by Erica Gies -

Not long ago Bill and Becka Doering, of Santa Barbara, California, decided they needed a bigger house to accommodate their two young children. After a fruitless search of Santa Barbara’s pricey real estatemarket, the Doerings took Becka’s father up on an offer to trade his 102-square-meter (1,100-square-foot) tract house for their 84-square-meter place across town. That helped, but the tract house had just two bedrooms and one bath, so the Doerings remodeled, resulting in a 150-square-meter four-bedroom, two-bath house.

But this wasn’t simply about elbow room. The Doerings also wanted their new home to be energy efficient and healthy. So they seized the opportunity to transform the building by hiring a like-minded architect and contractor to help them implement many green building principles. The remodel made improvements in site sustainability, energy and water efficiency, materials and resources, indoor air quality, and more.