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Home Improvement

P R O V I N C E T O W N B A N N E R

Inside: Check out the hottest new colors for spring 2009, plus eco-friendly furniture, flooring and more.

March 2009

2 PROVINCETOWN BANNER SPRING HOME IMPROVEMENT | MARCH 26, 2009 www.wickedlocalprovincetown.com

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D espite these dreary days of economic strain, it is a fact that hope springs

eternal. Look no further than the fresh colors of spring 2009.

At the spring fashion shows held last fall, when the colors were concocted and revealed on runways from Paris to New York, fashion — ever chang-ing and constantly reinvent-ing itself to fit the times — an-ticipated our winter blues and sprang forth with an antidote of muted vibrancy that might gently stimulate us into a new season of hope.

This spring, earthy pastels — such as “Lavender,” “Rose Dust,” “Slate Grey” and “Su-per Lemon” — pair a sense of environmental awareness (this year’s palette appears less man-made than ever) with gentle buoyancy (to lend a spirit of optimism to troubled times). Though generally bright, in keeping with the season, these shades are more subdued than

By Rob PhelpsBANNER CORRESPONDENT

the near-neon of years’ past, as though tempered to comfort world-weary eyes.

Yellow is key, exemplifying “the warmth and nurturing quality of the sun,” says Leatice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Institute of Color.

This year, Eiseman explains, “New York’s fashion designers encourage hopeful attitudes with lively colors, while sophis-ticated, grounded hues address the need for stability in times of economic uncertainty. Gray is making a triumphant return as a wall color, giving people an alternative to the tried-and-true beige. The moody hue tends to gain popularity in times of war and turmoil. Navy blue is the new black.”

Pantone, the company that provides the palette for those color strips free at your local paint stores, catches its cues from New York fashion mod-els strutting down the runway in their eco-chic Eileen Fish-er pencil skirts and Manolo Blahnik sling-back heels. So to seize the season’s hottest hues

PHOTOS ROB PHELPS

Conwell Lumber’s friendly head cashier Tammy Jodko-Stewart.

for yourself, drop that Vogue magazine and stroll over to Land’s End Hardware (337 Commercial St.) or Conwell Lumber (21 Conwell St.) in Provincetown.

At Land’s End, paint shop manager Travis Machado relies on Pottery Barn’s color sheets for Benjamin Moore Paints to inform his sense of each season’s new offerings. Like Pantone, Pottery Barn takes its

tips from the runway. “They’re all basically the same colors,” Machado says. “It’s just the names that are different.”

Substitute “Seedling” for Pantone’s “Lavender,” “Calien-te” for “Rose Dust,” and “Gran-ite” for “Slate Gray” and you’ve got the idea.

In particular, Machado rec-ommends two Moore prod-ucts: the classic Regal line and the relatively new Aura, which

allows for little to no priming but results in the same sheen.

Machado also points to sev-eral displays of color strips be-yond the 2009 hotties. Land’s End sports wall displays of his-toric, traditional, classic, last season’s and other favorites — all wider ranges that cater to individual tastes.

“It’s still early in the season,”

continued on page 4

www.wickedlocalprovincetown.com PROVINCETOWN BANNER SPRING HOME IMPROVEMENT | MARCH 26, 2009 3

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he says, “but soon the store will fill up with customers ready to do all kinds of work on their homes. It’s all just about to start, and there’s no way to tell who wants what until they get here.”

Jeff Rogers, manager of Conwell Lum-ber, offers an even more individualized approach to color choice. Conwell’s en-vironmentally friendly Ayurveda Essence line of Safecoat paints actually begins with

a personality test that pairs your color to you. Ayurveda, an Indian term for “the sci-ence of life” and a concept made famous in the West by new-age guru Deepak Chopra, divides us by body and personality types: Vata (somewhat anxious with a thin frame and low body mass); Pitta (emotionally en-ergetic and athletic); and Kapha (calm and steadfast with a larger frame). The Ayurve-da color method provides colors that offer balance to each disposition.

Interestingly enough, a quick scan of

this personalized palette reveals the same dusty pastels ubiquitous to this spring’s scene. Still, Ayurveda’s approach is unique and Safecoat paints are genuinely low in toxicity, produced using sustainable meth-ods, and practically fume-free from the mo-ment you slap them onto your wall.

