Author: c-ville-abode

Improve your overhead

Question for Francesca Diggs, owner of The Feathered Nest: What are some things I can do to a plain drywall ceiling to make it an attractive part of the design of a room?

Answer: Diggs says that whether you are working with new construction or planning a renovation, there are many ways to make any ceiling easy on the eyes. Here are her suggestions:

“Decorative ceiling tiles are a terrific way to cover an unsightly ‘popcorn’ ceiling without a lot of mess or effort. The tiles are placed right over the popcorn sheetrock. They are inexpensive, easy to install and great insulation. There are PVC ceiling tiles, decorative Styrofoam tiles and painted tiles. All give the look and feel of tin or ceramic and can be found online or in your local building/home stores.

“Faux painting is an easy and fairly inexpensive way to make a ceiling look like stained wood, or just to add some interest and depth. Murals can be fun on larger ceilings and add personality to an otherwise uninteresting space. There are many faux painting services in our area. You may want to contact one of them before taking this project on by yourself, especially when dealing with high ceilings that may need extra scaffolding to reach.

This ceiling incorporates two of our expert’s suggestions—beams and faux painting (the latter, in this case, by local team John and Sarah Owen). These tricks can work just as well in much less dramatic rooms.

“Beams can add interest to a room with vaulted ceilings, particularly a great room or gathering space. Whether you choose real wood beams or faux beams painted to accent the ceiling, this look can have an inviting and interesting effect in many rooms.

“Finally, my personal favorite, easy-to-tackle, ceiling fix is to use the color of your walls (this obviously doesn’t work with white) and take the color down a shade or two. It’s easy to do yourself and has a great, subtle effect.”—Reporting by Doug Nordfors

Garden tour, the long version

With a different lusciously green image for each day, Mick Hales’ Gardens: Around the World in 365 Days proves that it takes more than 80 days and a hot air balloon if you want to see the gardens of the globe. The selection ranges from opulent palace gardens in New Delhi, to cactus plots in Southern California and everything in between (including good old Monticello). Don’t look here for practical gardening information; instead, you’ll find high-flown green-thumb inspiration, now that spring’s sprung.—L.R.

Orange crush

The Space Age jets off to Japan and comes back looking like some slim-waisted Soda Pop Princess from Palm Springs. Very illuminating! We saw the light from this hanging paper lamp at Cha Cha’s on the Downtown Mall.—Erika Howsare

See shells

“A box without hinges, key, or lid,
Yet golden treasure inside is hid.”
—from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit

There is no simpler example of the miracle of life than the egg. It is to an animal what a seed is to a plant; it contains the genetic information, as well as the nourishment, that is necessary to catapult a new life into the world. As such, eggs are incredibly nutrient-dense and digestible, and have become an important and affordable source of protein around the world. While many bird eggs are available and eaten in our culture (duck, quail, goose, emu, and even ostrich), chicken eggs are the most ubiquitous and are a fortunate byproduct of our domestic relationship with that all-American yardbird.

Eggs are good. Fresh, farm eggs are divine. The yolk speaks for the egg: A vertical, upright yolk indicates freshness, and a sunny yellow color means the bird has access not only to grass and greenery, but also bugs, worms and grubs. This varied diet also indicates the appropriate nutritional balance between omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids.

Get your fatty acids (attractively packaged) at the Charlottesville City Market, which begins April 5 at 7am. Get there early if you want fresh eggs! Most vendors sell out, especially this time of year when their laying hens are just “warming up” for the season—egg production is dependent upon the light cycle and temperature, so peak production is near the summer solstice.—Lisa Reeder

Casting call

Cast iron is back on the stove! If you don’t have a cast iron skillet, consider resurrecting an old one—they’re easy to find for around $10 in junk and thrift stores. Check A&W Collectibles on 250E (most are in the back left corner of the downstairs, along with various and sundry kitchen implements of the past). Yard sales and relatives are also excellent sources of heavy metal.

What constitutes a good catch in cast iron? Look for a solid, dark patina with no areas of rust. Pick a size that fits snugly on a back burner of your stove so you don’t have to put it away. Finally, sniff before you buy; a faint smell of bacon is a good omen, but reject the pan that smells of rodent or chemicals.

If a recycled pan is unappealing to you, you can find new pans for under $40, but they’re still just as heavy. Nota Bene: Cast iron must be thoroughly dried after each use, and new cast iron takes quite a bit of care to achieve the dark patina of older pans.—L.R.

