Welcome to our premier edition of what will become a seasonal, electronic-only newsletter!  We shot this photograph of our entire team in early September so that we could ALL say hello.  Our survey of past and current clients resulted in a request for a digital quarterly newsletter and we like to deliver!

Our goal is to give you something useful and meaningful, be it recent incentives for energy conservation, seasonal maintenance tips, local community issues, exciting staff news in-house or highlights of current projects we're designing and/or building.

Let us know what you think. Your input is important, especially just out of the starting gate. 

The bathtub tile design and installation at a recent project is the subject of our design spotlight because our clients made some wonderful aesthetic choices and we were able to use a very talented tile artisan to make their vision a reality. "The combination of aesthetically aware clients, a great Project Manager and a talented tile setter made my job easy," says Maggie Bates, the Project Designer and author of this article.  First let me start with a little background on the project.......read more

Everyone knows what dust is - dead skin, dirt, pieces of fabric, right?  Well, guess what:  there's more.  Chemicals, pesticides, rubber, dust mites - all these and more comprise the dust in our indoor environments.  Basically, we're describing pulverized, ground-up civilization.  What many people don't know is that toxic chemicals are brought into the home all the time, just from wearing your shoes inside, or from your pets coming in after romping around in the outdoors......read more

12 seconds.  That's how long it takes to completely replace the air inside your body when you're at rest.  One inhalation and one exhalation.  But how's the health of the very air you're inhaling?  (Since we spend about 90% of our time indoors, I'm assuming that you're inside a room at this moment!)  How long does it take to completely replace the air enclosed by your building's envelope? How long should it take for your building to breathe to guarantee that the air you breathe is fresh and clean?......read more