And like Land’s End, Conwell has a wide assortment of colors and brands to choose from. “We’re ready to help you no matter

continued from page 2

PHOTO COURTESY PANTONE COLOR INSTITUTE

Pantone Color Institute’s top 10 colors of spring 2009.

PHOTOS ROB PHELPS

Land’s End paint shop manager Travis Machado.

continued on next page


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what you want,” says friendly head cashier Tammy Jodko-Stewart.

Jo Berardi, proprieter of Un-dercover, a bed, body and bath boutique in Provincetown, agrees that individual taste trumps a blind passion for simply going with the latest colors. “We have a nice vari-ety to choose from in our shop,” she says. “But the new colors do make sense for the times,” she adds. “They’re softer. Definitely in bedding. We have coral but it’s a warmer coral. And we still have the oranges and blues from last year, but now they too are warmer, not so in-your-face, gentler. Our Medallion towel collection, for ex-ample, has 60 colors — plum gray, lavender and chocolate.”

Your eyes will quickly adjust to these kinder, gentler colors. They’ll be everywhere — from table linens, to that pencil skirt, to the interior of the next hybrid vehicle that will surely roll off the assembly line one of these days. That’s what these colors are all about.

Optimism. So go ahead and slap that Rose

Dust over your walls. Just take care not to drip that Benjamin Moore on those Manolo Blahniks.

continued from previous page

(Below) Spring 2009 colors splashed across throw pillows at Under-cover, a bed, body, and bath boutique.

Jeff Rogers, manager of Conwell Lumber.


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T his economy is not exactly the sort to support dreams of a full-scale renovation

for most of us, but homeowners may consider undertaking smaller projects.

A new hardwood floor, for ex-ample, might be just the ticket to sprucing up your home dur-ing these uncertain times. And if you’re looking for an eco-friendly option, bamboo flooring might of-fer an answer.

Technically, bamboo is a grass. More specifically, it’s a woody pe-rennial evergreen in the family Poacea, and a member of the sub-family Bambusoideae (a conver-sation starter, to be sure). It’s also the fastest growing woody plant on Earth.

The grass grows from a rhi-zome, a continuously growing un-derground horizontal stem that puts out shoots and adventitious roots and brings nutrients up to the plant. As long as the rhizome

A little research will help ensure your eco-friendly flooring will last

By Elspeth PiersonBANNER CORRESPONDENT

stays intact when bamboo is har-vested, it can send up new stalks very quickly. This new growth can reach maturity in a matter of four to 15 years. Oaks and maples, on the other hand — our usual choice for hardwood floors — measure their adulthood in centuries.

This fast growth rate is what gives the grass its reputation as an environmental and financial win-win.

“There is a perceived green aspect to bamboo flooring,” says Matt Cole of Cape Associates in Eastham, “and because it’s made from such a renewable resource, it’s also relatively low-cost.”

Bamboo flooring generally costs between $4 and $8 per square foot.

“There are a number of differ-ent manufacturers out there,” says Joy Cummings of Aline Architec-ture Inc. in Wellfleet. “What I use depends on the client’s budget.”

Her favorite company to work with is a bamboo-focused manu-facturer called Teragren (which is available through Mid-Cape Home

Centers of Wellfleet). “It’s a beautiful floor. They [Ter-

agren] do a nice job,” Cummings says. “You want to go with a fairly reputable company like this, be-cause otherwise you don’t always get consistent quality; you have to be careful buying bamboo.”

She recommends staying away from pre-finished bamboo floors, as they tend to scratch easily. Buy-ing unfinished boards and stain-ing them yourself isn’t a terrible amount of work.

Checking bamboo quality care-fully is a good idea. Several local flooring companies say they try to stay away from bamboo entirely because they’ve had bad experi-ences.

“I don’t do them anymore,” says Ron Souza of Outer Cape Floors. “Number one, they’re extremely prone to scratching, and num-ber two, they fade in the sunlight. Yeah, it’s a green product and all that hoo-hah, but it’s not a live-on-able product.”


PHOTOS SALLY ROSE

Andrew Simon of Provincetown Woodworks kneels on a bamboo floor he installed in a condo on Shank Painter.