Squashed Egg Salad

Tony LaBua of Chaps shared with us his recipe for a sandwich favorite—deliciously simple, and unregulated. (Unregg-ulated?)

hard-boiled eggs
mayonnaise
chopped onions
garlic salt
pita bread, kaiser roll, or bread of your choice
 

“First squash your eggs,” says LaBua, who recommends using “as many as you feel like squashing.” Next, “add a little mayo, enough to make it sticky.” Then, “throw in some onions, as many as you feel like eating.” Finally, add garlic salt to taste and “serve it on whatever you feel like eating.”

So you want to build green, eh? You’ve come to the right year.

Five years ago—heck, two years ago—if you were searching for an architect to design your sustainable house, a builder to put it together, or a store to supply its fixtures and finishes, you would have had far fewer choices than in 2008. Across the homebuilding industry, people agree that the last several years in greater Charlottesville have seen a flowering of interest and expertise in more earth-friendly houses.

“For an energy-efficient builder, this is the best time of my life,” says Al Stacey. The Winnipeg native began building homes in the ‘70s in his notoriously chilly hometown. In 1996, when he came to Nelson County and founded Gaia Homes, he discovered that what were standard building practices in Canada seemed high-performance—even unnecessary—to Virginians. “At that particular time, energy-efficient wasn’t on the ticket down here whatsoever,” he says. “The Sheetrock-encrusted vinyl palaces were the norm.” Greater initial costs for efficient houses (at that time, a 50 percent premium, in Stacey’s estimation) scared buyers away. With rising energy prices, though, it’s gotten easier for Stacey to convince clients that the investment will pay off.

UpStream Construction President Terry Herndon, who’s built locally since 1984, echoes Stacey when she says that building well has gone hand-in-hand with building green, since long before that term came into vogue. “We’ve always built way beyond code,” she says. “I’ve always done houses [where we considered] daylighting coming in, heat gain, passive solar…I grew up out in the country on a farm where you know the importance of trees and shading. It was just good old common sense that you don’t cut all your trees down.”

But lower heating and cooling bills are just part of the equation, and Herndon and Stacey both acknowledge that common sense has come a long way recently. One example: Within the last three years, Herndon says, the practice of conditioning crawlspaces and attics to avoid mold and moisture problems has gone from unusual to standard. “That was one of the dumbest things we’ve ever done—to seal up a house tight and leave it sitting on an unconditioned crawlspace,” she says. “Not one of our brighter moves as an industry.” When she first built a house with a conditioned crawlspace, the project was a puzzle to county code inspectors. Now it’s the norm.

Belvedere may look rough in its present form, but Kate White, Bret Harris and their two children are betting on its future.

And there are a whole array of materials—from no-VOC paints to low-maintenance siding—that have become available recently, as consumers have gotten smarter about what to ask for and builders have lined up for seminars on how to meet that demand.

Bottom line? These days, “green” doesn’t necessarily mean “custom” anymore.

From the ground up

Nowhere is that more obvious than at Belvedere, the 675-unit development off Rio Road that broke ground 10 months ago in a new marriage between “green” and “production” building.

At the moment, if you visit the Belvedere site, you’ll probably stop first in a white tent near the entrance, where salespeople for Hauser Homes and Church Hill Homes—the two builders who have partnered with developer Stonehaus in the project—will talk to you about EarthCraft certifictions, shower you with marketing materials and offer you a small bottle of water with a Belvedere label. Renderings are propped on easels inside the tent—people relaxing at a café on a street bustling with pedestrians, kids playing soccer near an on-site organic farm and the Rivanna River. These images are hard to keep in mind once you’re out of the tent and driving the actual streets of Belvedere, empty avenues through a scraped red landscape.

Under construction by UpStream, the future home of Brian and Joan Day will also be a vehicle for education.

Kate White, who along with her husband, Bret Harris, was Belvedere’s first homebuyer, is a naturalist and a healing arts practitioner. She’s the embodiment of what Stonehaus’ Chris Schooley calls the “pioneer”—the early buyer who helps define a community as it grows; she plans to start an after-school hiking program for Belvedere kids and even writes a blog called Home at Belvedere. “‘This is a little bit empty,’” she admits thinking sometimes, when she walks through the treeless expanse where she and her future neighbors will live.

