By NICOLE MONTESANO
Of the News-Register

Before deciding to leave his day job for a career in green homebuilding, John Mead tried a test run by building his own green home. Now, in addition to a charming and unique house, he has a showpiece to display to potential clients.

"I have always had an entrepreneurial itch," he said. "It was in the back of my mind that, if it went well, and was something I enjoyed doing, and it looked like there was a market for it, I would leave my job and the security."

It went well. So he did.

Mead has formed Cellar Ridge Custom Homes. He is beginning to work with clients who want the same thing he and his wife, Nikki, were seeking - a home designed specifically for them, one that reflected their family's tastes, needs and lifestyle.

The name, he said, is intended "to evoke what we're protecting, this beautiful wine country." Add to that connotation of security in the image of a cellar well-stocked with provisions.

Mead said he had a fair amount of construction experience before starting to build, and gained more in the process of serving as general contractor on his own home.

Before beginning to plan the design of their home, the couple spent months touring green houses around the state, researching design styles and techniques and sketching out their ideas on graph paper. "We must have gone through 20 designs before we arrived at one we wanted," Mead said.

A tiled entry opens into a hallway leading to the kitchen and dining area. The eye is guided by a curving wall to large windows boasting a view of the hills at McMinn-ville's western edge. A massive stone chimney and attached bookcase separate the cozy living room from the hallway and dining area, creating spaces that are open, yet provide a feeling of privacy.

The long diagonal views help make the space feel larger than it is, he said, and varied ceiling heights designate some areas as open and others as sheltered and cozy. Those were techniques picked up from "The Not So Big House" by Sarah Susanka, who has made a career in teaching people how to design comfortable, unique - but not necessarily large - homes.

Mead's new house, shared with his wife and young daughters, divides 2,500 square feet between the upstairs floor and daylight basement.

"It would probably be smaller if it wasn't two stories," he said. "It was economical to make the downstairs larger than we would have otherwise."

The 1,400 square foot upper floor houses the kitchen and dining area, living room, master bedroom and master bath with a walk-in closet, and a small study or office room. Downstairs are the girls' bedroom, an alcove for watching television, the laundry room, a bathroom and Mead's office space.

A wrap-around deck upstairs provides room for outdoor dining, barbecuing or just sitting around enjoying the view.

Many of the materials used in the house, such as bamboo floors and deck lumber manufactured from recycled plastic and wood fiber, were chosen with an eye to sustainability, Mead said. But the home design itself also is intended to reduce waste simply by staying in place.

"For a home to be sustainable to me, it also needs to be compelling and beautiful, and a place where you want to be; a sanctuary for the family and a place you want to care for," he said. "The resources we put into it won't go to waste having a family live in it for 15 or 20 years and then saying, 'We need to remodel.' So we paid a lot of attention to architecture."

Once they had arrived at a design they liked, the couple worked with a professional home designer who created three-dimensional artist's renderings of their designs, to give them a better idea of how the different rooms would actually look.

"We would mark it up and make changes; we went through about three versions before we got the blueprints," Mead said.

The service worked so well for them, he said, that he plans to offer it to his clients as well.

"I think a lot of people get to the end and go, 'Why did we put that window there?' or 'Why didn't we move the door a foot and a half that way?'

"This allowed us to have those epiphanies before we got to that point. You don't quite get the actual feeling of what it will be like to stand in the living room, but you can get so much closer."

Cellar Ridge Homes may be reached at www.cellarridge.com or 1-503-560-2263.

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