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Andrew Simon of Province-town Woodworks disagrees. “We do a lot of bamboo flooring be-cause it’s very durable. The key is that it needs to be from an older growth forest to be really hard — if they rush it through the harvest, it won’t have the same qualities.”

Unfinished, the flooring gen-erally comes in two shades: natu-

ral and carbonized. Cole says he prefers the look of the darker, carbonized grass, which is created by steaming it to caramelize the sugars so they almost cook. “It al-most looks like the color of cherry wood,” he says, “whereas the natu-ral stuff is real, real light.”

There’s also a choice to be made between vertical grain and horizontal. “I like the vertical bet-ter,” he says, explaining that the

visual difference between the two is created by the manufacturing process. To make vertical flooring, the bamboo is bound with the nar-row edges of the grass facing up, which results in a thin, striped pat-tern. To make horizontal flooring, the bamboo strips can be glued together broad side up, to look more like a traditional hardwood floor.

While some people think ei-

continued from previous page ther look is too modern, Simon likes it. “It’s kind of neutral look-ing,” he says.

The environmental benefits of the grass can vary from manufac-turer to manufacturer as much as the durability. Until last year, there were no third-party-certi-fied companies making bamboo flooring. In April of 2008, San Francisco-based Smith & Fong became the first company to se-

cure Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification for their bam-boo products, which they sell un-der the name “Plyboo.”

If green is what you’re after — and if you’re not so worried about the other stack of greens — researching the sustainability practices of the manufacturer is important; not all bamboo is cre-ated equal when it comes to envi-ronmental impacts.

Bamboo boards come in different grain orientation, vertical or horizontal, depending on the manufacturing process. The one on the left is in a new house at Bay Harbour on Shore Road in Provincetown (see wider perspective photo on cover). The one on the right is in a condo on Shank Painter Road in Provincetown.


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Eco-décorIt’s getting easier to furnish your home with eco-friendly products

By Elspeth PiersonBANNER CORRESPONDENT

furniture. But there are plenty of reasons why we all should — and far more local options than you’d imagine for making green furniture a feature in our homes. Furniture manufacturers are making boards out of everything from renewable crops like water hyacinth and bamboo to planta-tion-grown hardwoods.

When you start shopping for furniture, there are several key questions to ask if you’re hop-ing to take home something environmentally friendly. For

starters, where does the material come from? There are huge en-vironmental impacts to shipping materials across the world. Plants like bamboo are highly renew-able, but the benefits of their sustainable harvesting practices may not offset the negative envi-ronmental impact of the energy used in transport.

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PHOTO COURTESY WOODLANDCREEKFURNITURE.COM

Some companies with eco-friendly focuses are making furniture from reclaimed wood, like this barnwood table.

PHOTO COURTESY ECO-FURNITURE.COM

This bed is made of sustainably harvested solid hardwoods like ash or poplar with cherry or ash veneers.

PHOTO COURTESY ECO-TERRIC.COM

This credenza is handcrafted from sustainably harvested Burmese teak.


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was formaldehyde used as an ad-hesive or finish? If so, it can emit dangerous levels of the chemi-cal into your indoor air supply, which is especially dangerous for people with asthma.

There’s also the question of third-party certification. Many products claim to be “green,” but don’t necessarily live up to any specific set of standards. Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) cer-tification, for example, ensures that the wood used to make a piece of furniture was harvested sustainably.

Some of our best local op-tions for green furniture center on built-in furniture for rooms

like the kitchen or living room. Provincetown Woodworks, for example, offers a line of eco-friendly cabinetry from the West Coast called Canyon Creek.

“They’ve made a lot of efforts to become greener,” says owner Andrew Simon. “Especially in terms of what they use for sub-strates for cabinetry.”

Simon also works with planta-tion grown teaks and hardwoods as well as sawdust composites (which recycle organic lumber scraps) to create eco-friendly cabinetry, and for counter tops recommends the recycled glass pieces he buys from Brooklyn-based company Ice Stone.



Manufacturers are making furniture out of everything from

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PHOTO SALLY ROSE

Andrew Simon of Provincetown Woodworks with a yellow cabinet from Canyon Creek which uses sustain-ably grown wood and recycled products.


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“You can do a lot with re-claimed lumber, too,” he adds, “but it’s expensive — that was last year. These composites are still an affordable option in the new economy.”

