By MONIQUE PATTERSONNov. 28, 2014, midnight

A FORMER Darlington Point builder is celebrating winning a swag of awards for his home in Townsvillee in north Queensland.

A FORMER Darlington Point builder is celebrating winning a swag of awards for his home in Townsvillee in north Queensland.

Nathan Chapman director of Ecobuild Qld won the Master Builders regional awards for Excellence in Sustainable Living and Display home over $625,000 along with the Master Builders state award for display home over $626,000 and the Regional HIA custom built home $650,001 to $800,000 category.

Mr Chapman received the awards for his own home, which has a nine star energy rating and is the highest energy rated two storey home in a suburban area of north Queensland.

"It's nice to be recognised for our hard work," Mr Chapman said.

"Hopefully it encourages other people to build green."

Mr Chapman said he had always been passionate about sustainable building.

He said the cost savings in the long-term were enormous.

"Our house doesn't cost anything to live in," Mr Chapman said.

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Former Darlington Point builder wins swag of awards

TV host Iyanla Vanzant was pretty much homeless at the start of the year. Yes, she was living in a cavernous 7,500-square-foot house in Upper Marlboro. But the home amounted to four walls and a roof. There was no reflection of her in it. It was an empty shell.

When her boss Oprah Winfrey, head of the OWN Network that broadcasts Vanzant's "Fix My Life" show, heard about it, she decided to transform the interior of Vanzant's home with all the dcorative bells and whistles.

The metamorphosis was a Christmas, birthday, and anniversary gift all rolled into one, Winfrey said. The makeover was so spectacular that Winfrey created a prime-time special centered on the reveal. "Oprah Prime: Iyanla I'll Fix Your House," chronicles the changes made to the Prince George's County estate with the help of celebrity interior designer Nate Berkus.

"This is a gift on behalf of every wonderful thing you have done for others," Winfrey said on the show, which airs Nov. 29 on OWN. "Your home should be your sanctuary."

Berkus scoured the globe to find products that would incorporate Vanzant's Afro-centric roots, deep faith and vibrancy that has won millions of fans for the life coach guru and best-selling author. He found African textiles online; furniture and accent pieces from a vintage homeware emporium in Los Angeles; stone from Italy; tile from France; and locally sourced items such as wood from an old barn near Vanzant's home.

"Even in a very condensed amount of time, the home feels very layered," Berkus said. "It wasn't a bad house. It just was a bit outdated."

Berkus' efforts worked. Five months later, the end result was a home that left Vanzant speechless, tearful and extremely grateful.

"Everyone is just amazed at the way that Nate was able to capture my spirit," Vanzant, 61, said. "The house looks like me. You would expect that I had done the original design."

Vanzant's new home caps off what has been a remarkable year as she embarked on a nationwide tour with Oprah for "Oprah's The Life You Want Weekend" events. On Dec. 4, she will visit Baltimore for "An Evening with Iyanla Vanzant" at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.

More than a decade ago, Vanzant was making regular appearances on The Oprah Show to the delight of millions of fans, but her life was spinning out of control. Following a series of setbacks that included the death of her daughter, Gemmia; a divorce from her husband and a falling out with Winfrey over the direction of Vanzant's career, she eventually lost her television gig and filed for bankruptcy, which resulted in the bank repossessing her home.

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For Iyanla Vanzant, a new home helps mark a new life

ANN ARBOR - Meadowlark Builders will be conducting tours of a custom, resource-efficient home under construction in Dexter, the next installment in Meadowlarks Behind The Drywall Tour Series.

Attendees will get a rare glimpse of the technology and building techniques that go into constructing a resource-efficient home all before the drywall is placed on the walls. Guided tours will take place on Saturday and Sunday, December 13 and 14. This custom home, named Green Country Ranch, sits on an idyllic five-acre lot with a great view looking south over a meadow of waving grass.

Our clients are from Ireland and France and were used to smaller homes that last forever. They wanted a country setting, but were adamantly opposed to the large mcmansions mandated by the community review board. They came to us looking for something smaller that was resource efficient and better built than most of the current construction they had viewed, said Meadowlark President Doug Selby.

Working with the review committee was challenging, but - we ended up with a home that had the smallest possible square footage that could be built in the community, and it had all the elements of the smaller, more efficient home that our clients desired, Selby added.

Along with a durable and efficient building envelope, advanced HVAC system, and lots of green technology, this custom home has been designed and built to ensure that the owners will be able to stay in the home long into the future regardless of how their accessibility requirements change or how energy prices rise.

