Other stories by Matthew Power

  • Blinded Me With Science

    IF YOU HAPPEN TO SHELL OUT $75 to get your hands on the 2004 National Association of Realtors home buyer profile, you might be disappointed—but probably not surprised. After scanning its 30 pages, you come away thinking today's buyers are fickle, superficial creatures who don't care about anything...

  • Safety Enforcers

    YOU CAN LEARN A LOT BY TALKING with OSHA inspectors. First, they're not jack-booted thugs who are out to get you. Second, they do have a mission, and if you get in the way of that mission, you may pay the price.

  • Time To Tilt-Up

    IN COMMERCIAL CONSTRUCTION, THE USE OF SITE-POURED, TILT-UP concrete walls is growing at record speed. But residential builders, for the most part, haven't joined the tilt-up revolution. It's still primarily a commercial construction tool.

  • One Man's Castle

    Is it art or is it kitsch? That's a question that will undoubtedly arise, if the “Castell'Arquato” ever moves off of the drawing board and into construction. Like its medieval predecessors, this castle is not intended to house peasants and other riffraff. With a price tag of about $6 million, it...

  • Unwelcome Neighbors

    REZONING INDUSTRIAL PARCELS FOR RESIDENTIAL use isn't new. But here's an unusual snafu that came up in Pennsylvania: If the land to be rezoned for housing abuts other, viable industrial-zoned land, home builders can end up on the opposite side of the table from commercial developers.

  • Plastic Prognosis

    RECENTLY, CHICAGO-BASED U.S. Plastic Lumber (USPL) stopped making composite products, citing problems with staining and other issues. Instead, USPL has turned all of its energies toward making “pure” plastic products made with 100 percent HDPE.

  • Special How-to Feature

    One of the more challenging aspects of modern residential engineering is the hybrid nature of modern construction.

  • Factory-Built Housing: Modular Makeover

    The market for manufactured homes has been shattered in recent years, because low interest rates and financing have stolen some of their makers' advantage.

  • Virtual Care

    New Surroundings looks like a lot of builder Web sites that offer community information. But what sets it apart are two things: its interactive qualities and its depth.

  • Super-Size This

    FOR ABOUT A DECADE NOW, SCATTERED BATTLES between settled homeowners and wealthy newcomers have been heating up. The construction of so-called McMansions—ostentatious million-dollar (or multi–million-dollar) homes—in old neighborhoods feels like a personal attack to many residents.