We live in a 1970’s designed home, built to incorporate the best building practices of its time including passive solar heating, 2” exterior foam insulation, and a small building footprint. Many things have changed since then in both our knowledge as well as in our lifestyles. And as a result, there are energy and resource use issues in our home that could improve our overall footprint. Selfishly, we are also interested in getting a little extra space including a second bathroom.

With this projects in mind, over the course of this summer we will be designing and remodeling our home and sharing the process with the world (or the people who read my blog). This is one of two projects that we will be talking about as well as creating podcasts and videos of to showcase the cutting edge and affordable techniques that anyone can incorporate into their homes. Of course, you’ll get way more information about my personal project because I can explain the choices we made and why.

Our overall project goals are to:

1. Improve the energy efficiency of our existing structure as well as the addition
2. Create a home theater space, master bedroom and first floor laundry in the most resource effective way possible
3. Improve the visual impact of our existing home, which to some is considered unattractive
4. Keep the amount of work on the existing structure to a minimum
5. Be smart in choosing construction details, products and on-site processes, making sure we always ask if there is an alternative that would be better for the environment.

I hope that you’ll check back often on our progress as I’m sure life will throw us some curve balls along the way. I have to remember what I always tell my clients and friends, “we aren’t trying to be perfect, just better.”