Mid-Cape Home Centers, which has locations in Wellfleet, Orleans, South Dennis, and Hy-annis, also carries several lines of cabinetry certified by the Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association as environmentally friendly. These lines, which in-clude Kraftmaid Cabinets, Ome-

ga Cabinets, Aristokraft Cabinets and Bertch Cabinets, boast low levels of formaldehyde emissions (the chemical is commonly used as an adhesive in pressed wood products like particleboard and fiberboard) and use wood from sustainably managed forests.

For moveable furniture, Shor Home Furnishings in Prov-incetown is one place to shop. Owner Herbert Acevedo carries everything from hemp pillows to bamboo sideboards to dining room chairs and bar stools made from water hyacinth.

“Water hyacinth is very renew-

able,” he says. “It’s basically a weed.” When the plant is woven, it produces chairs and stools with a look similar to wicker furni-ture.

When it comes to outdoor furniture, Snow’s Home and Garden in Orleans has a variety of options.

“We carry a product called En-viro-Wood, which is made from recycled bottles,” says one of the storeowners, Jim Snow. “It’s guar-anteed for 20 years and has an excellent variety of products.”

Most of what Snow’s has in stock is patio furniture like Ad-

irondack chairs and benches, and in addition to Enviro-Wood products, Snow says, he tries to offer more traditional hardwood options like plantation grown teak, which comes from sustain-ably managed lands.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for from an eco-friendly manufacturer at the store, it’s possible to find lumber that you know is harvested sustainably and craft some pieces yourself. Stonewood Products of Harwich, Shepley Wood Products of Well-fleet and Mid Cape Home Cen-ters all either carry or are able to

order FSC certified lumber — and for simple items like tables, beds and bookshelves, buying boards rather than the finished product can be a much less ex-pensive way to go, especially in this economy.

And don’t forget to check out local swap shops. A friend recently picked up an entire set of dining room chairs — up-holstered with red leather — in the swap shop in Wellfleet. With a new coat of paint, they look downright elegant. You can’t get much more environmen-tally friendly than that.


PHOTOS SALLY ROSE

These stools (left) at Shor in Provincetown are made of fast-growing water hyacinth. The chair (right) is made of sea grass.


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Reliably renewableProducts made from soy are a growing green

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One of the more sig-nificant changes in home building prod-ucts over the last de-

cade may be the replacement of petrochemical and chlorine-based materials for those made with methyl soyate, a carrier sol-vent extracted from soybean oil.

Soy is being lauded by build-ers and environmentalists alike as the smart alternative to pet-rochemical components in plas-tics for products like urethane foams, adhesives and insulations that are used in housing con-struction, car and boat materials and so on. One of soy’s great-est attributes is that it’s reliably renewable. Already the annual U.S. production of soy surpasses 3 billion bushels, offering a po-tential yearly supply of soybean oil that could exceed 31 billion pounds. Attractive chiefly for its cheap production cost and bio-degradability, soy stands in stark contrast against petrol, which is in finite supply and contributes

heavily to ozone and water pol-lution.

At the 2009 annual Interna-tional Builders Show in Las Ve-gas, companies like BioBased Systems, a manufacturer of soy-based spray insulation for houses, debuted products they say make more sense in housing construction for their low-im-pact on the environment, elimi-nating the use of formaldehyde found in most fiberglass insula-tions, and because their prod-uct’s enhanced performance, re-taining heat and cooling houses, ultimately saves on energy costs. Companies like BioBased Sys-tems are jumping at the chance to meet the demands from the ever-rising price of petroleum against the backdrop of a weak-ened world economy, concerns over the environmental impact of chemicals and the increased need for enhanced performance from low-toxicity materials.

But what does that mean for someone building a house or reinforcing an existing one on the Outer Cape? Studies suggest that using the newer energy-

efficient soy-based insulations and other materials significantly reduces the cost of construc-tion by reducing the amount of wood used in framing a house.

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PHOTO COURTESY BIOBASED INSULATION

This is a water-blown, soy-based spray foam insulation made by BioBased Insulation.


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tion and particleboard compa-nies, house paints and coatings companies are increasingly mak-ing products using soy oils. Nie-mann & Associates, a company that has developed a roof coat-ing named Green Grip, earned Energy Star Label for develop-ing a soy-based roof coating that deflects ultraviolet rays, reduc-ing the costs of cooling buildings during the summer months.

