New green homes are proliferating in the Chicago area, and three of the greenest are finishing up now in Bucktown and Waukegan. The Bucktown house, at 1610 North Honore Street, is an innovative conversion of an old two-flat into a single-family home, complete with a solar array over the garage and many reused materials. Priced at $2.499 million, the home is the work of Tom McGrath, a hospital administrator and former Bucktown resident (he recently took a job in California) and the architect Gerhard Zinserling.

Two houses in Waukegan are the latest additions to Carter Crossing, a Habitat for Humanity subdivision of 33 homes. These two new homes—at 1517 and 1521 11th Street—are both the greenest residences that Habitat’s Lake County chapter has built and that the architect John Hershey has designed. Each of the homes is valued at $140,000, but with grants and other aids, the homeowners will have mortgages of only about $90,000.

Both projects are shooting for a LEED Platinum ranking, the highest level of certification; just four other buildings in the Chicago area have that rank. Click through my photo tour below to learn more about the two projects.