Building Home

Last week we had some trees cut around the building site. We also cut a few trees to open up a few small views.

The change was fairly dramatic. The building site is significantly more open and sunny. We are starting to see some of the amazing views we'll have.

A few notes on the video and property:

1. Sorry about the shots into the sun. It really shines in your eyes up there in the winter. Good for passive solar though.
2. Does the driveway look steep in the video? It is steeper than it looks.
3. You can see the well (big white pipe sticking out of the ground) in the middle of the building site. We'd love to build right there, unfortunately. Instead we'll have to build just to the north (driveway side) or possibly to the south..
4. Pink ribbons are on trees that we are going to take down. There are about 20 of them and they are all pines. A few of the oak might need to come down.
5. There was a forest fire that burned this property and the surrounding area a while back. We will be required to clear an area within 100 feet of the house. Within that area, we can apparently leave some trees but there has to be a 20 foot spacing between them.
6. There were lots of animals scurrying around. I had to edit out a few shots of me trying to figure out what was in the bushes, and a shot of a super pissed squirrel that was not going to back down when I got onto the main rock formation. I must have been right next to his home.
7. The shots of me walking down the west and east sides show of just a couple of the neat (potential) paths and terraces. I didn't include one of the best ones, which heads off to the southwest corner and we are thinking of using for the small guest house. It will have awesome views.

I thought I would provide a little context about where we have moved. Everyone has a picture of where Seattle is and what it is like (cue montage of the Space Needle, a fish being thrown at Pike Place Market, an espresso shot being pulled, etc) but very few people have heard of Nevada City when I mention it.

First some info from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_City,_California

Nevada City was a mining boom town. It was settled in 1849 and there were 2,683 people there one year later. The population has remained more or less the same ever since.

I've heard the area we live in described as the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. We are at 2,500 feet elevation so we are definitely in the mountains but we don't get a ton of snow.

I'll post a bit more information about the area around our property later.

Our main task at the moment is getting the site ready for a building.

Our first step was to have the mining artifacts investigated to make sure there weren't any old mine shafts or tunnels running under our land. No one likes when their house disappears into a sinkhole! This test was required by the building department before we could start building anything. Thankfully the results came back all clear. Non of the suspected artifacts are deep or pose any kind of risk.

The next tasks are 1) contacting the old owner of the land to get a tour of what has already been done (for example, why are there pipes along the length of the driveway and why were there 2 perc and mantle tests done?), 2) getting the septic system in, 3) taking down some trees, and 4) getting electricity.

Originally, we thought we might embark on this process with little money but infinite time. We planned to learn as we went and build the house slowly but surely by ourselves. Now we are in the fortunate situation where Kirk is working remotely and, in his words, he adds more value as a programmer than a novice builder. So we have switched gears and are hiring professionals for the major aspects of the project. This last few weeks, we have been interviewing professionals- "green" architects, builders, and straw bale experts. We compiled loads of pictures of our vision and spent hours asking questions. We met some amazingly knowledgeable and talented people and in the end, we chose a local designer-builder team whose philosophy we like and who we related to the most. They specialize in Passivhaus design (which we won't be able to achieve fully because we don't have a huge budget, but we will strive towards it where we can).

Our meetings made it very clear that our biggest challenge will be our budget. Our goal has been (and still is) to build this house with no debt. This decision will have implications throughout the process and has already led us to cut our square footage down to the 1000 sq ft ballpark. We would rather have quality and thoughtful design over quantity. We would also rather trade some expensive indoor space for more expansive outdoor spaces (decks, patios, screened porches, etc.) We will build with the intention of adding an addition in the future (when the girls are older and start needing more space and privacy.) It's worth it for us to live in a cozier space when the reward is having the freedom of no mortgage.

We've been talking about building our amazing, unique, energy efficient, salvaged material loaded, passive solar, modern yet funky, super practical, inviting dream house for a few years now. Although we've put in a lot of research and even bought the land, it's been mostly talk up until now. Now, we are starting to launch the process and reign our myriad ideas into some kind of practical reality. It is exciting and fascinating and all consuming. This blog is where we will start recording the process.

We won't dwell too much on catching up since there is a month of house talk here: http://ourmonthlytrials.tumblr.com/tagged/July/