Coruscation

That said, there are hurdles to this theoretical new normal. For one, remodelers who specialize in eco-friendly projects say many homeowners still tend to focus on green stuff rather than green performance. It's easier to imagine friends being impressed by the virtue of your recycled-glass bathroom tiles than by properly sealed air-conditioning ducts, even though more systemic projects have "orders of magnitude" more impact, says Paul Eldrenkamp, president of Byggmeister Inc., a builder in Newton, Mass. But since redefining what's normal is invariably a step-by-step process, maybe one small green decision can lead to another. Michael Anschel, founder of Otogawa-Anschel Design-Build in Minneapolis, helped create a variety of eco-oriented certification tools that give homeowners a checklist that ideally prods them to keep green-ifying with every home project. Benchmarks a consumer can track make for "better backyard-barbecue conversation," he suggests.

A tougher barrier may be that consumers simply dislike anything that feels like a step backward. "No one has ever said, 'My water pressure is too high' or 'I want one sink instead of two,' " says Michael Strong of Brothers Strong, contractors in Houston. Quitzau and Ropke suggest it would certainly take a long time for what they call our "bathroom dreams" to prize sustainability and efficiency over the notions they wrote about.