Kat’s Arts Blog

Building a new house presents many opportunities. We are looking forward to a space that is designed just for us, with areas for all our projects and lifestyle. We are also thinking about how to make our new home “low impact” on the environment. Choosing materials and construction methods and designs that take into consideration ways to avoid wasteful practices is one of our goals.

So, what kinds of resources are we aiming to conserve? First of all, water. Even though here in central Texas last week we had altogether too much water, that flood followed several years of drought. And according to the Texas A&M Agricultural Extension, “In urban areas of Texas about 25 percent of the water supply is used for landscape and garden watering.” So, one focus needs to be on how to design the landscape of our yard to conserve water, using xeriscape methods. (Xeri- means “dry” but modern xeriscaping is not all cactus and rock. More on this later.) Since we will be buying new appliances, we can shop for some that use less water than others. Right away we are thinking of getting a dish drawer from Fisher & Paykel, like we have in the RV, since we know from experience it is low-water and low-noise but very efficient.

The clothes washer is another potential water-hog. The little (half-sized) Italian 110v. model we have in the RV seems to use a lot of water, even though it doesn’t use much electricity. It also takes forever to dry because of the low wattage. So, I have some research to do there.

But before we pick out appliances, we need to decide what kinds of building materials to use. We have looked at ICF (Insulated Concrete Form) construction, using forms created from recycled polystyrene, and some that don’t use polystyrene. Then there are more traditional blocks, or frame, or… Obviously, more research is needed, on these subjects and more. To keep up with what we’re discovering, be sure to visit often. I’ve love to hear about your experiences and ideas, too!

I’ve added a few pictures to start an album called Deserts & Mountains in the Photography/Landscapes category. Since we are presently in the southwestern US, where every place one looks there’s a photo opp, this album is likely to grow quite a bit. I have a number of other pix that haven’t been reviewed or resized for the Web yet, and we only arrived last week! We will be in this vicinity for at least two more months, so watch for many more images in the near future.