This renovated brick rowhome in Boston’s South End offers a modern aesthetic within a historic structure, creative use of space, exceptional thermal comfort, a reduced carbon footprint, and a passive stream of income. DESIGN PRIORITIES. The goals for the project were clear - design the primary unit to accommodate the family’s modern lifestyle, rework the layout to create a desirable rental unit, improve thermal comfort and introduce a modern aesthetic. We designed the street-level entry as a shared entrance for both the primary and rental unit. The family uses it as their everyday entrance - we planned for bike storage and an open mudroom with bench and shoe storage to facilitate the change from shoes to slippers or bare feet as they enter their home. On the main level, we expanded the kitchen into the dining room to create an eat-in space with generous counter space and storage, as well as a comfortable connection to the living space. The second floor serves as master suite for the couple - a bedroom with a walk-in-closet and ensuite bathroom, and an adjacent study, with refinished original pumpkin pine floors. The upper floor, aside from a guest bedroom, is the child's domain with interconnected spaces for sleeping, work and play. In the play space, which can be separated from the work space with new translucent sliding doors, we incorporated recreational features inspired by adventurous and competitive television shows, at their son’s request. MODERN MEETS TRADITIONAL. We left the historic front facade of the building largely unchanged - the security bars were removed from the windows and the single pane windows were replaced with higher performing historic replicas. We designed the interior and rear facade with a vision of warm modernism, weaving in the notable period features. Each element was either restored or reinterpreted to blend with the modern aesthetic. The detailed ceiling in the living space, for example, has a new matte monochromatic finish, and the wood stairs are covered in a dark grey floor paint, whereas the mahogany doors were simply refinished. New wide plank wood flooring with a neutral finish, floor-to-ceiling casework, and bold splashes of color in wall paint and tile, and oversized high-performance windows (on the rear facade) round out the modern aesthetic. RENTAL INCOME. The existing rowhome was zoned for a 2-family dwelling but included an undesirable, single-floor studio apartment at the garden level with low ceiling heights and questionable emergency egress. In order to increase the quality and quantity of space in the rental unit, we reimagined it as a two-floor, 1 or 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment with a modern aesthetic, increased ceiling height on the lowest level and provided an in-unit washer/dryer. The apartment was listed with Jackie O'Connor Real Estate and rented immediately, providing the owners with a source of passive income. ENCLOSURE WITH BENEFITS. The homeowners sought a minimal carbon footprint, enabled by their urban location and lifestyle decisions, paired with the benefits of a high-performance home. The extent of the renovation allowed us to implement a deep energy retrofit (DER) to address air tightness, insulation, and high-performance windows. The historic front facade is insulated from the interior, while the rear facade is insulated on the exterior. Together with these building enclosure improvements, we designed an HVAC system comprised of continuous fresh air ventilation, and an efficient, all-electric heating and cooling system to decouple the house from natural gas. This strategy provides optimal thermal comfort and indoor air quality, improved acoustic isolation from street noise and neighbors, as well as a further reduced carbon footprint. We also took measures to prepare the roof for future solar panels, for when the South End neighborhood’s aging electrical infrastructure is upgraded to allow them. URBAN LIVING. The desirable neighborhood location allows the both the homeowners and tenant to walk, bike, and use public transportation to access the city, while each charging their respective plug-in electric cars behind the building to travel greater distances. OVERALL. The understated rowhouse is now ready for another century of urban living, offering the owners comfort and convenience as they live life as an expression of their values. Eric Roth Photo

This array of PVs is integrated into the shed roof design, which is carefully oriented to maximize solar exposure throughout the year and help reduce the home's energy loads.

Trendy pool photo in Sydney

These Porch Solar Shades are perfect to surround your porch with to block bugs, heat, and intense sunlight. These exterior solar shades are children-friendly and will provide ultimate convenience for you, during and after installation!

Xeriscaping is extremely popular, especially in Southern California. With rising water costs, many homeowners have turned to xeriscaping to lower their utility bills and reduce their carbon footprint. Xeriscaping entails the creative use of hardscape and native and succulant plants to create a beautiful, low-maintenance, drought-tolerant landscape design. Our experienced landscape architects and garden designers specialize in planning out practical, efficient garden designs that use little to no water.

Perfect to use both inside and outside the house, these solar shades are convenient to use! With a simple valance at the top to give a modern look to the shades, you have the ability to pull the shades up and down with a simple pull cord.

Cool Paint is a paint roof cover that absorbs the warmth of the sun to keep the roof and the surrounding area cooler. The roof lasts longer and the temperature in the interior is more comfortable. Once the service is implemented, it starts to pay for itself. Cool Paint is weather-resistant and non-dissolvent. The cooling effect has a value (measured according to ASTM E1980) of SRI (Solar Reflectance Index). The SRI value of Cool Paint is 89. Therefore, a Cool Paint covering is 72% of sunlight and returns 87% of the heat to the atmosphere rather than the underlying air. Most solar heat reduces the difference in the roof temperature between day and night, summer and winter. The roof's lifetime is extended by constantly lower temperatures.

