About Your Home

In place of the all-around word "green", I believe that high performance, sustainable, and environmentally friendly are much more accurate ways to describe the home that you can build. No matter where or what you decide to build, I am committed to including each of the five core elements below.

  • Energy efficiency. All of the homes that I build must be at least 30% more energy efficient than standard comparable homes.  That increase in efficiency not only lowers your monthly utility bills but also makes the home more comfortable to live in.
  • Good indoor air quality. The air inside your current home is probably more polluted than the air outside.  Most common paints, stains, carpeting, furniture, and cleaning chemicals give off harmful fumes and compounds. I carefully specify the products that go inside your home throughout construction to make sure that the air inside your home is as healthy as possible.
  • Passive solar technology. By carefully designing  your home with the sun in mind, you can lower your utility bills even more. Placing as many south facing windows as possible and using overhangs to prevent the summer sun from making rooms uncomfortably hot also allows the winter sun to heat your home for free!
  • Infill locations. I focus on building in established areas on sites that already have houses around them. Building new homes in existing neighborhoods provides a better quality of life and is better for the environment since there are normally schools, shopping, parks and transportation already nearby.
  • Smaller than the average home size.  Careful design and layout allows the building of homes that may be smaller in square footage, but actually feel like a larger home.  Thoughtful design not only uses less materials, but allows more of your budget to go to the finishes and fixtures of your new home.

About the Company

I established BrightLeaf Homes LLC as a homebuilding and construction management company that focuses on building high performance, sustainable homes on infill sites. I leverage the strengths of planning and management processes to deliver you an exceptional home that is completed on time, at the projected budget, and at the level of quality that you expect.

If you are interested in:

Buying a new home and are looking at large national builders

I can build you a new home similar in size and price to those builders.  When you build with BrightLeaf however, your home will be built as efficiently as possible, be more comfortable, and will generally have lower monthly utility bills.  You will be able to make changes in the floor plan or design your own and select the fixtures and finishes that you want, all while working with a smaller, more responsive builder.

Buying or building a new home and looking at various builders in the area

There is certainly no shortage of homebuilders in the Chicago area, but there are only a few that have the dedicated focus on green design and construction that BrightLeaf does. If you are looking at buying a new house that is already built, I ask that you consider if you will be more happy in a home that you help to design and that you can follow through the building process from start to finish.

Building a completely custom home on your own or with a contractor

Designing and building your own home is an exciting thing to do, but the process can easily become stressful and complicated if not carefully managed. By working together with BrightLeaf, we can make sure that your new home is delivered on time and on budget, that the most advanced construction methods will be used, and that construction waste and impact on our environment will be minimized.

In any case, when you build a home with BrightLeaf Homes you work with a company whose founder oversees each home that the company builds. I am a Certified Graduate Builder and a Certified Green Building Professional by the National Association of Homebuilders and worked for two of the top ten homebuilders in the nation before founding BrightLeaf Homes. I have managed the construction of over 100 homes totaling more than $35 million dollars and believe in utilizing carefully created processes and systems to ensure that each home that I build is held to the highest standard.

708-655-3924  •  info@mybrightleafhome.com