Drumroll please - the custom bar tops have been installed in the Erin cottages.

Here are the hardwood bar tops installed in the Erin cottages.
This is cottage 29. It has wheat colored walls, maple cabinets, charcoal tile counters and jatoba bar top.

Cottage 30 has soothing gray-green walls, alder cabinets, slate colored tiles and ash bar top.


Cottage 31 has wheat walls, alder cabinets, milk chocolate colored tiles and jatoba bar top.

The buyers of cottage 31 - being the first, will soon be choosing which of the three bar tops they would like permanently installed in their cottage.

Is your counter top merely a functional culinary workbench, or a path to philosophical inquiry?

This week the Sierra Club's Mr. Green tackled one of the knottiest questions of our (well, my) day - the selection of environmentally responsible interior finishes. Sorting through the possibilities is a full time job.

For the Erins, the cottages we're just completing, we chose porcelain tiles. Some have recycled content, some are made domestically, all are long lasting. Those are the qualifications for "green."

They are also beautiful. We selected rich, neutral colors with sophisticated names like Taupe, Green Tea and Seguria, to provide a polished backdrop for any style decor.

Off the beaten track is a great place to be

Interesting article in Residential Architect about architecture firms in small towns. No surprise at all that the first architect mentioned is Langley's own Ross Chapin, a well known advocate for small towns, small communities and small homes.

Ross designed our Erin and Egret cottages, as well as the layout of the entire Highlands neighborhood. Everything about the place, from the perimeter forest and trail system, to the front porch of each home, is steeped in his philosophy of life and community.

While many of the architects interviewed focused on the idea that practicing in a small town means lower fees or lack of interns, Ross said:

"there is the sense, if not the reality, that there's more opportunity in the city. But for me, the balance of a whole life was key.”

The author of the piece seems to struggle a bit with the idea that life in a small town can appeal. But she did pick up on Ross' message about what really matters. This last bit of Chapin wisdom applies no matter where you live, or what you do with your days:

"When you engage in the community, you meet the people, and they get to know you and see your interests, skills, and integrity, and then you're asked to design something,” he says. “In many ways, we're here to serve the community, not to have monuments made to us. It's not the place for big egos, but the place to be helpful.”

Back to the future of less is more

Simplify - it sounds so good. But how do you really do it? Here are some bloggers who've thought long and hard about what it takes.

An opportunity to learn about Low Impact Development

Stacy Smith, Natural Resource Planner for the Whidbey Conservation District worked with The Highlands on getting Low Impact Development in place in the neighborhood. Now she's getting the word out about this year's in depth learning opportunity for those who want to, or need to know a lot about LID.

Washington State University's four week long Low Impact Development Technical Training Series starts in February. If you work in development or building you need to know about LID as more and more municipalities are adopting these methods.

Stacy attended the series last year, along with several Island County contractors and local municipality staff. Because of the popularity of the course they're able to offer it again. Stacy says this year's field components look really interesting due to the fact that the Puyallup WSU Extension campus is undergoing a major LID retrofit.

Register online. You can register for the full series or just one class.

Stacy Says:
"Puyallup is a long haul from Whidbey, but this training is really valuable and with all the new regulations just passed and in the works, it is strongly recommended." She invites interested parties to give her a call for more information 360-678-4708 or email her at stacy@whidbeycd.org.

Hardwood buying trip

One of the many special touches Ross Chapin designed into the Erin and Egret cottages at Snowberry Close is the raised bar between the kitchen and the dining room. It serves many purposes - provides a screen for what's going on in the kitchen, displays lovely artwork, stores dinnerware and gives guests a place to stand with a glass of wine and talk with the cook.
It's also one of those details that allows for a small but important additional something. In a few of our cottages we've used understated maple for these bars, while in the Egret we went a little wild and installed concrete embedded with a wave of recycled glass.In the three Erin cottages currently being finished these bars will have tops specially crafted from hand selected hardwoods. I went to Crosscut Hardwoods on Saturday and spent two hours looking for just the right planks for our cottages.

I love Crosscut, all that fragrant, colorful wood stacked up calling out to be made into fabulous furniture and glossy finishing touches. It's one of those places that make the creative juices flow. Scarlet padouk, rosy bubinga, dark purple black Walnut. Once again I fell for the striped Zebra Wood but had to walk away as it's much too dear. Busy being inspired with great ideas, I forgot to take pictures, so I borrowed this one from the Crosscut website. (Asking for forgiveness instead of permission.)

We came away with Ash, a creamy white wood with lovely figuring in a slightly darker shade of cream, and Jatoba, also known as Brazilian Cherry, which is currently a spicy medium red but will darken to a rich red brown. Two of the cottages will get the jatoba and one will get ash. This might sound like two will be exactly the same but that's not the case. We specifically chose two different grain patterns in the jatoba, one dramatically figured, one elegantly straight grained to create two different looks.

The first lucky buyer will get to choose which of the three they want in their cottage.