Using soy in construction materials is not earth-shatter-ingly new. In 1933, Henry Ford was making soy-based auto pan-els, and soy has been used as an adhesive in wood products for

more than 70 years. What’s dif-ferent is soy’s method of employ-ment. Instead of using animal blood or some other resin as the protein-based foaming agent in plywood adhesives, protein-rich soy flour is used to create bonds between small pieces of wood that would otherwise be utilized in biomass pellet production or just thrown away. Soy flour helps build particleboard that, after drying, has a tensile strength greater than wood. Soy-based adhesives and resins are also used in countertop materials and laminated paneling.

Each year dozens of Outer Cape houses are renovated and winterized, additions are

built and condos take shape. How many of them are using soy-based building materials is unknown. What is certain is that these building materials, whether insulations, foams or paints and coatings, offer cost-effective solutions and high performance in the winter and summer months. In the wake of a troubled economy and disap-pearing ozone, soy-based build-ing materials may deserve a sec-ond look.


PHOTO COURTESY BIOBASED INSULATION

Soy Seal is a soy-based, canned insulating foam for homeowners. It uses Agrol, a 96 percent pure bio-polyol to replace a portion of the petroleum, according to the manufacturer.

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Following a couple of decades of a national trend toward ever-larg-er homes, there’s now

a noticeable reversal — a trend toward smaller homes.

Statistics from the National Association of American Home Builders show that from 1978 to 2007, home size gradually in-creased, with the average size of new single family homes going from 1,750 to 2,479 sq. ft.

However, in the third quar-ter of 2008 new homes averaged 2,438 sq. ft., down by 191 sq. ft., from 2,629, in the second quar-ter. Some analysts say there’ve been downward dips before but this latest drop is much steeper and they believe it is likely to hold.

Builders are finding that, for most prospective homeowners, overall square footage is less im-portant now than amenities. Lo-cally it’s a bit less clear, because though a few trophy homes tend to get highlighted in press cov-erage, overall home size on the

Outer Cape tends to be on the smaller end of the spectrum

Kaye McFadden, owner of Cape Tip Construction of Prov-incetown, says she’s definitely seen a trend toward smaller square footage in new homes in Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham and Orleans. In Provincetown, where there’s not as much land for new building, it’s not been an issue.

For some, she says, it’s based on a desire to be more environ-mentally conscious, with hom-eowners wanting to reduce the size of their carbon footprint. For others, the decision is more economically based — “the less space you have, the less you have to heat and cool.”

People are just trying to be more efficient, says McFadden.

Local builder Andrew Park-ington of Wellfleet says relative to other areas, the Outer Cape didn’t see as drastic a trend to-ward larger homes.

“Look at how many houses are under 2,000 square feet,” he says. “Realistically, we don’t have trophy homes compared to other places. … I’ve traveled ex-tensively. You can drive down to

PHOTO KAIMI ROSE LUM

Builders are finding that a long-time trend is reversing, with customers looking to build smaller houses.

Fire Island or Georgia and you can’t find a house under 15,000 square feet.”

The biggest he’s built here, he

says, is about 5,000 square feet. “Most here, they want a home

that can meet their lifestyle,” he says. And for some who are look-

ing to build a second home, that means they’re working with the fact that they have six kids and grandchildren, he says.

By Sally RoseBANNER STAFF


Green swing

It’s almost becoming cliché. Which in this case is a good thing. Being “green,” or at least greener, is in.

More and more homeowners and prospective homeowners are interested in finding out what it takes to lighten their impact on the planet.

Wellfleet builder Andrew Parkington says he’s seen a defi-nite “a drive to be green.”

It’s on their minds, he says — more and more people are asking about green products for their homes, like solar hot water heaters.

“People want to make an ef-fort, but it’s [still] expensive and the return isn’t necessarily always there.”

But there are some who can afford it and for whom the long-term return is worth it. Parking-ton says he’s now in the process of looking at plans for a “net-zero” home in Wellfleet. That means the home will generate as

Homeowners’ interest is rising in eco-friendly products

much renewable energy as will be used to run it.

Updated regulations also are helping the swing toward green products, he says, with a rising effort to remove toxic chemicals from manufacturing processes.