The Cellular Advantage Graber CrystalPleat® Cellular Shades are a stylish way to boost the energy efficiency of your home. An attractive closed cell design creates pockets of air that insulate windows from heat and cold to lower your energy bills year round. Offering excellent sound absorption, cellular shades also reduce noise in rooms with hard flooring. Outfitted with the same benefits on a grander scale, Graber Slide-Vue™ Cellular Shades are specially designed to accompany larger windows and patio doors.

This home doesn't just stand out—it stands for something. Chicago Contemporary Home 21 is a milestone in urban residential design: the first 100% sustainable greenhouse-inspired home built in Chicagoland, created by New Explode Construction. From its architectural silhouette to the materials that form its bones, every element was intentionally selected to promote energy efficiency, environmental harmony, and healthy living. The sharp, minimalist façade blends high-performance glass, recycled exterior cladding, and precision insulation to reduce heat loss and maximize daylight capture. The custom roofline allows passive solar benefits, while the elevated front porch invites natural air circulation and an open connection to the streetscape. Built to thrive in all seasons while dramatically reducing its carbon footprint, this home offers a blueprint for the future—where design meets responsibility, and where a home supports both the planet and the people living inside. At NEC, we don't just build beautiful spaces. We build what's next.

Keep it simple and functional with this matte black table lamp. Featuring a handy USB port for charging important devices, this adjustable desk lamp provides light for precision in illumination. The clean lines and slender shape of the stem and angled arm, as well as the conical shade, give a geometric minimalist feel to the style. Add this energy-efficient LED lamp to a desk or workstation for reduced eye strain in reading or detail-oriented tasks.

The Cellular Advantage Graber CrystalPleat® Cellular Shades are a stylish way to boost the energy efficiency of your home. An attractive closed cell design creates pockets of air that insulate windows from heat and cold to lower your energy bills year round. Offering excellent sound absorption, cellular shades also reduce noise in rooms with hard flooring. Outfitted with the same benefits on a grander scale, Graber Slide-Vue™ Cellular Shades are specially designed to accompany larger windows and patio doors.

The Modern Solar Shades are perfect to one, control the amount of light that comes into your room, and two, polish your room to give it a more modern look! The solar shade fabric comes in different colors, made to fit your environment.

Window Quilt (Muskoka) Recommends Hunter Douglas Hunter Douglas Advantage. The Art of Window Dressing... Well-designed window fashions do more than simply cover a window. At Hunter Douglas, form and function are inseparable. Great design is beautiful to live with, provides variable light control, insulates rooms against heat and cold while saving energy, protects your furnishings from damaging UV rays, and even absorbs sound, improving the acoustics in a room. And, our advanced operating systems make using our products a pleasure every day. Now that’s artful window dressing. Lifetime guarantee. Privacy and Light Control Hunter Douglas window fashions are available in a wide variety of product designs with fabrics and materials that come in a range of opacities from sheer to opaque—offering varying degrees of privacy and light control options. Energy Efficiency Up to 50% of your home’s heating and cooling energy can be lost through your windows. At Hunter Douglas, we're an industry leader in making a big energy savings difference at the window. Keep your home warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer At Hunter Douglas, we're an industry leader in making a big energy savings difference at the window. In 1985, we invented the highly energy-efficient Duette® honeycomb shades in response to the energy crisis of the late 1970s. Our latest innovation is the Duette Architella® honeycomb shades featuring a honeycomb-within-a-honeycomb design for even greater energy efficiency. Today, we continue to think about the impact all of our window fashions can make. Without energy-efficient window treatments, as much as 50% of a home's heating and cooling energy can be lost through its windows. Hunter Douglas products help conserve energy at the window in many important ways: Insulation In winter months, your home heating escapes to the outdoors through your windows while in the summertime, the outside heat flows into your home through these same windows. With window treatments that provide insulation, you can reduce energy consumption, save on heating and cooling costs, and create a more comfortable atmosphere. At Hunter Douglas, we're an industry leader in making a big energy savings difference at the window. In 1985, we invented the highly energy-efficient Duette® honeycomb shades in response to the energy crisis of the late 1970s. Our latest innovation is the Duette Architella® honeycomb shades featuring a honeycomb-within-a-honeycomb design for even greater energy efficiency. Today, we continue to think about the impact all of our window fashions can make. Without energy-efficient window treatments, as much as 50% of a home's heating and cooling energy can be lost through its windows. Hunter Douglas products help conserve energy at the window in many important ways: The Duette Energy Efficiency Story Video Thumbnail The Duette® Honeycomb Shades Energy Efficiency Story Insulation Icon Insulation In winter months, your home heating escapes to the outdoors through your windows while in the summertime, the outside heat flows into your home through these same windows. With window treatments that provide insulation, you can reduce energy consumption, save on heating and cooling costs, and create a more comfortable atmosphere. Solar Heat Control Icon Solar Heat Control The warmth provided by the sun, its solar energy, may be desirable during the winter to help heat your home, but in the summer, it can make a room overly hot and uncomfortable—driving up air conditioning costs. Many Hunter Douglas window fashions help to control solar heat by allowing it into your home in the winter and minimizing the amount that comes in during the summer. Daylighting Daylighting is the practice of lighting rooms with natural light rather than artificial light.By drawing natural light into a room many of our window treatments reduce the need for other types of lighting, thereby reducing your energy use 5 Tips for Saving Energy at the Window: 1) Ensure your windows and doors are properly weather-stripped. 2) Caulk around basement and storm windows. 3) When heating or cooling, keep windows locked. 4) Open your window coverings during sunny winter days to catch free solar heat then close them at night to keep that heat in. 5) Close your window coverings during summer days to keep the heat out. Innovation: All of our window fashions are designed and custom-assembled in the U.S. Our longstanding commitment to quality and innovation means you’ll enjoy choices at Hunter Douglas that you won’t find anywhere else. Child Safety: From cordless manual and motorized operating systems, retractable lift cords, cord tensioners and wand controls, we offer a wide array of innovative lifting system options for enhanced child and pet safety as well as especially easy operation. Advanced Operating Systems: Power View Motorization-Intelligent Shades that Simply your Life: Our brilliant new wireless operating system gives you the power to control and schedule your Hunter Douglas window treatments from your smartphone, tablet, or a remote control.