“That’s the hardest part,” she acknowledges, “not having these feelings of older trees, older structures. But I have a lot of trust and a lot of faith. I think what Stonehaus is doing is right on.”

It’s significant that a person like White, who describes herself as a “nature educator” and blogs about examining raccoon scat on the Belvedere property, could be convinced to buy into the kind of neighborhood where homeowners choose between predetermined house styles from a printed list. That kind of thing has been associated with a cookie-cutter aesthetic and a consumerist lifestyle. In White’s case, the community-minded New Urbanist philosophy was the draw; for her husband, the EarthCraft-certified house sealed the deal. “He’s very attracted to the small house, energy-efficient, low footprint, easy to manage,” she says. “He thinks it’s very smart.”

Schooley is clearly delighted to have White in his corner, helping to attract more of what he terms the “diehards”—the ones who quiz him about the solar orientation of their future homes. But such folks may not be the majority of his buyers. Instead, he says, Belvedere will appeal to a mainstream homebuyer who’s interested in green building as just one of many factors—location being another biggie. “This is a production builder environment, which translates to value,” Schooley says. “We felt this was an opportunity to bring a green standard to people. This is real and accessible.” A townhome in Belvedere starts in the low $300s; single-family dwellings start in the low $400s.

Learning as you go

“It falls to us to educate,” says George Grundler, a Hauser Homes VP, speaking about that mainstream homebuyer who may wander into the Belvedere tent with no particular environmental interest. On the other side of town, Jason Coleman and Margot Morshuis-Coleman will tell you, sitting in their brand-new ThermaSteel house in Woolen Mills, about their own learning curve on green building. They weren’t driven by altruism when they began looking for an energy-efficient house in 2003. “It was not a high priority,” says Coleman. Rather, they were sick of paying to heat their drafty rental: “$400 a month, and we were cold,” he remembers.

This ThermaSteel house is the first of its kind in Charlottesville, but now that it’s finished it seems to fit right in. Heating bills for the first two months of occupancy have averaged $35, says developer Roger Voisinet.

As it turned out, the Piedmont Housing Alliance was putting up a cluster of houses in the Tenth and Page neighborhood that were not only energy-efficient, but included nontoxic and renewable materials, like bamboo flooring. The couple bought a lot and moved in, and energy costs “became a nonfactor,” Coleman says.

Four years later, as their two kids got larger and the PHA house seemed smaller, they contemplated another move. Any affection they’d once had for old houses, they say, had been outweighed by the experience of life in a new, efficient house. “You can’t go back,” Morshuis-Coleman says.

They looked at the Carter’s View development, a Church Hill Homes project on the south side of town, and noticed that green features were becoming part of the way new homes are sold (the Carter’s View website lists HardiPlank exteriors, for example). “They weren’t ideological about it,” Coleman says. “They’re just going along with an industry that’s changing.”

But Carter’s View wasn’t exactly to their taste. When they saw the ThermaSteel house that Roger Voisinet, a so-called EcoBroker with RE/MAX and a onetime solar-energy entrepreneur, had developed on spec at Chisholm Place, they felt more of a connection. Though it’s not a custom house—the no-VOC paint colors had already been chosen—there will be only one very similar house on their street, not dozens. (Voisinet plans to build a second ThermaSteel house next door.) “We wanted to live in town and not in a development; we wanted an established neighborhood,” says Morshuis-Coleman.

They moved in February and are reveling in their expansive backyard view and contemporary, human-scale kitchen. “For both of us, it’s almost how we would design it,” says Morshuis-Coleman. “Green building is often connected to good building,” adds Coleman, echoing Terry Herndon. “Someone put a lot of thought into [this house].”

On the edge

So mainstream homebuyers can sign on to a development that happens to be green—as with Belvedere—and energy-efficiency converts can find a spec house that meets their newly heightened standards—as with the Colemans. Meanwhile, custom builders like Herndon and Stacey are serving an ever-more-knowledgeable clientele. “[My wife] Joan and I have been attending home shows for a decade looking for [green] products,” says Brian Day. Herndon is building a new house in Crozet for the Days, designed by a LEED-certified architect and constructed with structural insulated panels (SIPs).

