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New Resource Group Forms: Dallas Green Building Alliance

Last year a group of contractors, while working together on a sustainable/green/resource-efficient residential project on Walnut Hill, started hanging out together to talk about sustainability, how to make their projects more sustainable, and how to support each other in those efforts.  After months of once-a-week conversations, they decided to start a new group, the Dallas Green Building Alliance.  Their mission is to be a resource for homeowners, Realtors, builders–anyone with an interest in learning more about building and remodeling in a sustainable way.  Their brand-new website is absolutely loaded with information, technical and otherwise, on heating and air conditioning systems, low-VOC finishes, solar, projects, etc.  Yes, they are looking for business, but they have definitely drunk the Kool-Aid and they are really committed to this.  Check it out.

Dallas Home Seller’s Weekend Chores: Caulk It Up

Don’t even think it’s Miller Time until you have these pre-sell, honey-do’s out of the way:

HBA of North Texas Surplus Sale

Is coming up, June 18. Remodelling? Fabulous way to pick up some high-quality construction items, everything from wood, cabinets, tile, carpet to insulation. Details forthcoming.

Dallas Dirt Comments

We have people of superior intelligence commenting here on Dallas Dirt. Proof: someone just posted a comment that I think is brilliant and appropriate for Earth Day. Why don’t electricians wire houses so that, as you walk out the door, you could flip a switch and turn off all electrical outlets? Not only would that save electricity it would prevent potential fires from hair dryers/curling irons/irons/Christmas tree lights left plugged in. Our house is wired as a “smart house”, meaning we are able to access electronics (lights, music) from our cell phones or computer. Naturally, I have done it once in nine years. But if I could shut down the juice remotely, I might do it more often.

Building Notes: Put Outlets In Your Drawers

I thought I was such a clever lass to put outlets in the knee space below my vanity bench so I can keep my hair dryer plugged in perpetually, but this makes much more sense: the hair dryer or curling iron can be plugged in all the time, and if you do this in the kitchen you can keep all those gadgets that need charging plugged in and out of site.

Drive Up Appeal Begins At The Front Door

A frantic reader has asked me what she can do to “spiff” up the  front of her home, namely the front door and entrance.

“Help,” says she. “I have no time to even begin with the inside, so I figured I’d spend the only 5 minutes I have where it counts — at the front door.”

Good move, say my experts, Jane Mills and Cliff Ellman of Spiffi Decor. That’s exactly where you want to begin. The front door is where the love affair with a home begins, it’s the bride on the threshold. The buyer absorbs all senses around him as he (she) stands there and really decides: am I going to marry this house? Let the pheromones begin!

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The Disappearing W Signs ???

I was on Daria Drive Monday, waving to the Secret Service dudes, and there are “Welcome George and Laura” signs in all but two yards on the street. Didn’t see any missing. Meantime, you heard about Patrick Bibb here, first.

3525 Turtle Creek Update, Inquiry

Inquiring minds are asking me:

Did 3525 Turtle Creek ever obtain Landmark Status?

What about that multi million dollar assessment to improve the interiors and exteriors?

What is the total number of units in the building?

What physical changes are proposed for the exterior elevation?

Has anyone agreed on anything?

Say Goodbye To Expo?

TI, Starbucks, and now Home Depot Expo Design Center stores to bite the dust. I will miss Expo — spent countless Saturdays up there checking out the latest and greatest when we were building our home in 2000, and I still run up there to buy plumbing products. So what, I ask, is going to happen to that shopping center?

