After the wall panels and roof trusses quickly went up, it was exciting to see the house transform from a 2D plan to a 3D reality. And now the interior design begins…
Only a few months have passed since my last article when I received approval from the county, and since then the house has started to take shape – literally. Quickly after getting that approval, the digging of the foundation trenches occurred and following a week of rain delay, the foundations were then poured. Wanting to document the progress, I visited at each stage.
Once the full slab was poured and dried, I walked over it trying to imagine the layout and myself living in this space. Suddenly, the 1500 square foot layout seemed much smaller than I had anticipated.
The juxtaposition of the large open space around the home compared to the floor area made it seem comparatively small. But then after the wall panels and roof trusses quickly went up, it was exciting to see the house transform from a 2D plan to a 3D reality. And as soon as the exterior walls were erected, it altered my perception of the living space.
While construction took place, I was preoccupied with incredibly detailed design decisions – from the type and location of light switches, and door styles to paint color, tiles, siding, and more. Since most of my focus had been on the energy efficiency and sustainability aspects of the house and not its interior design, I had to take a step back and imagine the style with which I wanted to surround myself. After exploring different aesthetics, it turns out that I am drawn to functionality, an indoor-outdoor atmosphere with natural materials and a lived-in feel.
As part of this interior design process, I began selecting appliances, including a stove and oven, dishwasher, washing machine and dryer, fridge, water heater and HVAC system. Since high energy efficiency and water savings are my key requirements, I only considered appliances with Energy Star.
Early in the process, I had decided that I would not bring any gas lines into the house for both health and environmental reasons. As such, I selected an induction stove top and convention oven (which I found to be much better to cook and bake with than electric), and planned on using heat pump technology for my HVAC and water heater.
While high-performance and reliable cold-weather heat pumps have been introduced, Minnesota has regulations on the books that require a backup heating source for extreme cold weather, so I will need to add a resistance heating mechanism. While many of these decisions were straight forward, the toughest decision was the washer and dryer. Since I am using Passivhaus construction standards, I need a ventless heat pump dryer to minimize penetrations to the air barrier. But this is when the question arose if I should be using a two-in-one washer. In the end, a combined washer and dryer, while about the same cost as separate machines, meant fewer natural resources out of the ground and more cost-effective electric wiring.
In parallel, I also selected the siding and roof colors and material. As a first step, my builder recommended doing a rendering to visualize some of the different colors, and after testing a few out, the decision was a color scheme of a very dark gray (almost black) with wood-color trim.
I also took a trip to the siding store, to select between vinyl versus steel siding. Since steel siding has a much longer lifetime, this was my first pick. But I wanted to understand the supply chain to see if electric arc technology was used instead of fossil fuels for the manufacturing process, but unfortunately, I was unable to get this visibility – demonstrating the importance of consumer transparency into the value chain for scope 2 emissions.
For the roof, my ideal was BIPV, but the technology still has a much higher LCOE and lower efficiency. My second choice was metal standing seam both for its long lifetime and because I liked the idea of not putting holes in my roof for the future solar installation – even though the metal might have been a bit slippery for an install at a 39° angle, potentially increasing the system price. In the end, mainly due to budget limitations, I selected vinyl siding and asphalt tiles for the roof.
While I was making all of these house decisions, I received the test results for my soil samples from the University of Minnesota’s Soil Testing Laboratory.
Due to the years (potentially decades) of monoculture farming, the soil has a very low concentration of organic matter and very high phosphorus and potassium concentration. Because I want to eventually develop a permaculture and pollinator habitat with some foodscaping on the land, I need to first restore the soil health with a nitrogen fixing cover crop (Pro Tip: Food grown on soil with more organic matter has a higher nutrition content).
As a first step, I started reaching out to experts like Hothouse Horticulture and Minnesota’s Sustainable Farming Association. Anna McLafferty, the owner and operator of Hothouse Horticulture, and Jonathan Kilpatrick with the Sustainable Farming Association have given me excellent guidance on what some of my first steps could be for my multi-year vision. Since much of this will be out of my comfort zone, I’m still working on finding the right partner who can help me implement my homesteading plan.
Read the first in the series Building not your average dream home.
Jessica Fishman, director of renewable energy at Kiterocket, is a strategic marketing leader with nearly 20 years’ experience, including seven years as head of global public and media relations at inverter maker SolarEdge. Passionate about addressing climate change by accelerating the clean energy transition, she has worked at leading renewables companies, building global marketing and communications departments.
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