Both Days have worked in the environmental field for years; Brian currently directs the North American Association for Environmental Education. “We always wanted to build a very environmental home,” he says. “We are not at all your typical homebuyers.” The Days were hoping for a raft of green certifications—LEED, EarthCraft, EnergyStar and American Lung Association—and to use their home as an educational showcase. (They now expect to earn the first three of those certifications. Another Crozet resident, Artisan Construction president Doug Lowe, lives in one of the first LEED-certified houses in the country.)

“Just before we move in, we will have an educational event where we’ll have people walk through and we’ll explain everything we did different,” Day says—“dual-flush low water consumption toilets, low-flow faucets and showerheads. The wood in the walls is FSC-certified.” And he’ll point out simple things, like the 12" roof overhang that keeps rain from wearing out the windows as quickly.

Day says he’s learned a lot from Herndon’s accumulated expertise. And as a keenly interested buyer, he’s definitely noticed the quickening pace of change in terms of what consumers can access that makes their homes greener. “Think how easy it is to find a light bulb,” he says. “Now you can get compact fluorescent in a spotlight…I couldn’t find one of those six months ago. This weekend I found at Lowe’s a 52" EnergyStar fan for $45.”

It’s in this custom market that innovation is likely to continue, as it always has. Herndon, for example, says she’s been able to convince her building supply company to begin carrying more green products.

And alongside such incremental changes will come sweeping visions. Al Stacey rattles off a three-step master plan for the future of green building: “Right now we’re at the high-performance homes,” he says. “The next step where I’m going is the near-zero-energy home concept”—that is, a home that produces 70 percent of its own power using solar panels. “The next step would be a total-zero-energy home,” dependent on better and less expensive solar panels. “The next step beyond that is zero-carbon homes: zero-energy homes that export electricity,” providing all the energy a house uses and going on to sell power back to the grid, thereby offsetting the energy embedded in the lumber and other materials used to build the house.

Stacey thinks the zero-carbon home is about 15 years away. Likely further down the line is the time when large developments—the Belvederes of future decades—aim for zero-carbon building on a mass scale. In the meantime, buyers are the winners—whether they’re actively playing or not.

Last time we took a good look at the ecoMOD house in Fifeville, it had yet to be transformed into the high-concept dwelling designed and built by a team of UVA students. Back then, it was a ramshackle mid-19th-century home that had narrowly escaped demolition. So when it caught our eye this time—looking urban and spit-polished—we didn’t recognize it at first. In this month of thinking green, it’s a welcome reminder that the neglected but worthy can be gracefully incorporated into what’s cutting-edge—sustainable, indeed.

Need to get away from it all? Need a new easy chair? Says we, these goals are entirely compatible. We all know there’s lots of great shopping here in Charlottesville, but sometimes it’s fun to turn home-related quests into mini-adventures. Hop in the minivan, crank up the tunes and venture out to some of the more distant reaches of the Commonwealth to outfit your homestead. Here are four of our favorite destinations.—Erika Howsare

Green Front Furniture

Where it is: Downtown Farmville
Drive time: 1 hour, 20 minutes
How to get in touch: 392-5943 or greenfront.com
Why you should go: This is a legendary destination for furniture—plus wandering the 15 Green Front stores amounts to a tour of historic small-town Virginia.

The first thing to know about Farmville is that it’s located at the end of a surpassingly beautiful drive, down routes 20 and 15 into Prince Edward County. When you get there, look for the towering brick warehouses at one end of Main Street. These are a fine place to begin, but they’re only part of the Green Front empire, which has pockets all around the center of this friendly little town.

Chairs fit for kings— kings who also appreciate getting a deal on a rug— fill warehouses in Farmville.

Fifteen showrooms (listed in a handy brochure and numbered near their front doors for easy spotting) and 650,000 square feet of inventory make for a potentially overwhelming day. Luckily, you can skip entire buildings if you know what you’ve come for—a particular piece (bed, armoire, etc.) or brand name. Building 7, for example, is the rug clearance center, where the imported wares are rolled, stacked and hung to make for a world-market atmosphere. If it’s a new lamp you need, buildings 5 and 15 on Main Street burst with accessories.

Green Front bills itself as a place to save 40-50 percent off retail prices, and most of the merchandise is at least mid-level in quality. A couple of random snapshots from our meandering journey through the showrooms: a grand mahogany dresser, $2,299; a slightly soiled easy chair, as-is for $199; a black, modern-style bed for $499.

