Project Spotlight: Annunciation and Arabella When it comes to remodeling 100-plus-year-old homes in New Or- leans, Southern Homes’ Chris Kornman notes that deconstruction has been the critical first step of every project. “A lot of these homes are former rentals, and often they haven’t
been renovated in decades and have a lot of problems,” he says. Rather than band-aid these issues, Kornman and his team strip
the interior of the home, leaving only the exterior walls. What can’t be reincorporated into the home is then donated to either Habitat for Humanity or Green Project, a local entity with a similar mission for use in current projects. In the case of Annunciation, a 1,400-square-foot house built in the late 1860s, the homeowner of was at a crossroads; she needed more room but loved her neigh- borhood and didn’t want to move. She also wanted her home to be far more energy efficient as she was spending $300 month to air condition it during the summer but
The Annunciation home in uptown New Orleans (below)
was built by Chris Kornman of Southern Homes. He gutted the original 100-plus-year-old home and added a second story. The remodel employs
spray foam insulation to help mitigate the heat and humidity of the Crescent City, while the bricks incorporated in the front steps and façade are recycled
from the fireplaces that heated the original structure.
Significantly, the Callaways
contributed their own sweat equity, recycling materials themselves for reuse in their home.
For instance, they took
glass that was removed from the windows, painted one side, and then used it as the sink backsplash in their kitchen wall (see above). They also tried to source all
materials locally—even find- ing their marble countertop
from a local seller on Craigslist. “That’s a very important consideration on a green project,”
Strong says. “While it might not have any impact on the energy performance of your home, it goes a long way toward fulfilling your broader goals in terms of sustainability … because what a lot of people don’t understand is that the embedded energy in a given product doesn’t just come from its manufacture, a tremendous amount of the more or less invisible energy used in a project is in the transportation of the project elements.”
September 2010 GreenBuilder 27
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