itself completely.

And you're doing more than putting money in your pocket. You may still "rinse" the lawn from time to time, but you won't waste gallons of water saturating the ground to keep the grass alive. It doesn't need mowing, either, which means lower gasoline emissions polluting the air. 

No matter what green home remodeling project you want to pursue, make sure you find yourself a like-minded contractor. Look for a pro who has some experience in green building, or is at least open-minded and eager to get an eco-friendly project under his or her belt. 

Copyright © 2012 Yahoo! Inc.

Bathroom Remodeling Tips

A single bathroom remodeling tip could inspire fresh thinking for your entire remodeling project. Trends area always being updated, so it's useful to know what's new in home bathroom design. You'll find bathroom remodeling advise and inspiration here.

Express Yourself

Choosing Colors: A fresh coat of paint is an easy way to give your room an instant face-lift. Single color schemes make small rooms larger and a neutral palette can expand your space more. Or, add drama with colors like deep reds, eggplant, ochre, and dark blues or greens. 

The Personal Touch: Collections and objects that express your personality or your family history will make your home interesting to your guests and more enjoyable for you. 

Imported Ideas: Consider letting a favorite hotel or restaurant, or an outdoor spot that you enjoy, provide the inspiration for your bedroom, dining room or bath. 

Planting Style: One beautiful plant can be a strong design statement. Your style sense will determine whether a dramatic green plant or a bright floral bouquet is best for you.

Dynamic Design

The Right Finish: Now more than ever, you have choices for kitchen and bath fixtures. While matte or polished chrome are always popular, homeowners are choosing darker finishes such as oil-rubbed bronze and wrought iron. Consider the look and feel you wish to create when deciding. 

Bright Ideas: Halogen downlights and scones provide whiter light and fresh designs. Visit the lighting section of your home improvement center to get a better idea of these styles.

Quick 'n Easy: Multi-purpose rooms need to switch moods easily. Today's high-tech dimmers let you fine-tune your lights - even dim or raise them with a remote. 

Mix It Up: Today's larger kitchen has room for variety. Mix-and-match styles and wood types for an eclectic feel that adds a unique look, from baseboard to hanging cabinets.

Packs a Punch

High-Performance Shower: Today's shower design offers unprecedented opportunities for adding deluxe features - massaging vertical spas, rain shower showerheads and luxurious materials such as glass, tile and stone. 

Organized Kitchen: Specialized storage systems, appliances and fixtures speed meal preparation and keep entertaining organized. Choose open shelving for quick access. Locate a faucet next to the range to fill big pots quickly and conveniently.

Design Focus: A single, dramatic focal point for a room you're remodeling makes the improvements more obvious. Try a special piece of furniture, an interesting piece of art or one wall that's boldly colored.

Double Duty: Lighting is a sculpture as well as illumination. Choose light fixtures in shapes that are pleasing to look at - whether they're switched on or off.

Works for Me

Getaway Baths: The bath can be a relaxing, serene environment. Add massaging or rain showerheads, a deep Zen soaking tub and even music and candles to enhance the revitalizing experience. 

Counter Space: If your bathroom is being shared by the family, counter space is critical. Consider a vanity with cabinets for extra storage and organization.

Ageless Amenities: Features usually associated with older homeowners - easier access, brighter lighting and convenient handholds - are helpful at any age. Adding them with your remodel could improve your home's resale value.

Bed and Breakfast: Adding a morning bar to a master bedroom with an elaborate, built-in countertop and sink is a great way to add luxury and functionality.

Practical Approach

Finding Your Design: Start a scrapbook of design ideas you find in magazines and online. This will help you establish a foundation for your remodeling project. 

Sketch Your Layout: This will help you understand how you would like your new room to look and help you change the little things that you don't care for in your current design.

Set a Budget: By outlining how much you can spend on each phase of the project you will be able to see if you can splurge on the extras; like a contractor or if you need to cut and do it yourself.

Set a Timeline: This will help you keep on track and allow you to achieve your remodeling goals. 

Planning Multicook Kitchens

There Are Ways to Accommodate Multiple Cooks Without Causing Accidents

Pictured Above: This kitchen has a third prep area visible beyond the island with access to the prep sink, microwave and island.We have been crowding into kitchens to enjoy the camaraderie of friends and family since house parties were invented. Candice Olson, in the the introduction to her book, Candice Olson Kitchens and Baths, puts it this way: "Today's kitchen is all about a well-planned space that makes cooking a completely interactive experience between family and friends."

Regardless of a kitchen's size, there are ways we can modify spaces to encourage socializing and helping.

Average - to smaller - sized kitchens can be enhanced by incorporating a pass-through opening into the kitchen. An extended counter will encourage conversation and can hold hors d'oeuvres. A slight adjustment in the positioning of the available counter space adjacent to the sink or cooking surface could provide enough space to act as a secondary prep area.

Duality or redundancy of appliances can be beneficial in medium to large kitchens by creating additional activity centers. Still, each work center should have its own work triangle if possible. The primary work triangle is defined by the large refrigerator, corner sink/cleanup area and the range top. Microwaves, drawer dishwashers and refrigerators can anchor the work triangle along with a hospitality sink. Sharing a major appliance also works well as long as individual work triangles do not cross paths.

