My wife and I are considering building a new house for our family. We love many aspects of the house we currently own, the location is very urban, close to great schools, community centers, parks and recreations facilities, a library and good restaurants and shops too.
The house itself is about 100 years old and has high ceilings, lots of arts-and-crafts built in features, hardwood throughout and there's plenty of house to grow into. But it's a lot of work. And while we thought we were a couple who would enjoy working on it together, that has not turned out to be the case. We've spent a fair amount of money and time fixing it up (new floors, new wiring, new driveway, etc) but there seems to be no end in site where we'll be able to sit down and be comfortable.
One of the downfalls of the house being so urban is we have no yard. And I don't mean a postage stamp-sized piece of grass we're too embarasse to call a yard. Our house sits about four feet from the curb and our lot line is 18 inches in the back. We now have a young daughter and want to make a space that works for us as well as her and any potential siblings.
So we want to test our options. I, for one, never want to live in the suburbs. I grew up miles from downtown - in another city, mind you - and from about 13 onward I only remember wanting to live somewhere else, where things happened.
My wife is less concerned with location, but would like a place that was lower maintenance, and, therefore, less to worry about, at least in the short run. So that likely means a new or newer home. My aversion to the suburbs rules out most new neighborhoods, which are all far from the center of town, laid out to maximize the need for cars, and generally make my skin crawl with cookie-cutter blandness.
Finally, I would really like to reduce the impact we have on the environment. Living in Canada, we are the greatest consumers of energy per capita, and I'd like to do what I can to remove our family from that equation. Energy is only going to get more and more expensive, as far as I can tell, and I'd like to be as close to "off the grid" as possible.
Again, my wife and I differ somewhat. She is a little wary of trying anything too "out there", so the compromise will be to build a fairly conventional looking house that is built with as much energy efficiency possible.
So that's the Blog's manifesto. It will act as a repository for our research and perhaps describe some of the trials and tribulations we face as we proceed.
