Our Blog at Stearns Design-Build

Our blogs feature all things home remodeling, design and build with wide-flung interpretation. Here we cover design concepts for kitchens, bathrooms, and home additions. We also cover green building, building science and building materials. In the wider-flung reaches we cover urban design, the psychology of happiness and celebrations of those things. We are also happy to take and answer your questions.

Check out the recent articles written about us:

How to Choose the Right Siding for Your Home

Like many building products in existence, choosing the right siding for your home is never as easy as Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Each siding material comes with its own set of features and benefits, both from a sustainability point of view, price, climate appropriateness, and aesthetics. Sadly there is no category wide certification program to use as an overall guide. The first decision for choosing a siding material should come down to what is most suitable and allowable in your market or area of residence. Here is a list of commonly used siding for green-built homes.

Therapeutic Landscape Network

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Naomi Sacks, who runs the Therapeutic Landscape Network. She is currently working on a PhD in Architecture here at TAMU. But her accomplishments exceed that of many who have long had such academic di...stinction. Her book, Therapeutic Landscapes: An Evidence-Based Approach to Designing Healing Gardens and Restorative Outdoor Spaces, is available on Amazon. Though Naomi's focus is on landscape design in institutional settings, I look forward to learning as much as I can about her approach and applying it to the residential setting.

Biophilia

To the extent that we seek “green” or sustainable solutions, it is not enough to consider the resources that we use in building, we must consider our relationship to all resources. We must design homes that put us into relationship with life’s resources so that we can become aware of our part of a process of dynamic balance.

Wood, Plastic or Composite: A Customer’s Guide to Decking

Composites are the new face of deckingThe most notable changes in the decking market have come with the creation of synthetic decking materials. Most synthetics require less maintenance than wood, but are far from perfect. They are more expensive than basic wood decking materials and although much more weather proof than wood, they are not immune to weather damage. No decking is perfect, but the variety of natural wood and synthetic products on the market today are providing both home builders and home owners a longer list of possibilities and options than ever before.