These solar shades can be used for any window or door. Coming in many different sizes, our indoor/outdoor shades weres designed to fit every setting. Comes with a valance to create a clean, modern look.

This 400 s.f. studio apartment in NYC’s Greenwich Village serves as a pied-a-terre for clients whose primary residence is on the West Coast. Although the clients do not reside here full-time, this tiny space accommodates all the creature comforts of home. Bleached hardwood floors, crisp white walls, and high ceilings are the backdrop to a custom blackened steel and glass partition, layered with raw silk sheer draperies, to create a private sleeping area, replete with custom built-in closets. Simple headboard and crisp linens are balanced with a lightly-metallic glazed duvet and a vintage textile pillow. The living space boasts a custom Belgian linen sectional sofa that pulls out into a full-size bed for the couple’s young children who sometimes accompany them. Efficient and inexpensive dining furniture sits comfortably in the main living space and lends clean, Scandinavian functionality for sharing meals. The sculptural handcrafted metal ceiling mobile offsets the architecture’s clean lines, defining the space while accentuating the tall ceilings. The kitchenette combines custom cool grey lacquered cabinets with brass fittings, white beveled subway tile, and a warm brushed brass backsplash; an antique Boucherouite runner and textural woven stools that pull up to the kitchen’s coffee counter punctuate the clean palette with warmth and the human scale. The under-counter freezer and refrigerator, along with the 18” dishwasher, are all panelled to match the cabinets, and open shelving to the ceiling maximizes the feeling of the space’s volume. The entry closet doubles as home for a combination washer/dryer unit. The custom bathroom vanity, with open brass legs sitting against floor-to-ceiling marble subway tile, boasts a honed gray marble countertop, with an undermount sink offset to maximize precious counter space and highlight a pendant light. A tall narrow cabinet combines closed and open storage, and a recessed mirrored medicine cabinet conceals additional necessaries. The stand-up shower is kept minimal, with simple white beveled subway tile and frameless glass doors, and is large enough to host a teak and stainless bench for comfort; black sink and bath fittings ground the otherwise light palette. What had been a generic studio apartment became a rich landscape for living.

The smartest wood stove you'll ever use. Introducing Quadra-Fire Adventure Series steel wood stoves, equipped with Smart Burn Technology™ (SBT). The only stoves that deliver on: PERFORMANCE - Smart Burn Technology™ delivers controllable, efficient heat and a clean burn Reduces your home heating costs by up to 50% EASY OPERATION The only stove with Smart Burn Technology that: - Maintains the temperature of your room with a programmable thermostat - Automatically adjusts your stove, eliminating all manual air controls - Tells you when to add more wood - Allows you to load the wood, light the fire and walk away

The Roll Up Indoor Solar Shades are an easy-to-use, safe shade. It is cordless with an aluminum valance installation, making it easy to raise the shades by hand. These shades are the best to block heat and can be used in any setting.

Jane Beiles photography The design for this client’s “dream house on the water” capitalizes on every opportunity to incorporate views of the Long Island Sound within the home. The placement and expanse of the fir windows and sliding doors underscore the water’s proximity. The interior gathering space spills out onto the raised outdoor deck and lap pool overlooking the seawall. Reducing the house’s carbon footprint is another priority, accomplished by generating renewable energy on site. The precise angle of the house on the property is calculated for optimal solar energy production by the rooftop photovoltaic panels and a geothermal system installed under the driveway provides heating and cooling for the house. Due to the fact that the site is located on a floodplain, the ground floor of the house is raised and no basement is allowed. This presents a challenge in terms of carving out enough storage space in the main house that one might normally relegate to a basement. Rooms are efficiently sized and serve multiple functions and storage is built-in wherever possible.

The Mini Indoor Solar Shades are great to use for any small or unique windows you may have. They are easy to install with the shade valance, and the simple act of rolling the shades up with your hand makes it very convenient.