Garden Walls Come First

My garden is the place I come at the end of a day to forget the trials of running my remodeling business, a place to momentarily forget the difficulties of the world, a place to get refreshed. Designed environments should do that.

It took eight years to create the garden at my Northwest, Washington, D.C. home shared with my wife. It is a work-in-progress. Happily, our circa 1920 house was placed forward on its lot, 120' x 55', leaving ample space for a rear garden.

With the help of landscape architect, Mark White, we created our garden’s master plan allowing us to implement work in phases as it was affordable. Getting the design ‘right’ meant building the brick fence first; more than 160 linear feet of it!

DC city zoning laws require that fences be built at, or inside, property lines and not more than 6’ in height from grade. We hired a licensed surveyor to mark our property lines to ensure that placement of our brick fence could not be questioned.

We quickly learned the importance of our garden’s master plan because even the brick fence was too expensive to build all at once and required two phases:

1- The first 100' was built at the south and east in 2001,

2- The remaining 60' at the north side more than a year later.

The fence is the important design element of the garden because it provides closure and the architectural framework for the walled garden. Following our master plan, new planting was restricted to the newly fenced areas.

Visitors are quizzical when they learn we went to the effort to build a brick fence around our garden, until they tour the garden. Fence and plantings act as a couple, working together to complete the experience. The fence blocks the view of a wrap-around alley and with the help of a contained bamboo bed screens an adjacent office building. The enclosure creates a micro-climate, gentle on plants and its brick piers form plinths for cast-stone urns, adding height and enclosure.

For aesthetics I wanted a repeating pattern of brick piers, each capped with 2" thick flagstone, linked by brick walls. The piers are spaced 10' apart which creates visual rhythm but primarily serves a structural purpose to support a thin brick fence. A focal point, at the back end of the garden, was created with a round opening, called a ‘clairvoyee’, and embellished with scrolls of ironwork. The length and height of the brick fence required a structural engineer design a proper footing. For strength and economy a continuous 24"d. x 24"w. reinforced concrete footing was designed for an 8" wide fence, and a 24"d. x 36"w. footing was built for each brick pier (twice the thickness normally specified). The large footing, disliked by the mason because of its size, provided a cost savings because it allowed for less brick with a thin 8" wide wall between piers; whereas smaller piers and footings would have required a 12" thick brick wall. The fence has not settled or cracked in eight years, evidence of a job well done.

As a couple we joke that we’re both a bit introverted and if left alone could become hermits. We entertain often in the garden, which helps overcome our natural inclinations. At the end of the work day there is nothing I like more than to arrive home and walk in the garden. In the warm weather I open the French doors leading to our porch and soak up the lush garden aromas of this little urban oasis. It was all worth it.

Green Ideas for Kitchen Remodeling

Knowing which sustainable, eco-friendly products to use when remodeling a kitchen can be intimidating for homeowners. Is the material really “green,” or is it just marketed as such? Will the product hold up to daily use in my kitchen? Am I paying more for a green product? So when homeowners ask how to incorporate green products in their kitchen remodeling, we try to keep it simple and practical.

As the green building industry matures, it will become easier to make these decisions. Many building industry experts predict that in a decade we will no longer call it “green building” because using sustainable, eco-friendly products will be the norm. It will just be the way we build. Until then, here are a few basic tips on cost-effective green products we at Wentworth Inc. have used in kitchen remodeling projects.

Kitchen Cabinets

Cabinets faced with a wood veneer from plantation-grown trees is one way to minimize the environmental impact of your kitchen remodeling. For a recent kitchen remodel, we specified cabinets with bamboo veneer – a quick growing, abundant grass material (http://www.plybo.com/) and (www.corsicabinetry.com). Thin layers of veneer, wood or grass, stretch the usefulness of the product.

Another plantation-grown wood to consider is Lyptus, which is the trade name for a hybrid of a Eucalyptus tree grown on plantations in Brazil. Lyptus most resembles maple in appearance and can be treated with a multitude of different finishes. Lyptus trees are harvested every 15 years and are an alternative to precious oak, cherry, mahogany and other trees.

Countertop

Recycled paper products are now fabricated as countertop material. Yes, paper. We recently specified a product called “PaperStone” (www.paperstoneproducts.com), which looks great and functions as though a honed granite. The PaperStone company website reports it is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. PaperStone has two versions of the product: one using 50 percent post-consumer waste recycled paper that comes in five colors, and another using 100 percent post-consumer waste paper in seven colors. Their recycled paper is mixed with a petroleum-free phenolic resin (from cashew nutshell liquid) to manufacture the product in sheets. Large sheet sizes (60-inches-by-144-inches) minimize the need for joints in your counter top, and the product ranges in thickness from three-fourths of an inch to 1 ¼ inch. Time will reveal how well the product performs in a kitchen environment.

Backsplash

Recycled glass is a terrific way to get an attractive, cost-effective, guilt-free backsplash. For a home in Northwest Washington we specified a glass tile made by a company called Sandhill (www.sandhillind.com). The company was awarded a grant from the Alaska Science & Technology Foundation to develop innovative glass-fusing technology that utilizes 100 percent recycled glass normally destined for landfills. Their glass tile fabrication uses half the energy it takes to produce ceramic tile and a quarter of the energy it takes to produce cast-glass tile. Their glass tiles come in a range of sizes, with 36 colors, in a gloss or matte finish. For our client’s kitchen backsplash, we utilized a three color mix, in a 2-inch-by-2-inch tile, set in a diagonal pattern.

Another, more upscale, glass tile company we have utilized is Oceanside Glass Tile (www.glasstile.com). Their website claims to use up to 86 percent recycled glass in their products, and their product line is extensive. A glass tile backsplash offers a lot of visual impact for the cost, and with a professional installation, it is beautiful.

Flooring

Bamboo flooring is an increasingly popular way to have wood floors without cutting down trees. We recently used a product called Preserve Bamboo (www.ToMkt.com) which is available in a variety of pre-finished stains as a tongue and groove boarding. The company’s marketing material says the renewable resource, called Mao Zhu (Hairy) bamboo, is harvested every five years. Beautiful and durable, we have on occasion had reports of surface scratches.

Appliances

Appliances are an expensive part of kitchen remodeling, and the long term effect of their energy efficiency has a financial and environmental impact. To learn more about purchasing an energy efficient dishwasher and refrigerator, visit www.energystar.gov. Cooking appliances – such as ranges, cook tops and microwaves – are not classified by Energy Star because individual homeowner’s cooking styles vary too much to rank.

Dishwasher

An Energy Star qualified dishwasher uses at least 41 percent less energy than the federal minimum standard for energy consumption and significantly less water than other dishwasher models. The Energy Star website reports that if your dishwasher was made before 1994, switching to an Energy Star qualified dishwasher can save you more than $30 a year in utility costs. Bosch, GE, Kitchen Aid and LG manufacture qualifying dishwashers.

Refrigerator

An Energy Star qualified refrigerator uses 20 percent less energy than most models. Many include automatic ice-makers and thru-the-door ice dispensers as well as top, bottom and side-by-side freezers. An Energy Star qualified refrigerator uses 40 percent less energy than a conventional model sold in 2001. Viking, GE, Amana and Sub-zero are a few examples. A visit to www.energystar.gov will help you make practical choices with your appliances.

If each American homeowner makes practical, eco-friendly choices in the products selected to remodel their kitchen, it will go a long way toward making our world a healthier place.

Let’s remodel.