Erika Howsare

Know what? If you paint the concrete floor of a bus maintenance garage white, it will encourage workers to keep it clean. And you know what else? If you line the hallways of a school with vertical wood planks interspersed with full-length mirrors, it will make students feel like they’re walking in the woods.

Permit me a brief moment of bragging. I am as proud as any farm wife with a brand-new ribbon from the county fair, because this summer I conquered my fear of canning food. Well, it wasn’t exactly a fear; just the uncertainty that comes from not knowing much, except the fact that if you screw it up, you could die of botulism.

Now here’s a truly cool project. A bunch of UVA students (in architecture and engineering) spent last Friday assembling, at the Cobham home of architecture prof John Quale, structures they’d designed to shelter two sleeping people. The rules were that the structures had to be made from recycled, reclaimed or natural materials; that materials had to be recycled after the project; and that each structure could take no more than two hours to assemble and cost no more than $10.

Back in the April issue of Abode, I wrote about a house Upstream Construction was building in Crozet for Brian and Joan Day. As I pointed out then, it’s notable not only because it’s a custom house with many green features, but because the Days are both environmental professionals who decided to open their house to the public during and after construction, so people could take a look and learn a thing or two. Well, Upstream recently wrapped up construction and the Days held a final open house event to show off their LEED-worthy dwelling.

I was out of town last weekend, and blissfully so, but there was one local event I was sorry to miss: the Heritage Harvest Festival at Tufton Farm. This celebration of all things edible and local is put on by Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and Monticello’s Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants. Fortunately, ABODE’s kitchen columnist Lisa Reeder was there, handing out local apples and taking in the scene. Here’s her report:

Last night my husband and I stopped off at our neighborhood grocery store, the one where we do our last-minute shopping for essentials like beer and half-and-half. We did our usual quick circuit through the aisles, and landed at checkout in under a minute. The worker at the register was unfamiliar to me, but the other young woman sitting nearby is an employee we’ve seen many many times.

This is the object that Converse, the shoe company, sent me as a marketing piece recently. Why, I don’t know; perhaps my involvement with SUGAR, our women’s style and health section, got me on their mailing list. In any case, this is a big old pile o’ wasteful indulgence on the part of Converse, if you ask me.

At an undisclosed location in Albemarle County last month, I got to see an impressive number of solar panels being installed on the roof of homeowners Richard and Melissa King. Thirty-six panels, in fact. They nearly cover the south roof face of this 2,500-square-foot house, which is being built on a fairly ordinary lot in a small, quiet subdivision.