We’d be remiss not to mention, by the way, how charming the showrooms are, housed as they are largely in former tobacco warehouses with exposed joists and painted brick walls. Plank floors creak appealingly as you wander, and staircases lead to ever-higher levels under cavernous ceilings. It’s somehow very comfortable—and not just because you’re surrounded by more easy chairs than you’ve ever seen before in one place.

Caravati’s

Where it is: 104 E. Second St., Richmond
Drive time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
How to get in touch: (804) 232-4175 or caravatis.com
Why you should go: It’s like mainlining pure essence of old houses.
Reno enthusiasts, expect your pulse to quicken.

Been to Charlottesville’s Habitat Store? Picture it on steroids, and you have a pretty good idea of what Caravati’s is like. A city’s worth of salvaged building materials is absolutely packed into a two-floor warehouse in a no-nonsense industrial Richmond neighborhood. This is where old porch columns, light fixtures, fence stakes and mantlepieces go, but not to die. To the contrary, these artifacts seem to hum with ideas about the new lives they could live…if you brought them home.

If you need one of something, but want a dozen options to choose from, Caravati’s is your place.

“It’s somewhat categorized,” said the Carhartt’s-clad employee who greeted us on our visit. Wandering the aisles, we found he was right: The first room downstairs (the only heated one) contains most of the odd one-off items (typewriters, a fire hydrant, a diner-table jukebox for $150) while the larger, chillier regions of the warehouse are all about volume, with things like windows and doors stacked up in astounding quantities. Ever been alone in a room with 300 sinks?

This is a place to go if you need something specific—replacements for the lead weights in your double-hung windows—or if you want to browse. There’s a certain inspiration to be found where a $6,000 Chinese bed sits comfortably next to old steam radiators with chipping paint, and if you’re restoring an old place, you’ll be glad to see things like carved wooden brackets being preserved and passed on. Prices—unmarked in many cases—will suit many different budgets, as long as you’re not aiming for the absolutely dirt-cheap: You can drop $4,500 on a very ornate and well-preserved fireplace surround, or you can adopt a much plainer one for $350.

One more thing: There’s no way you can paw through it all in one visit. If you’re going on a serious house-parts run, leave yourself plenty of time for hunting and thinking.

Torpedo Factory Art Center

Where it is: On the Potomac River in Old Town Alexandria
Drive time: 2 hours, 20 minutes
How to get in touch: (703) 838-4565 or torpedofactory.org
Why you should go: With over 160 artists under one roof, this is a one-stop shop for a fairly wide variety of art pieces to jazz up your pad.

It seems that for many people, “the artist” is about as exotic a species as “the dwarf lemur of Madagascar.” Therefore the chance to view a real one at work holds some fascination, and makes the prospect of living with an artwork in the house that much more meaningful. A former, um, torpedo factory, this World War I-vintage building has had its industrial atmosphere largely stripped away in the 34 years since local artists reopened it as an art center. Now, it’s a cheerful warren of studios and galleries where you can look in on a fiber artist weaving at her loom, or an abstract painter dancing around a canvas, then—if you like what you see—bring home the results to call your own.

At the Torpedo Factory, you peek in, scope the artworks, and keep an eye out for their makers.

The art here ranges from the safe (think oil paintings of flowers) to the surprising (ceramic egg shapes that contain tiny figures when you peer inside). There are functional items like teapots and purely decorative ones like tapestries. Ann Citron’s whimsical figures sculpted from beads and fibers would be welcome in a kid’s room while Susan Makara’s hyperrealist dog portraits (on gold leaf backgrounds, as though pups were medieval saints) would make a sophisticated addition to a modern dining room.

While you can certainly take a wandering, explorative approach—there are 82 studios on three floors—you’ll likely want to avoid oversaturation by bypassing some studios entirely. Luckily, the setup here makes that easy: Each studio has big windows open to the hallway for quick sizing-up. Even when an artist isn’t “home” and a studio is locked, you can get a good idea of what they have to offer by peering in, then—if you’re interested—asking a neighboring artist to let you in.

The luckiest Torpedo artists have studios looking over the Potomac waterfront. Anyone visiting can enjoy the view, too; after you settle on a masterpiece to buy, munch on a picnic by the riverside, then wander uphill through Old Town Alexandria, a shopping mecca in its own right.

