The idea

In July of 2008, Annie and I began looking for a fixer home to buy and remodel. Having just finished a self-study of the LEED for Homes reference guide, I was feeling ready to take on a green rehab project.

Fortunately, our finances didn't allow us to buy another home at the time. Looking back, I feel that it would have been a disaster, or an expensive learning process at best. It may have gone something like this:

We got married later that year, moved into a much smaller rental house nearby, and rented our house to someone that could make use of the whole place.

Shortly after getting married, I enrolled in the Sustainable Homes Professional course with the Earth Advantage Institute. This class provided an in-depth education on sustainable building methods and materials. In addition to class room training, we toured some ground breaking building projects; Everything from a LEED Platinum, Net Zero home, to a development of modest, affordable homes built to be energy efficient and affordable.

After I graduated from the course, Annie and I had a much more clear idea on what we wanted to do and how to get it done. The idea was to find a house in need of either interior or exterior wall removal and do a LEED Silver or Gold remodel.