Our new tag line says it all: Su Casa brings you inspiration, ideas, and resources for building the Southwest style “dream home.” We capture that phrase in quotation marks, hinting a dose of irony to contradict the usual grandiose notions it conjures. One reader’s dream home might be a 7,000-square-foot hilltop palace above Santa Fe; another’s might be a two-room adobe casita at the end of a rutted dirt road outside Socorro, New Mexico. We like them both.

Funny how searching for kitchens and baths helped us clarify what Su Casa is all about: uniquely New Mexican homes. They are marked by certain architectural elements, materials, textures, colors, and even artwork in combinations that you’ll find nowhere else. Native-dirt adobe walls paired with imported porcelain tile countertops, a bright purple kiva fireplace, a stainless steel stove fraternizing with a punched tin fridge door, Talavera tile under rough-cut vigas, smooth natural plaster lapping up against salvaged timbers, a lighthearted folk painting lurking beside a devotional relic.

Whichever end of the maximalist/minimalist spectrum you camp on, whether you’re building new or remodeling, we know you’re looking for ideas and inspiration, then connections to the people and stuff that can coalesce those notions into bricks and mortar, plaster finishes, and furnishings. Maybe you’re using Su Casa to create a scrapbook for your builder or architect, or a mental file of things you like. You might be sorting through construction options—frame, insulated concrete forms, adobe, straw bales?—and choices about color, cabinets, and countertops. The sheer breadth and depth of decisions can make even a veteran builder swerve into Satellite Coffee shop for a little quiet time with a double espresso.