The Factory Antique Mall

Where it is: Off I-81 in Verona
Drive time: 45 minutes
How to get in touch: (540) 248-1110 or factoryantiquemall.com
Why you should go: If you like the atmosphere of treasure-hunting in an antique mall, you might as well go straight to the biggest one in the area: This one contains 60,000 square feet of nostalgia.

Once upon a time, factory workers produced men’s clothing in this sprawling building. These days, if you find an ascot in the house it’ll be in the vintage clothing section. More likely you’ll be looking through acres of other antiques: quilts, silverware, tools, books and zillions of other items.

Browsers, packrats, collectors, unite! Temptations abound on The Factory’s floor.

Seventy dealers have their wares arranged in hundreds of booths; the mall is so big that its aisles are marked with street signs, all the way up to “17th Street” and, finally, “Last Street.” You very well might find a lovely, special old piece of furniture—a sideboard or table —to class up your dining room or bedroom. But what really stands out here is the sheer quantity of smaller curiosities. There are Victorian-era patchwork pillows; a carved wooden Ingrahm clock; lithographs of Jefferson Davis and Ulysses S. Grant. Unless your aesthetic is one of modernist purity, you’ll probably find some odd thing that, inside a frame or on top of a shelf, would give your home a little interest and depth.

The atmosphere here seems just right for the Factory’s homey Shenandoah Valley location: a small café inside the mall serves homemade desserts and soups, and the PA system plays oldies while you browse. Bring your sense of poetry, so that when you spot a cross-stitch sampler dated 1888, you’ll be ready to adopt it.

We love a house that’s completely at ease with itself. In the case of this Barracks-area home, that means a modern-as-modern sensibility that makes no apologies. It’s your basic double take: First you think, “Is that an extra-large outbuilding?” Then you notice the path, the bench and the domestic interior through the lofty, minimal glass-block window. Suddenly, whole worlds seem to suggest themselves behind those stark walls, and concrete block never looked so sophisticated.

Line up!

Being part of the solution means different things to different people.  Money saved, a smaller carbon footprint, and fresh-smelling sheets: Line-dried laundry is the solution that City Councilor David Brown has chosen for over 28 years. Your dryer is second only to the fridge as an energy-loser appliance, consuming 6-10 percent of home energy—so try the solar-powered method!

Benefits:
*Saving money; possibly $100 per year
*Energy conservation
*Clean, fresh-smelling sheets
*Longer clothing life-span
*Zen-like time spent in the sunshine

Tips:
*Watch the weather
*Plan on longer drying times
*Avoid below-freezing temperatures
*Dark clothing may fade outside

Supplies:
Outside, use standard vinyl-covered rope and wooden clothespins found at your grocery store. Indoors, you’ll need an FSC-certified wooden drying stand or retractable aluminum rack (some provide nearly 50′ of line). 

Trade secrets:

Half a cup of vinegar in the wash cycle softens clothes and eliminates dryer sheets (an eco no-no). “Snapping” clothes hard, one time, is key and hanging clothes by the seams avoids wrinkling. Jeans and towels can dry stiff, so puff them up with a few minutes of dryer time. 

One misadventure Councilor Brown recounts: occasional fecal matter.  Contrary to what our feathered friends think, line-drying is not just for the birds.—Teri Kent

WORD UP
Back road know-how

One of our favorite books—kept faithfully on the official ABODE shelf for easy reference—is Carla Emery’s Encyclopedia of Country Living. Rather legendary among the same sort of folks who subscribe to Mother Earth News (in other words, back-to-the-landers), this nearly 900-page tome can be just as useful if you’re living on a small city lot. That’s because it not only delivers the basics on managing a stand of trees or buying a young calf, it also delves into topics like food preservation (think farmers’ market tomatoes filling your pantry next January) and harvesting dill (which takes only a tiny amount of space to grow).

Emery herself is a palpable presence in the book, sandwiching personal history between staggering amounts of information on gardens, thrifty household management and old-time cookery. She seems to have done it all: milked cows, stitched quilts and baked goat-milk brown bread. She’s friendly, encouraging, and a little bit strict: “You don’t need new sheets; learn to sleep between patched ones or between blankets,” she advises in the “How to Pinch a Penny” section.

