Dec 05

My Green Home Renovation 

I was lucky enough to be in a position to buy a house a few years ago, in a neighborhood I totally love. Turns out it’s been a pretty good decision thus far as a bunch of great restaurants and this summer brought a weekly Farmers Market to the park a mile away.

The house was in decent condition, but a few things I felt were lacking. The kitchen was in neglect, and did not function well. It was a narrow and dark galley kitchen, got really hot whenever you cooked in it, and due to the poor placement of the fridge & oven, neither one would fully open due to the other. My ex and I tackled the job together of making some changes to improve the design, lighting, and functionality. It involved making a half wall to the dining room, replacing the damaged countertop, repainting the cabinets, and replacing the fridge with an energy efficient model.

Perhaps every decision wasn’t the greenest, but we did what we could, and I think ended up with a great looking, affordable, and pretty “green” renovation. Sure every material wasn’t the newest “green” technology, but I think in terms of what we were able to donate, give away, and reuse, we did pretty well.

Now my gaze drifts to the other main drawback of the house, the finished attic, which also serves as my bedroom. The roof and living space have no ventilation, making it impossible to spend any time up there in the summer without the AC running, something I hate doing. It also has no separation between the first floor and the office/bedroom in the attic. Finally adding a bathroom would 1) be super convenient for me, but 2) would be helpful for having roommates, or future resale of the house. So I entered into a plan to solve all of these issues and improve the 2nd floor living space.

I was lucky enough to find an awesome architect, who really brought my vision into reality, or at least from out of my head and onto paper. So, thus far it’s been less than 6 months since our first meeting, and we are now meeting with contractors who are reviewing the plans and entering bids. Once I get all them, I will be faced with the difficult decision of determining whether to go forward, or hold off until things stabilize in the current economy. I’m also spending some of my days scouring for great salvaged and reused products, in addition to keeping an eye out for great new “green” products to use. The largest materials I’m looking for right now are: Exterior cladding, “flat” roofing material, standard roof material, metal cladding, bedroom flooring and bathroom flooring. Craigslist has produced some good hits already for some of it already, but nothing good enough to make me hire a moving company and drive to VMI