Can style and sustainability coexist? It’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves since we founded Remodelista 15 years ago. And it’s an issue that feels so central to what we do, and so urgent, that for the last few years we’ve been at work behind the scenes on a book filled with inspiration and guidance.
We’re delighted to announce that Remodelista: The Low-Impact Home: A Sourcebook for Stylish, Eco-Conscious Living, is now available for preorder (please consider getting a copy; details below) and will be arriving in bookstores on September 13. In it, we explore strategies, both big and small, for living well while treading lightly on our planet.
What exactly does “low impact” mean? We like to think of it as the new normal: a future-minded approach to home design with an emphasis on conscientious consumerism and earth-friendly choices.
Above: Bunzo, Justine’s pet rabbit, checks out his publishing debut on the back cover.
In Remodelista: The Low-Impact Home, we tour the quarters of people who have interpreted low-impact living in myriad ways. We also present room-by-room tips on how to reduce your environmental footprint, from a gentler laundry routine to how to rid your kitchen of plastic.
And there’s more—including 75 of our favorite vintage household items (all easy to source); a global compendium of resources; a guide to how to responsibly get rid of unwanted things; and, of course, remodeling advice of all sorts, whether you’re looking to source nontoxic paint, upgrade your windows, or replace an inefficient water heater.
Here’s what you can expect to find between the covers.
Photography shown here by Justine Hand for Remodelista.
A Preview
Above: Among the 12 house tours in the book is this 753 square-foot, carbon-neutral dwelling that architect Kate Fitzgerald designed for herself on what had been considered an unbuildable sliver of land. It’s made of “green concrete” and recycled brick, has a rain tank that supplies water for drinking and bathing, and doesn’t need air conditioning. Above: The featured houses span the globe—from a Brooklyn apartment composed of salvaged local materials to a UK farmhouse made of hemp to a family’s communal compound in California. Pictured is architects Bretaigne Walliser and Thom Dalmas’s one-room Catskills cabin. Above: You’ll also find room-by-room chapters, in which we offer ideas on how to greenify the kitchen, laundry, bathroom, bedroom, and more. Above: “Eco-Conscious Household Basics” details what you need to pay attention to when gathering the essentials every home needs—lightbulbs, paint, furniture, rugs, and textiles. Above: When it comes to shopping, the low-impact approach is to buy used goods (because of the high environmental cost of new materials and manufacturing). You’ll find plenty of inspiration in “The Remodelista Vintage 75,” in which we share beloved workhorse household items from our own collections, all plentiful on resale sites, such as eBay and Etsy. Above: And throughout, you’ll encounter advice from some of our favorite eco-conscious tastemakers, including Byron and Dexter Peart, founders of Goodee, a marketplace of artisan-made home goods that prioritize sustainable materials and ethical practices. Above: Looking for nitty-gritty renovation info? In “The Inner Workings,” we explain all the unsexy but important stuff—such as roofing, windows, HVAC systems, and insulation—that goes into creating an energy-efficient home. The triple-paned windows shown here are in architects Ruth Mandl and Bobby Johnston’s 1889 townhouse that they turned into a self-sufficient passive house.
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