An indomitable reference, the encyclopedia incorporates wisdom from Emery’s readers over the nine editions she’s published since 1971. Maybe you’ll be the next one to contribute a pickling recipe—or just give one a try.—Erika Howsare

BY THE NUMBERS
1 in 3

“In most metropolitan areas, only 5 to 10 percent of the housing stock is located in walkable urban places…Yet recent consumer research by Jonathan Levine of the University of Michigan and Lawrence Frank of the University of British Columbia suggests that roughly one in three homeowners would prefer to live in these types of places.”
—Christopher Leinberger, in The Atlantic

Shine on

We love finding examples of the happy union between greenness and high style. Here’s one for your idea book: the recycled-metal tiles made by Oregon-based Eleek. They’re a shimmery alternative to ceramic tiles for your kitchen or bathroom countertops.
The company compares the finish of its aluminum tiles to weathered stone—it’s smooth to the touch (and room-temperature, not chilly as you might expect) but contains patterns that give it visual texture. You can order tiles in five hues and a variety of sizes and shapes, but if you’re on a tight budget, these tiles might go best in a small area like a backsplash or bathroom countertop. (A sample price: A 4×4" square tile in the basic aluminum finish is $11.)

The West Coast company obviously isn’t local, but it does earn green points for running its shop on habitat-safe electricity and salvaging materials used in its manufacturing process. Plus, if you remodel in the future, you can recycle the tiles yet again. You can order through the Eleek website (eleekinc.com) or by calling (503) 232-5526. Check out their snazzy hardware and lighting fixtures, too.—E.H.

Chicken winner

Thought about getting on the poultry bandwagon? Now’s the time to get your backyard ready for those feathered family members you’ve been wanting to bring home, since spring is the time when chicks are most readily available for adoption. The basics you need to consider: housing (coops should provide 3-4 square feet per bird), litter (pine shavings or shredded paper), food and water. Your flock will not only donate delicious eggs to your breakfast table, but will nontoxically relieve your yard and garden of insect pests. Get started at backyardchickens.com.—E.H.

Big art

Being an artist is rarely a lucrative alternative to a regular job. But for elephants throughout Asia, being an artist doesn’t mean working for peanuts.

The Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project was started in the late ’80s by artists Komar & Melamid (so conceptual that they go by single names) in response to a logging ban that left thousands of domesticated elephants out of work, and with little habitat to return to. The AEACP’s aim is to provide fulfilling and creative outlets for down-and-out elephants and their caretakers, who would otherwise be forced to beg.

Here’s the bottom line: Trunk-made masterpieces can take a place on your wall and help support the elephants at the same time. The artwork is available for viewing and purchase at elephantart.com, at prices ranging from $400 to $500. They are bright, abstract and all you might expect from a happy, creatively stimulated pachyderm. The AEACP uses the proceeds to provide veterinary care for the elephants, training for their caretakers, and presumably some paint. Money raised also goes toward conservation efforts for the endangered wild Asian elephants.

So, next time some pretentious beret-wearing art snob asks about your new acquisition you can answer that it’s an “Elsa.” Then savor the surprise when you explain that Elsa is not only an up-and-coming artist, but an elephant from Thailand.—Lily Robertson

COFFEE TABLE LIBRARY
Eastern standard

Unless you plan on relocating to Japan and building a new home, Marcia Iwatate and Geeta K. Mehta’s Japan Houses is unlikely to provide ideas about how to decorate your living room. However the striking, almost alien, re-definition of luxury that it presents is domestic titillation for the minimalist mind. Focusing on highly stylized architectural anomalies that embody the classically Japanese approach to technology, space and innovation, it’s an exotic and intriguing visual tour that will leave you with a strangely intense desire for your own rock garden.—Lily Robertson

HOT PICK
Speaker of the house

The aesthetics of electronics generally make us squirm, but this little bookshelf speaker—the Mirage Nanosat Prestige, which we spotted at Crutchfield—charmed us with its good looks. It’s cute. There, we’ve said it. And we’re told it sounds pretty good, too.—E.H.

HELP LINE
Pump up the volumes

Question for Susan Scott, owner of Clear Spaces Consulting: How can I reorganize a bookshelf to make it look neater?

Answer: Scott compares arranging items on a bookshelf to being a painter who responds to a blank canvas. “[Bookshelves] make the difference in the room when they’re organized right,” she says.

