Whenever I retrospect of my life I am almost always amazed to see how unpredictable the journey has been, this house proved to be no exception to that rule. We knew from the moment we decided that we were going to build that the design of our home was not going to be similar to that of almost anything else. Mordern homes seem to be few and far between outside the pages of magazines like Dwell and Metropolitan Home and many of those seemed to be done on what appeared to be the budget of a small nation, by people living in the Hamptons or over-looking some idealistic view in Malibu. We however did not fall into this camp, our budget was modest as was the size of the home we wanted. We wanted to be conscious of cost but at the same time we wanted to build something that would be done with consideration for the environment — it sounded simple but could it be done?

Artists are supposed to be spontaneous when it comes to their ideas however it is my experience that the most brilliant creative minds I have ever met are actually brilliant strategist and planners who are just very open to the various ideas that present themselves. With that in mind we began a methodical and elongated process of researching everything and anything that would or could go into our house. The following are the 10 big things that we learned about building a modern contemporary, green friendly home:

1. “Green” and “Green Friendly” there’s a difference.
What most of us refer to as “green” weather your building a home or buying a car are not truly “Green” but rather “Green Friendly”. “Green Friendly” means some effort has been put forth to minimize the impact on the environment (i.e. You use recycled materials to build your home). To do something truly “green” you really need to be leaving the environment better than you found it (i.e. plant a tree).

2. Modern doesn’t mean Expensive
Although most of the homes the public sees of this style seem to be for people in a different tax bracket that doesn’t have to be the case. If you’re willing to open your mind to the possibilities, and look for deals online there are ways to get a super cool modern home on what I call a “modest modern” budget.

3. Architects are people too
Contrary to popular belief architects are not all ego driven, self serving maniacs, with only their own self interest in mind. Do a little research and find the right architect for you it can be a rewarding a collaborative relationship that delivers some amazing results.

4. Stuff’s gonna go Wrong
I don’t care who you are, how well you plan, how smart your architect is or how good your builder is — stuff will go wrong. The important thing is how do the people involve react? Do they point fingers, or do they respond quickly to make it right? In our case we enjoyed the later experience almost all the time and although it doesn’t make the stress go away it certainly makes it a lot easier to swallow.

5. Building a house is a lot of Stress
Yeah that’s right I said it, it’s stressful. Your entire world is turned upside down as you make decisions at light-speed and spend money like a kid on MTV’s my super sweet 16.

6. Modern is on the move
With a growing trend of people building smaller homes and as a generation of 20 and 30 somethings preparing to enter the home buying market, don’t be surprised if you see something along the lines of our house going up in your neighborhood. In the future there may even be whole new developments that only allow modern styled homes as a part of their covenants (wouldn’t that be ironic).

7. Everything cost about $1000.
you quickly learn that any and every change you make cost you thousands not hundreds of dollars. Try and think through everything in the planning stage, as it’s lot less expensive to change it on the blueprint than it is to change it on the job site.

8. Green can be unseen
The “green friendly” products that get the most attention like solar panels and geothermal heating are great solutions but maybe not the first and or best place to spend your money. These big ticket items seem too get the majority of the media hype but the truth is the first thing you should do is make your house as energy efficient as possible. Invest in great windows with a low U-value, or increase the R-value of your walls by using SIPs as well as optimizing the design of the house to benefit from simple things (that cost nothing) like passive solar design.

9. It’s good to be home
There is a moment when the workers stop coming by on a daily basis and you start to move your things out of boxes and into the spaces when you realize that this is your house. You’ve put so some much time, energy and effort into completing the vision and suddenly you realize the vision is now a reality. For all the stress and trouble it is an incredibly rewarding feeling to have built something so unique.

10. NO house is ever really done.
Homes are really living structures. We as the occupants, caretakers and designers are constantly updating evolving and changing our homes. Weather it’s painting the interior, re-working the landscaping or putting new tile on the backsplash, it’s all part of the homes evolution.

With all these lessons learned I don’t know that I’m quite ready to jump into another house project just yet. However, I have found that I love sharing with other people what I’ve learned along the way and can’t wait to start a new adventure where I can do just that what it is we’ll just have to wait and see.

Here is a link to the photo and quick video tour of our house and article that appeared in the Star Tribune.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 10:02 am and is filed under Architecture, Design, Green, Main, building. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.