Home Remodelling Down Down Down

This comes as no surprise: when people don’t have discretionary income or lose jobs, they tend to do less in their home. Do you know what a LIRA is? It is a Leading Indicator of Remodelling Activity. And right now, it’s in the toilet — which I hope is functioning. Anyhow, this report says spending on homeowner improvements will decline to a rate of 12.1 percent by third quarter 2009. This excludes rental properties and second homes. We were talking last night about warnings that the financial melt-down was en route and who, if anyone, shouted the loudest. Well, here’s one whisper:

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A House Is Not Necessarily The Same House

Remember The House By Phillipe Starck? Remember this? I’m told sales are going slow but also told that folks confuse the The House with The Glass House. OK, here’s our lesson for the day: The Glass House is a high-end, high rise rental unit, leasing just starting this month. The House By Phillipe Starck is a high-end, high rise condo where I’m told model furniture is en route and models should be rolling out the red carpet for buyers any minute now. You rent at The Glass House, you buy at The House — David Griffin is the broker. Pop quiz in twenty.

Ready For The Holidays!

I hate my fireplace mantel. Out of scale, I think. So I’m hoping Santa comes down the chimney, takes this and leaves me a new one. Thank God for the talents of James Davis, former design manager of The Black Iris in Laguna Beach, CA, who flew in to create Christmas at my house this year. (Full disclosure: James flew in to Dallas to decorate the house of a friend, and I begged her for a few hours of his time.) The Black Iris made its television debut in the reality series “Laguna Beach”, and James counts Elizabeth Taylor and Oprah Winfrey among his many famous clients. To have him jazz up the house of a peon like me was very special — those fab gold arrangements: shhhh — florals straight from JoAnn’s. 

More Company Coming To Dallas Dirt: Meet Worth Ross

Does the maintenance and repair of your home and investment properties drive you to drink? How would you like to manage properties — multiple — like 300 plus? That’s how Worth Ross spends his life 24/7, managing multi-family from posh single family rentals to the most upscale high rises on Turtle Creek. From saving homeowners hundreds in monthly association dues to boiler breaks to frozen water pipes, Worth has seen, heard and repaired it all. (Not himself, but I hear he has the best repair Rolodex in town and I just may get sticky fingers.) I thought we needed the voice of facility management experience right about now — and Worth will be sharing his deepest property care secrets with the readers of Dallas Dirt. (Feel free to send in questions. Here’s my first: how to save money, any, on energy costs. Specifically, the cost of crude is down so why haven’t Glacial Energy and TXU lowered our utility prices?) Hey, what works for Turtle Creek works for a home on say, Daria Place. Excuse me while I go make sure all our exterior faucets are frost proof: it’s so cold I need a mink just to read the thermostat.

Thanksgiving House Horrors

I posted this question last week, but we were probably all too busy ordering our free range turkeys (rest his soul, our parrot is always very well behaved on Thanksgiving while she watches me stuff Big Bird) and menu-planning. So do tell: who’s stove blew up? Any garbage disposal disasters? Did your dishwasher break down and you pitched the plates? Anyone’s refrigerator die and spoil the stuffing? Do you understand finally why people want two dishwashers?

Day After Thanksgiving House Horror Stories

Happy Post-Turkey Day. I was in the kitchen for about 10 hours yesterday, went to Cooper this morning to escape, where I heard about a few Thanksgiving House Horrors! One friend, wife of a well-known sportscaster, first Turkey Day in their brand new home, says the sweet potatoe peels clogged her garbage disposal and burst a pipe, which her sweet father-in-law got under the sink to repair while she was baking pies. Another person is without hot water: they have a tankless hot water system in their new home, it malfunctioned, and it’s hard finding someone to repair it. Several years ago we had a frozen water pipe in our home (one of those 1960’s era ranches with zero wall insulation) and my husband used his stethoscope to find the leak in the wall. Then he went to the hospital, borrowed a blow-torch from maintenance, repaired the copper pipe with help from a neighbor.  Another year my solo oven went “pop” just as I put the turkey in, so we had microwave turkey. (Double ovens and dishwashers now a must-have on my home list.) If anything in your house can break or go wrong, it will right before you have a houseful — tell us your stories and get out of the kitchen!   

Warning, Do NOT Try This Cleaning Method!

Darwin Award, anyone?