Key decisions within the design details

Once you get into the design details, you make numerous decisions and we will not attempt to catalog them here. However, to provide a sense of what we saw as key to building a modern and green house, here are some examples:

• While J wanted a kitchen that is not fully the "open plan" style seen in many modern homes, an acceptance of a design that partly opens the dining room/kitchen wall, with a horizontal "pass-through," plus this wall not going right up to to the sloping ceiling.
• Aluminum framed windows and exterior doors, both for the look and for no maintenance. All windows and doors going to the ceiling line, again as part of the look.
  
• Space-saving, in-wall pocket doors wherever feasible for the interior.
  
• No air conditioning so a lot of attention to cross ventilation, facilitated by three center hallway, operable skylights and also an operable internal window above the bedroom doors near these skylights - which also provide more natural light into those areas.
• The uses of structurally insulated panels (SIPS) for external walls, providing greater insulation and less waste from stick-frame construction. (Our builder had used these on a recent house.)