'Green' homes come in many shades

Flickr image by annnie.

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I'm always fascinated by how new words -- or new, off-label definitions for old words -- permeate the popular lexicon. If you called an object "green" five years ago, the average listener would have thought you were referring to its hue.

These days, the label of "green" implies something comprised of sustainable or recycled materials, something energy efficient or an object that otherwise empowers its user to live in a manner that is environmentally friendly and promotes well living.

When it comes to what homebuyers want and what home sellers tout in this day and age, a green house is less likely to be a house with green exterior paint or a glassy outbuilding for cultivating plants than it is an eco-sensitive abode.

I hear buyers talking about green homes as though they come in several shades. There is the "luxe shade of green," where many of the custom-built or remodeled home's materials were "reclaimed" at great labor or expense, like the window headers and sills of one of my favorite people's palace-in-progress, which were salvaged and rough-hewn from a demolition site and carted one by one by a crew of oxen down a hoof-worn path from the mountain jungles of Costa Rica. No joke.

Or the absolutely fabulous slatted wood floor I saw inside an Austin, Texas, carriage house, which were reclaimed and reassembled from an old handpainted billboard -- advert image intact. If you see the words "Bolivian," "low carbon footprint," "reclaimed," and "media room" all together in a home's listing, you might be looking at a "luxe green" home. These homes might have solar energy, but they'll call it "Zero Energy" and you might not even be able to see the panels.

Other homes facilitate "lean, green living" -- these are the homes preferred by more granola-crunchy types. (No pejorative intended -- I'm a little bit crunchy and a little bit rock-and-roll, myself.) These are the folks who favor big, honkin' solar panels (the further off-the-grid, the better) and want to live as close as possible to their work-play haunts to avoid having to own a car and foul up the air -- even if the panels are ugly and the downtown street traffic is deafening.

They like the efficiency of high-density living, despite its potential too-close-for-comfort drawbacks, and don't mind the gritty, quasi-industrial look and feel of concrete floors, brick interior walls, exposed ductwork and other remnants of a reborn warehouse's industrial past. These homes use reclaimed materials by the ton, too, but they just call them plain old "recycled."

Then there's a lighter shade of green -- a shade I like to call "light green and eco-chic" (attribution alert: I stole the phase "light green" from the mistresses of light green living at IdealBite.com). Light green is the marketing world's descriptor for consumers like me, who love to do the right thing, ecologically speaking, but prefer to do so without big sacrifices in the way of convenience.

You know, like when I drive my SUV to Whole Foods Market to buy organic veggies and Fair Trade coffee! ...CONTINUED

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