" The front of the house is coming along really well. We've actually got our 2nd floor so that you can understand what's happening here. When you enter this courtyard you'll have a spiral staircase that's also down in stucco that brings you up to that gallery on the 2nd floor. And it's all wooden now but eventually much of that wood will be covered in stucco, so that you'll see stucco columns, and rod iron railings in between. The gallery of course leads into the bed room suite over there. And if you look up high you could see that our roof overhang has that Spanish detailing, that beautiful scroll cut on the rafter tail. But one of the few things left here from the original house is the electrical service and that of course is an eye sore in this location so we're gonna dismantle that and put a new service in on the other side of the house, but while we're up here take a quick look at the little windows on the 2nd floor which are again recessed so that you get, when this is all stuccod you'll have the impression that the walls are actually about a foot and a half thick and that's just the kind of detailing that's gonna make this such a special place but right now let's go inside and meet John Picard who is a consultant who's helped us pick the right materials that are very, well they're sensitive to the ecology. Come on in. Hi John."

" Hi Bob."

" How's it going?"

" Good."

" Well we're lucky to have a consultant in all these kind of environmental issues and there's a lot of products in the house that are special, is this one of them?"

" This is one of them. This is a oriented strand board, it's a material made up of Aspen trees that grows to maturity in 12 years and it's a crop wood."

" So that's important, we're not out there destroying the forest."

" Right, this is a renewable resource."

" What about the glue that is used to manufacture this, isn't it toxic?"

" We're reaching to it, this is a non-toxic glue it's a water based resource and all type glue."

" Excellent, and of course the reason we have it indoors and a number of creations around the house is that we need shear walls."

" Right."

" Earthquakes, etc."

" What's going on over there?"

" This is a new board that we're working with, it's called fiber bond."

" This is our material expert Dan Williams, to explain the features."

" Hi, how are you Dan?"

" Fine Bob. How are you?"

" So what is fiber bond what makes it different from regular dry wall?"

" Fiber bond itself is a material that's recycled newspaper."

" Mm-hmm."

" And it is also sound control, moisture resistant and fire rated, identified in the fire rated."

" So this is made out of newspapers Dan?"

" It's made out of newspaper, this house itself would relate to approximately 9,250 New -- LA Times. "

" You're kidding. You could take 9,000 Sunday LA Times and that represents the product that's going in here."

" That's right."

" That's how it takes about 11,500 feet of wall board."

" And it's fireproof?"

" It is. This fiber bond is waterproof, more dense to it, it has also insulating factor on the outside wall, ceilings and when you install the stuff you can put, when you install the fiber bond you can end up using nails in the middle of the sheet, you're looking for a place to hang a picture, hang a medicine cabinet, you don't have to look for the studs."

" Really?"

" You can hang it anywhere."

" How's that for strength."

" It is really strong."

" It has that much strength."

" It's also got a really good acoustic value to it too."

" What about taping the joints and so forth?"

" The taping the joints here has no tape actually as you said it, does it tape?"

" No, you do not use tape on this compound."

" On this wall the way we finished this seam [unk] is to spread the compound into the seam and we wipe it down."

" So it's not a regular joint compound if it doesn't require tape."

" No, this is not a regular joint compound. What it is a special compound made for these chips on wallboard that's a fiber bond."

" It's actually stronger than a tape seam. And if this wall board were to break, the board would break before the seam would."

" What else do we have going on here John?"

" We've got some recycled steel Bob. This is to me is the ultimate environmental material because it's so recyclable, it came from recycle material probably a junk car or manufacturing and appliance scrap and it'll recycle again when this house has lived its final day."

" This is an unusual detail in the construction, we started out with a 2 by 4 stud wall and again you see the OSB here."

" Right."

" But then we furred off with the metal studs to get extra depth to the walls because the design is Spanish colonial, he wants it to look like we have thick walls."

" Right."

" It's gonna allow us to super insulate the house also. One thing I might point out is this, these studs are pre-punched."

" That's what I was gonna say..."

" This is gonna cut your labor cost for your electrical and your plumbing runs. And you're also gonna get...Right."

" I can see it down here we've already got some wires running right through it, nobody had to drill any holes."

" Right."

" Your gonna get nice straight runs throughout the house."

" What else?"

" Speaking of installation this is the nature guard installation that we've talked about, this isn't really anything new."

" No. It's just again recycled newspapers."

" Right."

" But we learned a few weeks ago that you can install this in a way that it prevents it from a settling down."

" Right, in the past cellulose would settle in the wall, so it would have a diminishing installation value as it got older but now they've added enhancers so that this stays nice and fluffy in the wall and it won't settle."