From the onset,
we know a few things.
Moving around ~ living in a variety of homes ~ aging and all of the biological changes that come with that~
we know a few things about what we might like in a home.

This is a home we want to live in when we are 95 years old.
So it should have a Master Bedroom on the first floor.
None of that "sunken" living room type thing. The first floor will be ONE FLOOR.
There will be a front door, with a ramp up to it, not even one "little step" in the front door.

Attached Garages are a total dream come true.
One large enough to park two cars, 5 bikes, a lawn mower, a snow blower, and also enough room to store the Kayak Gear, Snow Shoe gear, Camping Gear, cross country ski gear, storage for tools, a spare freezer or fridge.

A place to sit in the sun, inside, and just sit quiet with a book.
And in addition to that a window seat that is truly designed to be sat in ~ big enough and stable enough to really hunker down in.

A screened in porch to enjoy on a warm summer eve - big enough for a table, chairs, and a foot rest or two.

A library / Music room / office / den. All in one?

A fire place - the kind that has one of those wood stoves. It looks like a fireplace but heats like a wood stove.

Heat in the floor ~ at least for the first floor. Tired of cold toes.

A few bedrooms upstairs - with a full bathroom - for the kids. Not too fancy. They will need to test their wings and fly one day.

A garden tub in the upstairs bathroom. I want a tub I can get into and not have to chose which part of me is going to be sticking out of the water feeling cold.

hum... maybe "on demand hot water heaters" - little units at each location (sinks/showers) that heats the water so there is none of that "running the water while waiting for it to get warm enough to wash my face." It only works when it needs to.

A GREAT BIG fridge!

A dishwasher - and located in a way that the door does not pin you to the sink when it is open like our current one.

I want to sleep in the dark ~ on the North side.
I want to LIVE in the sun on the South side. Living room. Dining room.

A stove that ... vents to the outdoors.
When I cook the kids know dinner is almost ready when the smoke alarm goes off.
I know.. it's sad!
But!
having a stove that vents out is rather handy!


How about we build on a crawl space?
The water table isn't so low there. Plenty of homes have basements.
and plenty of them have to pump them out.
So you can't use them to really "live" in much.
Just when you get everything settled, a new wet season comes through and you scramble again.
So then you just use it for storage.
of what?!
A bunch of stuff you should have thrown out the day you took it to the basement! That's what!

So maybe just a crawl space.

Hey, if we are going to do the crawl space thing...
How about a thing... a potato and onion storage thing?
It can be lowered into the crawl space, or brought up to the kitchen when you need to pull something out of the root cellar / crawl space.

Humm...
Up there at Good Old Unity College...
They have been working on some new stuff.
They built a home for the College President.
It is a "net zero" home. Which means they sometimes run the electric meter BACKWARDS.
It produced more electricity than it can use ... some parts of some days. The excess at those times is sent out to "the grid" / the power company.
And other times it draws electricity from the power company.

They are also building some dorms, to hold 10 people each. They are doing a lot with solar panels, special windows, orientation. They have blogged about it: It was a quick read. www.terrahaus.wordpress.com

If you could build a home, ... any home...
why NOT build one that has you less dependent on "the grid?"
When we are 95, we can't change our income. We cannot accommodate a spike in oil costs or the cost of electricity going through the roof. But we can build a home that needs those things less. It would cost more to build... certainly. But you have a fixed cost. The mortgage won't go up. It will someday be paid off. Incorporating "Green" architecture into our lives... would give us a stable quality of life. Well... maybe not in every aspect. But certainly we can be warm, and not cost us every penny when we are "on a fixed income."

Agh...
and the grid.
Hurricanes. Blizzards. Down there on the peninsula... power can go out for 3 days at a time.. easy. This happens every few years. Fridge/freezers have food in them that needs to be tossed. Showers are cold or somewhere else. Heat (if in late fall or winter) can be effected.
It would be nice to ride out those storms without that interruption in life styles. Our home could be where folks come to store their valuable frozen moose meat / frozen blueberries, or take a shower.

The biggest obstacle to using solar is that we don't have control of ALL of the treeline that will effect our home. Its kind of a postage stamp sized property compared to the land I have seen such things accomplished on.

You can use the water that leaves the shower or sink. I don't mean "re-use" I just mean you can use it to pre-heat your incoming water. The water that goes down the drain is hot. The heat from that can warm pipes, warm an outdoor water feature as water circulates through the pump area, warm your driveway. Heat Recovery that is called. That's a neat idea.

Water. This is not an area where water use is a concern like out west. But it would be great to see some "rainwater recovery" where in the water is collected from the roof and used in the yard, or to wash cars.