Islands and opposing countertops should be a minimum of 48-inches apart to allow for crossing traffic. The perfectly designed multicook kitchen will have very few occasions when preparers would need to cross paths. However, this minimum spacing will accommodate persons crossing paths while carrying plates or trays. 

Avoid positioning major appliances directly across a walkway from each other. A secondary sink should be far enough from the primary sink so it defines a discrete work center, and the addition of an under-counter refrigerator and the extra countertop space it provides will make an excellent salad or baking prep area. 

Not all multicook kitchens will be this inclusive while some might duplicate each appliance - specifically, an additional cooking surface. Two-burner cooktops, fastcook ovens, steam ovens or another secondary device might be incorporated. 

Getting the Most Out of a Kitchen Remodel

Hey, have you heard the one about the 36-inch pro-style range that ripped the molding off the back door on its way into the house? Or the poured-on-site concrete countertop that cracked three months after installation? Or maybe it was the contractor who was paid in advance, promptly skipped town, and was never heard from again.

Well, misery may love company, but what we all crave is a happy ending - a smart - looking, functional workspace that is a source of comfort and efficiency. To help you get there, we've complied this handy guide to some common kitchen-remodeling disasters and offer expert strategies for steering clear of them. 

For each major phase of the job: - hiring, planning, budgeting, and living through it - we've got an easy plan to follow. Take our advice, and your biggest regret when your dream kitchen is complete will be that you didn't do it sooner. 

Finding the Best Pros

Kitchen remodeling is at the top of homeowner's wish lists. It is also, according to attorneys general across the country, a leading source of consumer complaints. Recommendations from friends are the best place to start your search for a qualified contractor. But before you make a decision, keep these caveats in mind:

• They're only as good as their last job. "General contractors often win jobs based on their good reputations," explains architect Dennis Wedlick, author of "Good House Hunting: 20 Steps to Your Dream Home." "But circumstances can change. When the contractor switches subcontractors or laborers, quality can be affected." Ask your top three candidates to supply references, and follow up with the most recent ones.

• What you see is what you get. In addition to completed renovations, try to visit a job in progress. You can learn a lot about a contractor's commitment to quality and safety by seeing for yourself how clean the site is and how carefully the drywall is hung and taped. 

• The best ones are worth waiting for. The best contractors tend to be the busiest ones. Build your schedule around the GC of your dreams, not vice versa. Keep the crew happy by following the three R's:
  • Refreshments - you don't have to cater three squares a day, but at least offer a thermos of coffee or a cooler with soft drinks and some snacks. They'll appreciate it.
  • Responsibility - the crew can't work efficiently if you're in the way. Ask questions, but don't overwhelm them with your TOH-taught (This Old House) smarts. And teach kids and pets the meaning of KEEP OUT.
  • Respect - say good morning, good night, and good job when appropriate. And please: don't ask if they've met any desperate housewives lately. The appliances can be top-of-the-line, the finishes the most expensive around, but if the space doesn't work, it's money down the brand-new In-Sink-Erator.

Plan, Plan, Plan the Smartest Layout

An experienced designer can save you time and money by heading off potential problems. Kitchen planners know all the tricks: how to maximize storage, smart substitutions for high-end materials, even the best local contractors for the job. But first, they need a few things from you. Here are a few things that'll help on your first meeting. 

20/20 Design Proposal Drawing by Designer Ed Sheats

• An architectural rendering or to-scale drawing of your existing kitchen, showing the location of windows, doors, heating, plumbing lines, and electrical outlets. If you're not working with an architect, you can do it yourself with 3-D kitchen design software. 

• A detailed wish list indicating your goals for remodeling. Do you want more space? More storage? More style? A built-in dog bed? Organize by priority, from the "must haves" to the "in our dreams."

• An idea folder: pictures of rooms, products, materials, and architectural details that appeal to you; notes on what you like about friend's kitchens (and hate about your own); and general concepts translated from other areas of your life. Are you a neat freak? Glass-front cabinets are sleek, but you may be happier with painted doors that conceal clutter.

Cut Costs Without Cutting Corners

One of the surest ways to shave costs is to do more with what you've got. So before taking the sledgehammer to your existing kitchen, try this: empty every drawer and cupboard. Revisit where you've been putting things. Is there an organizational scheme that makes more sense? Think in zones, storing items closest to where they are used. 

"In the end," says architect Dennis Wedlick, "you may like the reconfiguration so well that you'll decide to just paint and stick with the kitchen you've got." And if you do go forward, you'll have a clearer sense of how you really use the kitchen, which will help save time and money on the redesign. But if you kind of need to cut corners, here are a few budget-balancing scenarios:

Problem #1: You really need more storage space, but you plan to move in a few years and would rather not invest in custom cabinets. Custom-crafting every nook and cranny for the way you cook may not be the most economical use of your dollars when someone else - with different cooking and lifestyle habits - will be living in your kitchen before the home-equity loan is paid off. 

