Sustainability

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    Brighten Up Your Home with Natural Daylight

    When Gary Pawelko and his partner Diana Figueroa built their home in Wentzville, they carefully considered the many options available, doing their best to imagine this new space and how things would fit together.  Unfortunately, they didn’t realize until the home was finished that the kitchen, where they spent a large portion of their time,…

  • Creating a Healthy Interior

    Since most of us spend an average of 90 percent of our time indoors, it’s important to create a healthy environment in which to live.  While we may not have enough control or influence over our work environment, we can certainly make healthier decisions about our homes. Many newer homes are built much “tighter” than…

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    Earth-friendly Home Saves Money and Environment

    It’s a common misconception that having a “green” home means small, basic and visually unappealing.  Dale and Sharon Becker had long dreamed of the home they built in O’Fallon, Missouri, but wanted to apply green building principles in a comfortable, beautiful home.  They had been fans of Sarah Susanka’s Not So Big House and designed…

  • The Trouble with Bottled Water

    Over the weekend, a friend shared with me how a local university banned bottled water on their campus.  On one hand, I knew the reason behind this change, and celebrated it.  Plastic water bottles have become an enormous source of trash, with three out of four bottles going into landfills or incinerators rather than being…

  • Where the Rain Goes

    Rain garden in St. Stephen’s Lake Park in Columbia, MO (Photo courtesy of Steve Johnson, Executive Director of the Missouri River Communities Network) Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?  They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot! Joni Mitchell warned us years ago about…