When we moved into our house just after Christmas our bathrooms were in working order. There were of course a few details that had to be filled in as we went but for some reason (maybe the 10,000 other things we had going on) it seemed these space were not getting the needed attention to complete them. So this past week I took a little time and finished up a couple of really easy things that finally made these spaces complete. In the boys bathroom we had a left a large cut in the stair well roughly about 5 feet of the ground and about 4 feet wide. This was a clever idea our architect Michael Huber had used to introduce natural light into a room that was without an exterior window. The window was to be filled with a piece of Polygal (dual wall polycarbonate) to obscure views in while allowing the light to enter.

I’ve had the polycarbonate cut and ready to go for a good 3 months now but for some reason had not taken the time to cut down the aluminum channel and fit it into place. After taking an hour of my time to measure, measure again, then cut the aluminum channel and pre-drill holes to fasten it into place. I was very pleased with the result. It is certainly industrial but fits perfectly with the rubberized flooring and metal garage style door we used to hide away the boys mess. In our bathroom we had originally planned to use a wood front on the tub surround. However from the moment it went in both Stacy and I new it wasn’t the right material. The wood interrupted the flow of the concrete floors and really didn’t fit in with the wonderfully sophisticated look of the zebrawood cabinets. So with a couple of left over pieces of concrete board I replaced the wood front and brought the whole room back into harmony.

I was feeling so good about the bathroom, like it was finally complete. Then after taking a shower before work I pulled on the handle of the faucet of the shower fixture as I turned it off. Apparently, it hadn’t been tighten too well during the install or worked itself free a bit over time because the handle came off. The Toto fixtures are very heavy duty, high quality, fixtures so the handle had some serious weight to it. my first instinct was to try and break its fall with my foot but thought better of that just before impact and slid my foot out of the way. Fortunately or unfortunately for me the handle did not hit me but instead struck the floor. Putting the handle back on was easy and I was able to tighten it enough that it will not come off again unless needed. However the weight of the impact of the handle shattered one of the 1″ tiles at the floor of the tub. Just when I thought I had completed that room and could take it off my to-do list, I had one more little project to take on.

The boys bathroom has an industrial feel while still being whimsical with the marsh mellow sinks and apple green accents

The polycarbonate window finished the room and worked to allow natural daylight in.

Pardon the horrible picture but this was the best I could do to show how the polycarb. obscures the view of the room but still lets light travel through the space.

The beautiful materials of the master bathroom weren’t working with the tub surround.

By changing out the wood tub front to a cement one it integrated better into the entire look of the bathroom.

Not being able to throw away any scrap piece of wood is a quality that both Stacy and my oldest son seem to share. It’s certainly an admirable quality when it comes to a reduce, reuse, recycle world but at times things start to accumulate and something has to be done to put them to use. So I have started a series of projects that involve utilizing the leftover pieces of birch plywood.I cut down the remaining and scrap 3/4″ stair treads into thin 2″ strips. I then cut a channel in each on the table saw, miter cut the corners and and then fasten them together with a little wood glue and some finished nails, to make some really nice looking pictures frames. I’m going to stop at my local hardware store and have them cut down some glass for me so I can frame a couple of cool art pieces that we have.With a few sheets of leftover 1/2 plywood flooring and some scrap 2×4 lumber I fashioned some box style shelves for our entertainment area in the living room and another set for storage in the laundry room, all these need is a little poly and they’re done.There’s something really pleasing to completing a project that turns out well but even more so when the materials you used were something that normally would have ended up in a dumpster or at best in someone’s fireplace.Now I just need a cord wrangler.I’ll sand the edges of the frame to make it smooth and to clean off a little of the excess wood glue before I finish them with a coat of poly.

Whenever I retrospect of my life I am almost always amazed to see how unpredictable the journey has been, this house proved to be no exception to that rule. We knew from the moment we decided that we were going to build that the design of our home was not going to be similar to that of almost anything else. Mordern homes seem to be few and far between outside the pages of magazines like Dwell and Metropolitan Home and many of those seemed to be done on what appeared to be the budget of a small nation, by people living in the Hamptons or over-looking some idealistic view in Malibu. We however did not fall into this camp, our budget was modest as was the size of the home we wanted. We wanted to be conscious of cost but at the same time we wanted to build something that would be done with consideration for the environment — it sounded simple but could it be done?

Artists are supposed to be spontaneous when it comes to their ideas however it is my experience that the most brilliant creative minds I have ever met are actually brilliant strategist and planners who are just very open to the various ideas that present themselves. With that in mind we began a methodical and elongated process of researching everything and anything that would or could go into our house. The following are the 10 big things that we learned about building a modern contemporary, green friendly home:

1. “Green” and “Green Friendly” there’s a difference.
What most of us refer to as “green” weather your building a home or buying a car are not truly “Green” but rather “Green Friendly”. “Green Friendly” means some effort has been put forth to minimize the impact on the environment (i.e. You use recycled materials to build your home). To do something truly “green” you really need to be leaving the environment better than you found it (i.e. plant a tree).

