Pictures of the finished product

A few more pictures of the finished product. Note Solar Panels on roof!



Beautiful interior finishes.

Open and very light Kitchen.

Entry wall with recycled wood from the old house.

Controls for the solar panels;

This has been a fun project; a great learning experience and a house I'm proud to have designed and had built. I would like to be involved in more of these kind of project, either as a designer and maybe will build another one when the market is right.

Sunnyland Sunhouse for sale; $299,900

Rain Barrels

This week the final touches are finally being done; hooking up rain barrels and minor touch-ups to the paint, etc.
Now the focus will be on selling the house. The final bills are in and we have decided that since it is a very poor housing market that it would be best to price the house at our best price; $299,900. Subtract the tax credit of $4100 for the solar panels and the net price is really $295,800. Also of interest to a potential buyer are energy savings. There will be a yearly check of about $700 from the state for solar power produced plus a credit from the power company for the power produced as well. And since we are using extremely high efficient furnace and appliances and lighting this will reduce power bills as well. The extra insulation in the walls, roof, and crawl space keep heat loss to a minimum and are yet another step in reducing power bills.
I have worked really hard to provide the best possible house at this price point and it is quite a value considering all that it has going for it. Not just a multitude of green features but a beautiful and practical home as well.

Open House a success!

Unfortunately I was away for the open house sponsored by Sustainable Connections but here is an article from the Bellingham Herald on it;
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2010/08/27/1588588/bellinghams-first-expedited-green.html#disqus_thread

BBQ and tour , Tuesday Aug. 31

Sustainable Connections will be hosting a BBQ & tour of the Sunnyland Sunhouse on Tuesday Aug 31 from 4:30 to 6:30.
Our house was the first to take advantage of the 'Bin Bump' expidited permit process for green built homes and is a celebration of that. This will be a good opportunity to learn about green building techniques for those interested.
I have had a trip planned for several months now & may not be able to attend, I really don't know right now.
Please check out this link for more info;
http://sustainableconnections.org/events/binbump-celebration

Sunnland Sunhouse is nearing completion!

I wasn't able to be at the open house on Friday the 20th due to my backpacking trip in Montana taking longer than expected. Quite a few friends and relatives showed up & I wish I could have been there!

A few pictures of the (almost) finished product.

I'm very happy with the kitchen cabinets and tile, it turned out very well.

Annette, my brother John and I worked both Sat. afternoon and Sunday morning on getting the house ready for the Sunday open house. The place looks a lot better than it did for the Friday open house.

Open House, Friday Aug. 20, meet the designer

I'll be out of town right before this but wanted to plan on having an open house to show the place off on Friday Aug. 20 from 5-7pm. I'm thinking this may be better than on the weekend and I believe our real estate agent will have an open house on Sunday Aug. 22 too.
This may be the only time I'll have to do this so I hope to see a few interested people there!

Rain Garden & native plants

The rain garden shown here was put in some time ago now but just finished today with bark. I dug up some Carix Obnupta and Dagger Leaf rush, both native wetland grasses from the pond in my back yard to plant here. We used the rocks dug up from excavation to decorate the garden bottom & set it apart from the rest of the yard. I tested the soil for drainage and we should be able to disperse most of our runoff into this rain garden. The downspouts will be hooked up soon to run to the raingarden.

Today I worked on installing plants with a majority being native varieties. Some of our plantings: Lots of Salal, Kinikinik, some Oregon Grape, Evergreen Huckleberry, Sword fern, and Penstemon. Also put in a Red Flowering Current which is one of my personal favorites and have an Alaskan Cedar to plant.

Other plants; 3 varieties of Heather and a Rhododendron (both somewhat similar to native heather), Nest Spruces and a couple of other miniature conifers.

The garden is doing very well now and producing a variety of vegetables. I put in a couple of apple trees last week as well as 2 blueberry bushes. The whole garden area gets lots of sun which really helps in our area.