Andrew Simon of Province-town Woodworks says he, too, is getting more requests for so-called green products, like bam-boo and cork floors. He’s also finding that a few green prod-ucts are getting even greener.

Many products call them-selves green because they use a renewable resource, but the manufacturing process can con-tain toxins like formaldehyde that are not good for the en-vironment. Or, a new product may contain recycled materials but the new product itself is not recyclable.

Simon says he will be offer-ing a new countertop product called Vetrazzo, which he says is truly green and will be able to be recycled itself. Vetrazzo is 85 percent glass, made from all recycled materials, such as

windows, dinnerware, beer and wine bottles, stained glass, wind-shields, laboratory glass, even decommissioned traffic lights. Two blue-colored patterns, for example, are made from blue Skyy vodka bottles.

Provincetown builder Kaye McFadden says she also has seen the interest level in green prod-ucts rising. She gets a lot of ques-tions about geo-thermal heat and solar panels from clients.

But, “the actual participation isn’t quite there yet,” she says, in agreement with Parkington. “I think it comes down to the [higher] initial cost.”

Without any tax incentives, the break-even point for solar panels is about 25 to 30 years, she says.

Other environmental ly friendly products, though, are in wider use, she says, like water- and soy-based spray insulation,

paints with low or no volatile or-ganic compounds (VOC), and bamboo flooring. The return on the investment is quicker with those, she says.

McFadden also sees a trend toward reclaimed lumber, not-ing a house she renovated on Franklin Street in Provincetown where the homeowners shipped in barn wood from Missouri.

“That’s a whole other aspect,” she says.


PHOTO COURTESY JOE PULIATTI FOR VETRAZZO

Vetrazzo, 85 percent glass, is made from all recycled materi-als, such as windows, beer and wine bottles, stained glass, wind-shields, laboratory glass and more. This blue-colored counter-top pattern, for example, is made from blue Skyy vodka bottles.

BANNER FILE PHOTO

More customers are inquiring about eco-friendly products like solar panels and solar water heaters, though the higher cost is off-putting for some.


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It’s time forspring chores

At times it seemed like it would never arrive. But, lo, spring is here!

( A n d w e c a n only hope it’ll stay around for awhile.)

With spring comes that list of chores that, frankly, we all ea-gerly look forward to when it’s still snowing in late February and early March. But, of course, the prospect of that list becomes slightly less enticing once the nicer weather actually arrives. Nonetheless, with a hearty hi ho, we have at it.

Here’s a handy list of spring chores you’ll want to dig into that will prevent pesky — and ex-pensive — problems later on.

• Clean and check gutters; make sure all downspout con-nections are secure.

• Inspect your roof for any damage from winter weather. Contact your roofing contractor earlier than later — soon he or

she will be swamped with spring and summer jobs.

• Check your siding and trim for peeling paint spots. Prime and paint them to protect against the heat and moisture of summer.

• Schedule a spring inspection for your air conditioning system. Once the real warm weather comes, those maintenance folks will be busy and won’t have as much time to give you.

• Make sure chimneys and wood stoves are clean.

• Change the batteries in your smoke alarms and carbon mon-oxide detectors.

• Check clothes dryer vents and make sure they’re clear.

Those last three are key to home safety, says Provincetown Fire Chief Mike Trovato. And if you don’t yet have CO detec-tors, buy a few and put them up pronto.

PHOTO VINCENT GUADAZNO

These blooming crocuses herald spring, which means it’s time for spring chores!

Also, spring is a good time to have your chimney cleaned, because in fall chimney sweeps gets busy.

Trovato also wants to make sure homeowners know that gas tanks for outdoor grills are al-lowed only on first floor decks. In fact, the law prohibits an out-door gas grill tank from being above the first floor deck.

“All outdoor cooking should be done on the first floor,” he says.

As far as your heating and hot water systems are concerned, it’s best to let the professionals in-spect those. John White of Cape Cod Oil recommends getting them serviced once a year in or-der to keep the burner fuel effi-cient. Spring, summer or fall are

good times to have that done, he says.

“We’ve had people try [to do it themselves] and it just creates nightmares,” he adds. However, homeowners can and should take a look at their burners to make sure there’s no water drip-ping anywhere, no leaks.

Happy spring! Happy chores!



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