2. Modern doesn’t mean Expensive
Although most of the homes the public sees of this style seem to be for people in a different tax bracket that doesn’t have to be the case. If you’re willing to open your mind to the possibilities, and look for deals online there are ways to get a super cool modern home on what I call a “modest modern” budget.

3. Architects are people too
Contrary to popular belief architects are not all ego driven, self serving maniacs, with only their own self interest in mind. Do a little research and find the right architect for you it can be a rewarding a collaborative relationship that delivers some amazing results.

4. Stuff’s gonna go Wrong
I don’t care who you are, how well you plan, how smart your architect is or how good your builder is — stuff will go wrong. The important thing is how do the people involve react? Do they point fingers, or do they respond quickly to make it right? In our case we enjoyed the later experience almost all the time and although it doesn’t make the stress go away it certainly makes it a lot easier to swallow.

5. Building a house is a lot of Stress
Yeah that’s right I said it, it’s stressful. Your entire world is turned upside down as you make decisions at light-speed and spend money like a kid on MTV’s my super sweet 16.

6. Modern is on the move
With a growing trend of people building smaller homes and as a generation of 20 and 30 somethings preparing to enter the home buying market, don’t be surprised if you see something along the lines of our house going up in your neighborhood. In the future there may even be whole new developments that only allow modern styled homes as a part of their covenants (wouldn’t that be ironic).

7. Everything cost about $1000.
you quickly learn that any and every change you make cost you thousands not hundreds of dollars. Try and think through everything in the planning stage, as it’s lot less expensive to change it on the blueprint than it is to change it on the job site.

8. Green can be unseen
The “green friendly” products that get the most attention like solar panels and geothermal heating are great solutions but maybe not the first and or best place to spend your money. These big ticket items seem too get the majority of the media hype but the truth is the first thing you should do is make your house as energy efficient as possible. Invest in great windows with a low U-value, or increase the R-value of your walls by using SIPs as well as optimizing the design of the house to benefit from simple things (that cost nothing) like passive solar design.

9. It’s good to be home
There is a moment when the workers stop coming by on a daily basis and you start to move your things out of boxes and into the spaces when you realize that this is your house. You’ve put so some much time, energy and effort into completing the vision and suddenly you realize the vision is now a reality. For all the stress and trouble it is an incredibly rewarding feeling to have built something so unique.

10. NO house is ever really done.
Homes are really living structures. We as the occupants, caretakers and designers are constantly updating evolving and changing our homes. Weather it’s painting the interior, re-working the landscaping or putting new tile on the backsplash, it’s all part of the homes evolution.

With all these lessons learned I don’t know that I’m quite ready to jump into another house project just yet. However, I have found that I love sharing with other people what I’ve learned along the way and can’t wait to start a new adventure where I can do just that what it is we’ll just have to wait and see.

Here is a link to the photo and quick video tour of our house and article that appeared in the Star Tribune.

Polycarbonates are a material that is relatively familiar to anyone who has ever been inside a green house. this super strong light weight material has been used in green houses for years but has become popular recently with architects as a substrate. The growing popularity of the material has resulted in a variety of companies offering designer version of the material in different patterns and colors.

I had expressed a great deal of interest in the material to our architect (Michael Huber) during our initial meetings and he delivered some opportunities where we could use it in our house. Although there is certainly a design detail to the product there is also a really great benefit as well. Because the materials comes in varying degrees of opacity it can be used as a room divider while still allowing natural light from other areas of the house to enter the room. Since both the boys bathroom and bedrooms in our house were located on the north side of the house and the majority of our windows gather sunlight on the south side there seemed to be an opportunity to use some of the polycarbonate to bring daylight into those rooms, diminishing our need to turn on extra lights during the day. Michael’s plan called for creating two openings in the stairwell one in a bedroom and one in the bathroom along with sheeting one entire wall with polycarbonate. This allowed light that naturally filled some of the larger southern facing spaces to spill over into the northern facing portions of the house.

We found dozens of reps from various manufacturers of the material, but our biggest challenge proved to be finding a vendor who stocked the item or had a sheet of it available on site. Because most of the distributors didn’t stock it that meant they would require a crating fee that would easily exceed the cost of the material. Finally Stacy tracked down a sheet of Ploygal available in St. Paul at Cope Plastics where they were able to cut it down to size for use. Then using some readily available pieces of aluminum channel we found at the local home improvement store we installed the first piece in the wall that divides the entry to the boys room. To the boys delight not only did the polycarbonate allow the light to enter the room but at night the LED night lights we purchased for their rooms, provided a beautiful light show as the light transmitted through the wall and into the living room outside of their bedrooms. It’s just one of the small details in our house that has made our house a truly unique and cool place to live.

The polycarbonate that works as a wall divider between our boys room. has been both a functional piece as well as a aesthetic portion of our homes design.

The punch card of things that we have to do, to get moved into our house, is slowly reducing in size. This week the installers from Energy Savers came and installed both of the fireplaces and completed the venting of our Marquis fireplace by Kingsman. After the long search to find an affordable fireplaces that matched the design aesthetic of the rest of our house, it’s exciting to see them installed. Now we just need to settle on the materials for the surrounds we’ve got a couple of good ideas in mind.

The installer preps the opening to place the fireplace.

I love the simple, clean