First step: “Pull them all off and do a good dusting,” she says. “Then you can decide if it’s important to have them grouped: novels all together, cookbooks, reference books. That’s a good way to start if that’s important to you. If not, you can do it by size. I like to stack books according to size—lining them up that way, making stacks on the floor.”

Next, think about things you can intersperse with groups of books, like framed photos or pottery. “Many times people have photos on top and books at the bottom, and it looks better when it’s integrated,” says Scott. Think variety and balance. “If you start putting books to the left, go two thirds of the way across. Then that [remaining] space could be filled with a photograph. Then come the other direction on the next shelf down. The books are not all lined up together, they’re placed like a checkerboard.”

Since the middle shelves are both the most visible and the most convenient, that’s the spot for your most prized objects and most often-used books. What goes on the margins? “Some people are really attached to their National Geographics or Gourmet Cooking,” says Scott; “those might go at the bottom. Turn those so they can lay flat. Reference books and catalogs go at the bottom because they’re heavier and not as attractive.”

And there are some things, Scott says, that don’t deserve to be part of the display at all. “The beach novels—I would put those somewhere else,” she says. “For some reason, the torn edges are sad-looking. I would pass those on to a friend.”—Erika Howsare

SECRET INGREDIENT
Tastemakers

Dried spices can sit on supermarket shelves for a long time, growing dimmer all the while—and how long has that cayenne been in your pantry? You know it’s supposed to be spicy, right? To perk up elderly spices, toast them briefly in the oven or fry them in oil at the beginning of cooking, Indian-style.

Most of the Mediterranean seasonings begin as leaves, including parsley, basil, oregano, thyme, and sage. They degrade very rapidly in dried form, but can be found fresh in most stores (or grown easily at home and dried in a cool, dark cupboard). The spices that start as seeds—mustard, coriander, fennel, cumin, peppercorns, and cardamom—can be purchased and stored whole and ground just before cooking. 

Throw some seeds and coarse salt in a mortar and get grinding with the pestle; the task is complete when your arm is tired. If you get your workouts at the gym, turn a coffee grinder into your spice mill, and chunk and grind some bread to clean it between uses (and to wow your friends with spiced breadcrumbs).

Finally, there are a few spices that are best not eaten; these should be used for flavor infusion (like bay leaves in tomato sauce, lemongrass in coconut rice, star anise in baked goods, kaffir lime leaves in tom yum). The conscientious chef removes these spices before her guests bite into them.

If you’re restocking your spice shelf this spring, Bantry Bay Tea and Spice Company is headquartered right here in Charlottesville (bantrybayspice.com) and its retail-size jars are sold at Foods of All Nations and C’ville Market. Compared to commercially prepared spices, Bantry Bay’s goodies are vibrant in color and flavor and markedly fresher. In addition to standard spices, proprietor Pat Mullarney has exotic herbs such as zataar, ras el hanout, sumac, and a full line of nuts, dried fruit and teas.—L.R.

GET THIS GEAR
El molcajete y el tejolete

Traditional cuisines around the world rely on the daily grinding and cooking of various grains, nuts and spices. In Mexico, spice grinding is accomplished in un molcajete (volcanic rock mortar and matching pestle, or el tejolete). For the traditional heavy black tool (along with lighter weight ceramic and wooden models) visit the El Paso Tienda Latina (1221 E. Market St., 984-3040). Proprietor Imelda Huerta established the first tienda Latina in Charlottesville 13 years ago, and today offers sunny greetings and shelves full of Mexican products (don’t miss the handmade corn tortillas from Harrisonburg). Buen provecho!—Lisa Reeder

GREAT TASTES
Jambalaya

This Cajun classic, courtesy of The Virginian restaurant, makes enough spicy stew to keep you and your honey warm through winter’s last dregs.
 
8 oz. sliced boneless chicken breast
1/4 lb. andouille sausage, sliced 1/4" thick
6 large shrimp—21/25 ct.
3 oz. sliced green peppers
3 oz. sliced yellow onions
6 oz. pureed roma tomatoes
14 oz. cooked basmati rice
2 oz. sliced jalapeno peppers
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
 
Heat the chicken breast in a large sauté pan coated with a little olive oil. Once the chicken has cooked through, add the shrimp and andouille and heat until the shrimp turns pink. Add peppers, onions and jalapenos and sauté until the peppers are tender. Add rice, tomatoes, and cayenne and let simmer for five minutes. Serves two.