This home features:

Geothermal Heating and Cooling

Superior Walls foundation

Hot roof

Advanced thermal envelope

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Meadowlark Builders Offers Dexter Green House Tour Dec. 13-14

Norse Log Homes builds high quality handcrafted log homes and structures designed to suit your needs. Our goal is to build you the best quality product for the best possible price, without sacrificing design or beauty. We also build post and beam, timber framing, and the latest in Structural Integrated Panel construction.

We started building in 1975 in the British Columbia Cariboo (not to be confused with the animal Caribou) and moved to Vancouver Island in 1984 to be at the source of the worlds best Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedar house logs. We have since built hundreds of log homes all over the world.

Each log or timber is selected by hand and every part of our homes are hand crafted to fit perfectly together. Logs are 12-15 inch diameter scribed to fit; our craftsmanship has been perfected to give you the best home package available.

Browse through our wide selection of log home plans or design something completely original to fit your budget with the help of one of our specialized log designers. Then let Norse Log Homes help make your dream home the reality youve dreamed about for years!

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Norse Log Homes | Custom Log Homes, Log Home Builders ...

By Carie Canterbury

canterburyc@canoncitydailyrecord.com

Mayor Tony Greer presents an award during Monday's City Council meeting to Mark Mitchell, equipment operator/street maintenance, and Bill Lennox, lead equipment operator, for their 'Pipe Puller' invention that has garnered national recognition. (Carie Canterbury / Daily Record)

The City of Caon City received kudos from a local home builder for approving a new ordinance designed to jump start the local business industry.

The Caon City Council on Monday approved on first reading the ordinance that will create a temporary incentive program intended to stimulate prompt economic development and construction of new residential, commercial and industrial buildings in the city.

City Attorney John Havens said the incentives will become effective immediately following adoption at the Oct. 20 meeting. The incentives include:

Waiver of a tap fee for new buildings constructed following the adoption of the ordinance and receive a certificate of occupancy no later than Nov. 30, 2016. A tap fee costs $5,000.

Deferment of building permit fees and use taxes payable to the city at the time building permits are issued with a full waiver of those fees and costs if the structures receive a certificate of occupancy by Nov. 30, 2016. Building permit fees and use tax vary depending on the valuation of the structure.

"It gives builders and property owners in the city a chance to make some rather significant savings with respect to their projects provided they start promptly and finish ahead of the deadline," Havens said.

Local resident Bob Leck, representing Create Caon City, the Fremont County Homebuilders Association and Leck Construction, said the ordinance is "extremely progressive thinking."

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Caon City Council praised for ordinance intended to help builders

On Nov. 15, Marine Sgt. Robert Bruce, a Mesa resident, received a rather large, early Christmas present: a newly built, custom-designed house donated by Homes for Our Troops.

Bruce lost both legs to an improvised explosive device while attempting to rescue a fellow Marine. He walks with the aid of prosthetic limbs, but uses a wheelchair as well. The new home is equipped especially for his convenience, with accessible features including a remote-controlled front door.

We at Homes for Our Troops do not believe giving a home to a severely injured veteran is charity, said Tim McHale, president of Homes for Our Troops, in a statement. We believe it is a moral obligation of our society. They fought to protect our freedom and independence, and we are now giving them back some freedom and independence by building them a specially adapted home.

The house was built by Arizona-based Taylor Morrison Home Builders, with the help of many other local companies who donated time, effort and supplies toward construction of the home in northeast Mesa.

Sen. Jeff Flake spoke, thanking Bruce for his service and congratulating him on his new home. Flake recounted a recent diplomatic mission to Cuba and related his experiences there to his appreciation for the sergeant and others like him.

Every time you touch down in Miami you have a little more gratitude, a lot more gratitude and a better sense of what it means to be in a free country, Flake said. And we owe that freedom to people like Sgt. Bruce.

A representative of U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon presented Bruce with an ensign which had been flown over the U.S. Capitol on his behalf.

Bruce and his wife Megan lived in an apartment previously, and he noted they will certainly be glad for the room as well as the amenities of the new house.

I look forward to getting into it and hosting barbecues for family and friends not having to crawl around on the carpet on hands and knees because theres not room to roll a wheelchair, Bruce said. Now Ive got lots of room.

A friend of Bruces, a Navy corpsman who served in Afghanistan with him, presented Bruce with a memento of his time spent overseas. A simple gift, it consisted of no more than the body armor plates Bruce was wearing at the time he was injured and which saved his life. The sight of the plates had a moving effect on the sergeant.

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Mesa Marine receives custom-built house from wounded veterans group

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