Those of you who are dreading the backbreaking chore of lugging your banana plants into the house or garage for the winter, take some advice from Tor Evasco. Don't. Evasco has so many banana plants that his yard looks like a little plantation.

Fifteen thousand homes stand for sale in Hampton Roads. That’s not a record, but 15,000 anything – from absentee ballots to bungalows – is a whopping sum to sort. Yet Home took the leap and did just that.

CHESAPEAKE
Jean-Marie Eagler begs to differ with Kermit the Frog: It is easy being green.
Since moving into her Tanglewood home in June, the Chesapeake resident has launched a one-woman "eco-renovation" crusade.

NORFOLK
A guard dog patrols the yard, scrap metal sprawls where grass should grow and a gaping hole in the garage makes you wonder, "What exploded here?"
But curb appeal is in the eye of the beholder. And Patti Robertson, buyer and renovator of distressed homes, believes her recent acquisition at 2305 Eustis Ave. in Norfolk is a treasure worthy of national recognition.

Richmond Dominion Virginia Power is partnering with EarthCraft House Virginia for a green building program to serve as a blueprint for comfortable, energy-efficient homes in Virginia.

The wrong time to report a persistent leak in your apartment's garbage disposal is on the last day of tenancy. That'll cost you. And, by the way, managers had to hire someone to blast the stalactites from the microwave. That's coming out of your deposit, too.

Danielle Hudak recalled the pressure she and her husband, David, faced when they had to sell their Virginia Beach home quickly because of his new job in Ashland. "Our biggest fear was that it would not sell in time for us to relocate for him to start his job," Hudak, 33, said. "If we had not sold, I'd have to stay behind, and our family would be separated."

  RICHARD SMALLWOOD and his wife, Beth, relish their home with a view of Bennett’s Creek in Suffolk. “It was just like it was advertised,” said Smallwood, 70, the second homeowner in Creekview. The neighborhood, tucked off Bennett’s Pasture Road, contains single-family homes on minimum one-third-acre acre lots. Six have deep water access with piers.

Steven Shepard's first do-it-yourself project was an indoor doghouse. "We have a set of platform stairs," the Virginia Beach resident said. "At the turn, I made a 5-by-7 room and lined it with cedar." The doghouse must have come together just right. After that, Shepard was confident enough to begin his next project: a 60-by-16-foot deck to run the length of the house.

IT DOESN'T MATTER whether you call it a rebirth or renaissance: The new community of New Port at Victory is fast becoming the sign of things to come in Portsmouth. Developed by Portsmouth Venture One and built by Chesapeake Homes, the planned community occupies the site where Academy Park once stood, just west of Norfolk Naval Shipyard.