With our project on hold the mortgage market a mess and summer going we are thinking how we can make our project better and yes dreaming. Or brother-in-law scoped some very cool pools on Daily Green so here are a few of our favorites. We can totally see one of these in front of our house as we sit in an inner tube sipping on Arnold Palmers. Is it too early to start thinking of summer?
The Cellophane House
I just got back from the Museum of Modern Art's - Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling. They are having their member's preview today and the show opens on Sun. July 20th. The exhibition features five contemporary prefabricated houses constructed in the outdoor space to the west of the main Museum building, continuing MoMA's rich history of presenting full-scale architectural projects. Five individuals and architecture firms have been given the opportunity to deploy both commercially viable domestic creations and entirely new, speculative prototypes. Also in the exhibit on the 6th floor of the main building is what I found to be the more interesting part of the show. It is a concise history of prefabricated housing since its origins in 1833. As always the museum had some fascinating original art, sketches and plans by the likes of Frank LLoyd Wright, Marcel Breuer, and even Thomas Edison, who had developed and built prefabricated concrete houses. There are also some very interesting films and archival footage on Prefabrication. Whether you like these architects and the concept of Pre-Fab or not, the show is worth visiting. For me it was a really cool way to spend a hot day with my son.
more after the jump...
We saw this on Inhabitat and then searched around and found its an idea that's been around for a bit. I want one. I just hope it goes hope it goes better than my clay pot smoker and DIY Wind Turbine yet to be built. It would be fun to get a workout and mow the lawn at the same time.
We transplanted our trees that was the easy part, the hard part is taking care of them. They needed extra soil to fill in around the hole as well as large stakes and wire to hold them in place plus mulch, it was a great workout moving about 6 cubic yards of material by hand. Watering is an even bigger challenge. We are 2.5 hours away and can't go over everyday to water them. I tried rigging a system with 5 gallon buckets with small holes that will drain collected water slowly but it doesn't really work. It doesn't collect as much water as I'd like and sometimes gets blown away in the wind even with large stones in them. When we are there we have a Well so water is not really an issue but getting it out of the well requires electricity and our small solar panel array is not nearly powerful enough to power the well pump so we have to fire up the generator. Needless to say after watering the trees we don't feel very "Green". We are looking at a few products that will help us with our watering and landscaping needs.
Continue reading "Cool Green Landscaping Products we like!" »
In order to build our house in a location with nice views, good southern exposure, minimal septic construction and shelter from high prevailing winds we've sited the house nestled in the trees. Unfortunately this also means we have to cut down or move some of our lovely Norway Spruces and Scotch Pines. We are trying to not cut down any trees in the process of building our home but it is inevitable that we will, actually we had to cut one down already. One of the solutions was to hire Don Jefts/Native Landscape and Tree Service out of Scotia, NY and have him transplant some of our trees. He has a 60" tree spade and I have to say its one of the most impressive things I've seen in a long time. He came in with a very large truck with an equally large aparatus attached to it and pretty much MOVED the earth and the trees planted on it. We wanted to move about 20 of our trees but we only were able to move six. Turns out most of our trees are just to big to be moved by his machine. For a 60" tree spade the maxium diameter trunk should be no more than 6"; our trees are close to 12" in diameter. If the root ball is not big enough the tree will probably die or even tip over. We were just able to find six trees that his tree spade was able to access easily without hurting trees that wouldn't already be cut down.
Happy Earthday from Stephenie, Joaquin and Baldomero and our trees at Green In Medusa. We're currently waiting for our gravy train to come in so we can tell you about all the cool things we will do in our house. In the meantime we are hanging in our trailer watching the wind blowing through the trees, hawks fly, bunny rabbits hop around and deer eating stuff.
We received our appraisal and it was not so good. We were hoping to be able to get an appraisal that would cover the construction of the house, the site work, septic, foundation, renewable power, appliances, cabinets, and some miscellaneous items and the balance of what is owed on the land. Unfortunately the appraisal came back about $80,000 under what we had hoped for. The appraiser and bank do not take into account the fact that the house will be sustainable/green, they mainly go off of previous home sales in the area and existing listings. We are in rural New York, we're not a in a posh county with big fancy houses so this is the main reason our appraisal came back so low. This is not great news, we wanted to not have to use any of our savings to use as down payment. The bank will only lend us a maximum of 80% of the appraised value. So that leaves us a bit short. So at the moment we are going through our plans and doing a little bit of "value engineering", we may hold off on a couple of pieces of the project and possibly tackle the project in a few stages instead of all at once. Much to our disappointment one of the main things we can do to save money is to postpone the purchase and installation of renewable power systems. As disappointing as all this is we have to believe there is a reason for all this. The upside of all this is that our mortgage payments will be lower and maybe after some time has passed technology will have gotten better for our Wind and Solar systems. We're going for our bank loan soon so more news on this to come.
Thanks to one of our favorite blogs Catskill House Blog we found Prism Solar Technologies. They manufacture a new type of photovoltaic module that uses transparent holographic optical elements in its design. This new holographic technology, collects and spectrally selects useful wavelengths from the sun and focuses them onto the cell to create electricity. At least that's what they wrote on their site. This is super exciting for us, they not only look cool but they are local (within 60 miles). We are hoping that they are going to be available to us when the time comes to purchase them. Not only do they look spectacular but they use fewer PV cells per watt of power which at some point means hopefully they'll be cheaper. At the very least they'll use less resources. A roof full of these panels would look stunning! While you're peeping make sure to check out Catskill House Blog they're great! Paul is not only in the know but he also has a unique point of view and the hands on experience as an engineer to speak with some authority. He has just started up Sun Volt a solar equipment seller and installer in the Hudson Valley area. So look him up if you're in the area.
We saw this super cool design that designer Nina Tolstrup - Studiomama came up with. Its a simple and elegant and sustainable design for chairs made out of wood pallets. She won Best Contribution to 100% Design for the most creative impact at 100% Design. I went to her site paid 10 Quid (approx $20) and was emailed plans by Nina for the chair. In short all you need is a wood pallet and a handful of screws and nuts. Walking the streets of New York I see discarded pallets all the time and I always think its such a waste. We've often imagined whole neighborhoods built out of the discarded waste from construction projects. Well now to the dismay of my wife I can start bringing home wood pallets! I can't wait to build some of these. They are reminiscent of Adirondack Chairs which are ubiquitous upstate. Will post some pics when I get around to making a few.
So we haven't blogged in awhile, Sorry. Lots of reasons but no good ones. We were waiting for our bids to come in so we can secure our financing. Its a process and a half. We recieved our final bids its took over four months but we finally got them. Since it is a new construction loan we have to show exactly or as close to it how much everything will cost, what we've spent so far and how much we want to borrow. We have put down quite a bit between the cost of the land, the well, engineering fees, architect fees and septic design and we will be spending additional cash out of pocket to pay for other things like certain fixtures and appliances. The bank has to make sure that we are borrowing less than 80% of the value of the completed property, this is called the "Loan to Value Ratio" (LVT). We should also mention that its a bit nerve racking.
Continue reading "Bids, Appraisal & Financing for Green Homes? We've been busy..." »
