1616 E St SE- A Change of Course

A few weeks ago, a potential buyer was looking at another property on our block and expressed interest in viewing our project. As it turns out, she loved the area but is especially interested in green, environmentally-friendly building techniques and materials. We were right at the point in our project where we could still make this a green project, and we struck a deal. Now, we're finishing the project based on her choices, all of which will be better for the environment and make the house more energy efficient. Here are some of the items going into the house:

-Soy-based spray foam insulation
-Recycled drywall
-Rheem tankless hot water heater
-No VOC paints
-Sustainably harvested bamboo and cork flooring
-no formaldyhyde cabinetry also made from bamboo
-Low-E Anderson windows
-Energy Star rated appliances
-Trim built from reclaimed lumber

This is is really exciting project for all of us and I can't wait to post pictures of the finished product. Green building is a topic that fascinates me and I can't wait to do several additional environmentally-friendly houses.



Here is the new brick exterior and porch. This is a huge improvement over the old vinyl siding that was on the house when we purchased it.






If you remember, the front of the house used to have a porch that was about to collapse. This new porch is far more durable and functional.






This was the first floor last week before the new insulation.





Here's the top floor before we insulated.



This is the installer from Anchor Insulation Systems. They used a product called BioBased- it's made from soy. It has an R rating of up to R50- which is almost 5 times stronger than normal insulation.


The finished rear wall:



We've received all our final approvals and we are set to begin drywalling on Monday.