In 2000, my husband and I purchased a tiny house in Kirkland, WA. We were ecstatic to own our first home. The house was only 680 square feet, but had a beautiful yard. Over the years we discussed many times what we should do to gain more square feet. Should we remodel? Move to a larger home? Tear it down? We went back and forth for years until 2007 when we decided that we would investigate a complete tear down and new construction. It was mostly my idea. My dream was to build a home that had superior indoor air quality and used recycled eco-friendly materials.
We didn't know where to start. My motto was "Just keep moving forward in the process and we'll eventually figure it out." We interviewed architects. They all seemed expensive. We interviewed a couple "Green" builders. They too were expensive and egotistical in some cases. I kept saying "let's just keep moving forward, at some point, we'll just know things are right".
One afternoon I went to an open house around the corner. It was a spec home. I confessed to the realtor that I wasn't interested in buying, in fact I wanted to find a builder. He gave me the card of his builder/friend and told me to call him. So I did. We found our guy. Right away I knew he was different. He just had something no one else did. He didn't own a large company with tons of overhead. He was very involved with his projects. He listened, he offered ideas. He had an architect for us!
I told him about my Green idea and he kind of rolled his eyes. He sort of thought the term "Green" was overused and marketing. He personally used Green building techniques and didn't think anyone needed to follow some checklist to be held accountable. I wasn't daunted. I was going to continue to learn more about Green and ask him to work with me on it.
We started working with the architect who turned around plans in no time. And at a very reasonable price. How could this be? Maybe these people were just honest and not looking to rake us over for money.
Next I knew I needed some Green help. So I found a consultant online and asked her to meet with me. She owned a business helping people go green and understand what it meant. She taught me a ton. She prepped me in a lot of ways for the overall project. She gave me referrals. I was so grateful to have her help and in a lot of ways, the project is a result of her initial guidance.
We decided to build our home to be certified as 4 star green with Built Green, or the King County Master Builder's Association.
Next step was permitting. I decided to take this on myself and wallow through the process. I think mainly because I had one builder scoff at me for suggesting that I could do it. I wanted to prove that even an inexperienced layperson could figure this out, and I did. The City of Kirkland was more than happy to answer all my questions in the 6 months it took to get our permit. I think it was 6 months. It took forever.
We had to have an arborist survery our trees. The city has a big tree retention policy. We had asbestos. On the outside. It had to be removed. The city could not find out sewer hookup. We had several plan revision rounds. We had to get special permission to keep our driveway gravel, as it does not meet code. I had to write a letter and have them sign off on it. We had to fence in our trees.
Finally we had our permit and could begin! In December! Oh great! and then we had a huge snow storm. So the project started....
We didn't know where to start. My motto was "Just keep moving forward in the process and we'll eventually figure it out." We interviewed architects. They all seemed expensive. We interviewed a couple "Green" builders. They too were expensive and egotistical in some cases. I kept saying "let's just keep moving forward, at some point, we'll just know things are right".
One afternoon I went to an open house around the corner. It was a spec home. I confessed to the realtor that I wasn't interested in buying, in fact I wanted to find a builder. He gave me the card of his builder/friend and told me to call him. So I did. We found our guy. Right away I knew he was different. He just had something no one else did. He didn't own a large company with tons of overhead. He was very involved with his projects. He listened, he offered ideas. He had an architect for us!
I told him about my Green idea and he kind of rolled his eyes. He sort of thought the term "Green" was overused and marketing. He personally used Green building techniques and didn't think anyone needed to follow some checklist to be held accountable. I wasn't daunted. I was going to continue to learn more about Green and ask him to work with me on it.
We started working with the architect who turned around plans in no time. And at a very reasonable price. How could this be? Maybe these people were just honest and not looking to rake us over for money.
Next I knew I needed some Green help. So I found a consultant online and asked her to meet with me. She owned a business helping people go green and understand what it meant. She taught me a ton. She prepped me in a lot of ways for the overall project. She gave me referrals. I was so grateful to have her help and in a lot of ways, the project is a result of her initial guidance.
We decided to build our home to be certified as 4 star green with Built Green, or the King County Master Builder's Association.
Next step was permitting. I decided to take this on myself and wallow through the process. I think mainly because I had one builder scoff at me for suggesting that I could do it. I wanted to prove that even an inexperienced layperson could figure this out, and I did. The City of Kirkland was more than happy to answer all my questions in the 6 months it took to get our permit. I think it was 6 months. It took forever.
We had to have an arborist survery our trees. The city has a big tree retention policy. We had asbestos. On the outside. It had to be removed. The city could not find out sewer hookup. We had several plan revision rounds. We had to get special permission to keep our driveway gravel, as it does not meet code. I had to write a letter and have them sign off on it. We had to fence in our trees.
Finally we had our permit and could begin! In December! Oh great! and then we had a huge snow storm. So the project started....
I decided to start this blog to keep record of our Green decisions and the choices we had. To document the things I have personally learned and to share resources.
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