Affordable alternative: Consider working a walk-in pantry into your plan. It's a remarkably economical way to upgrade your kitchen - a pantry can supply as much storage as a wall or more of custom built-ins.

Problem #2: You want granite countertops, but they'll bust the budget. Granite's resistance to moisture, scratching, and high heat makes it a perennially popular (if pricey) choice.  

Affordable alternative: If you love the look of granite - or soapstone or marble or handcrafted tile for that matter - work it into your plan. But instead of using it for every countertop, try limiting it to a high-visibility island or to the areas flanking the range. Elsewhere, use less expensive options like plastic laminate or ceramic tile. Mixing also adds visual interest. 

Problem #3: You want a lighter, brighter kitchen, but knocking down walls just isn't an option. The space may be drab and dingy, but it gets the job done, and a major overhaul isn't in the budget right now. 

Affordable alternative: Sometimes a well-planned lighting scheme is all it takes to brighten a kitchen. Spend the bucks for the services of a professional planner or lighting designer. That plus simple cosmetic upgrades, such as a fresh paint job, new cabinet hardware, upgraded countertops or flooring, and a couple of new appliances can totally transform the space. Save untold thousands by sticking to the original layout. 

August 2012 Newsletter

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American Cabinet & Flooring August 2012 Newsletter     See Brandom Cabinets on A&E Television's  - Sell This House: Extreme! -  Airing on : August 11th & August 22nd, 2012 11:00 am EST (Check local listings for showtimes) Join in our support of these episodes of Sell This House: Extreme! Host Tanya Memme and construction expert Charlie Frattini join forces with new designer Daniel Kucan to create a triple tiered approach to extreme renovation featuring genuine Brandom Cabinets in an effort to help desperate homeowners prepare their difficult-to-sell spaces for today's tough real estate market. The cabinets you will see in this episode were manufactured in Brandom's Hillsboro, TX facility and feature the Lexington and Euro door styles and custom sizes.  Check your local listings to check the episode numbers, channel, and times in your programming area of the country; as your local provider may vary programming for this show.  August 11th - episode 013 - San Antonio August 22nd - episode 014 - San Antonio Designer's Corner "London: The Design Capital of the World" The summer Olympics isn't the only event that will be attracting the world to visit London this year. The Ninth Annual London Design Festival will be held this September 17th - 25th. Events will take place throughout the city, with the Victoria & Albert museum of Decorative Arts and Design (The V & A) being the central hub of the festival, a natural home for an event which celebrates the best of design. The festival was set up to promote London as the design capital of the world and to celebrate the wealth of creative talent based there. London is often looked at from around the world for fashion but interior design and architecture are also heavily influenced by the "London look." One of the design trends that will most likely be displayed at this year's design festival is "hyper-personalization". The idea is to bring the unexpected in and to create a space where the room is not only a work of art, but created by you. By customizing each room to fit the specific needs of the person or persons that will occupy it, we are creating an uplifting attitude towards the home, giving each room its own personality and ambiance. Many of the current design trends today compliment this design idea. Some of the hottest London design trends to help you achieve "hyper-personalization" include: Using Darker Tones - in particular black to create focal points. Off set by using lighter colors, all the way down the spectrum to white, producing balance in the space. This creates opportunities to have fun with colorful decor without overstimulating the mind and creating uneasiness in the space.  Less is More! - to embrace as much space as possible people are trading their over-sized furniture pieces with small and more functional ones. Paired with thoughtful ways to create storage, a minimal approach gives more opportunity to utilize the space in a maximum way. Bold Colors & Bright Patterns - create focal points and personality in a room. Not only do bright colors make a room cheery, but it can be an easy and inexpensive way to give a room a make-over. By adding color and patterns in things like rugs, pillows, lamp shades, and art; you can achieve this design trend without remodeling your entire space. All White Furniture - though all white may sound boring, it is one of the most popular design trends today. A white piece of furniture can serve as a focal point to a colorful room or be a backdrop to something ornament that you wish to draw attention to. Again, you are causing contrast between light and bold colors, creating balance in the space. If white isn't your thing, using light grays and browns should have similar affects.  Practicality - innovative ways to use space is the biggest goal in interior design. A room should not only be beautiful, but a space that you want to spend your time in. It's all about using the space you have, to fit the life you want, no matter how big or small.  The current trends are all about celebrating your personality, which will never go out of style. By taking care of details to make a room function specifically for the person that will occupy it - a pleasant, comfortable, and highly personal - interior design will be created. A room that celebrates personality is a beautifully functioning space, because it is from your perspective. So if you are looking for design ideas and trends, look at one of the world's leaders in design - London; and come see me at American Cabinet & Flooring to get your remodel project started!   (Pictured Above: Moderner London kitchen expresses the all white furniture trend paired with colored accents - backsplash & fruit bowl - as focal points in this space.) We want to hear from you! We value feedback from our customers and want to hear how we did on your project. You can easily submit a review as well as see what others are saying about American Cabinet & Flooring by clicking on the following links: Angie's List Facebook Google Local CitySearch Yahoo Local Yellow Pages DexKnows

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