History: Being practical and resourceful with our existing resources is fundamental to the green building movement. For this reason and more, we chose to start New Living in one aisle of Houston’s beloved Wagner Hardware in November of 2007. The Wagner family operated this store for 70 years and had deep community ties. While we don’t sell traditional hardware here anymore, we want New Living to serve the same role that independent, community hardware stores did before the era of big box stores. The building was built during World War II, and we reclaimed as much material as we possibly could. The floor, originally built with scrap metal, was simply polished. We used and refurbished most of the existing store fixtures and even recycled some scrap wood to create an architectural rail along our upstairs offices. We are choosing to leave the Wagner sign on the front of the building to respect the integrity of our building’s history, the neighborhood, and the Wagner family.

Now: New Living is more than just a store. The idea behind what we are doing is to make the green building and green living movement accessible and affordable for everyone. We want New Living to be a community store that encourages new thinking, ideas, and helps foster a local green economy. We are open and look forward to the opportunity to listen and grow with Houston’s emerging green community.

Mission: Everyone deserves healthy, safe, clean spaces. New Living seeks to extend this right, while having a direct economic, social, and environmental impact on our community.