It’s time…

… to chronicle the story of how two people, with little technical background, are setting about to build their last home. A home to last. A home with a balance of the highest levels of energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness. A home that treads lightly on our environment. We must make the thousands of decisions armed with our past experience and our current research, in an industry that’s changing much faster than the BC building code.

“We” are D and Gail, a better-than-middle-aged couple with four grown children. We have raised our family with conservation and green principles always in our viewfinders, to the point of embarrassing our children by wearing milk cartons on our heads to make a point about the “Three Rs”during a presentation at their school. We are not the best environmentalists, as we still drive cars, buy stuff (but not too much) that has excess packaging, and generate trash from our apartment. We try, riding the bike or walking to work, buying second-hand whenever we can, and we have been known to pick up wine glasses in the back alley where Vancouverites leave their goods when they don’t want to throw them into the garbage.

view with blackberry bushes

Our lot, purchased in 2005, is located in the “best town under 20,000 population IN THE WORLD” (according to the United Nations-endorsed“International Awards for Livable Communities”) http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/10/13/bc-gibsons-liveable-award.html This award, much like Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, appears to have been given as much for what Gibsons is GOING to do as for what it’s already done, but, hey, who’s objecting?

More accurately, the lot is located in the Sunshine Coast Regional District, a distinction that will prove important when it comes to dealing with the building department, tradespeople tell us. It’s 1200 meters from the ferry terminal at Langdale, which means that we will be able to be “walk-ons” and bus-riders to commute for a few more years to our jobs in Vancouver, once the house is built.

In future posts, I (Gail) will discuss philosophies, design considerations, budgets, processes and technical details and more, as we go through this grueling (and sometimes dueling!), but exciting process. I plan to journal our experience in a manner that I wish someone else had done for us to read before we started this great adventure.