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Fait Accompli: Our First House...Finished

May 13th, 2009 in Project Gallery     
sjdehner sjdehner, member
20 users recommend
This is a photo of our first house, which we just finished in May 2009. We began building it in the summer of 2007.
Our free-standing Vermont Castings Encore woodstove sitting on a locally built and quarried hearth.
Our bedroom has a built-in pine bookcase aside one of the closets. (The attic stairs and closet in the hallway can be seen from the bedroom).
We built our vanity and medicine box by hand.
Having a wide hall (and a predilection for stairs), a tiny staircase leading to the attic with a built-in closet underneath seemed a perfect fit - especially for an old farmhouse.
This is a photo of our first house, which we just finished in May 2009. We began building it in the summer of 2007.

This is a photo of our first house, which we just finished in May 2009.

We began building it in the summer of 2007.

Photo: Jamie & Shawn Dehner
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After almost two years of steady work our passive-solar house is now "officially" built.

Looking back it hardly seems possible...

Prior to starting our house we'd only remodeled a seaside cottage and raised the walls of two tiny outbuildings (one being a chicken coop).

Thanks to a combination of mutual enthusiasm, several talented authors, such as Gary Striegler, Larry Haun, John D. Wagner and John Raabe - to celebrate just a few - along with a couple of instructive builders and contractors who gave us generous guidance and help when we needed it, we were able to primarily self-build a sturdy, comfortable, energy-efficient house.

Some interesting features include:

  • A passive-solar design
  • Icynene spray-foam insulation
  • Stiebel-Eltron on-demand electric hot-water heater
  • Broan HRV air-exchange system
  • ThermoPride propane forced-air heating system (less than 300 gl/year))
  • Vermont Casting Encore wood stove (Without back-up can heat entire house- basement to attic - on ~2.5 cords of wood through a Maine winter)
  • 100% zero-VOC paints and bio-based stains.
  • All wood cabinetry and interior trim = 100% formaldehyde-free construction.

Building a first house from the ground up was most certainly a risk - and it was not always easy. But in the end the experience gained, dollars saved and quality end results were worth every day of work.

 




Design or Plan used: My own design
posted in: Project Gallery, green building, energy efficiency, framing, architecture, deck, cabinets, doors, tablesaws, built-ins, stairs, paint, cape cod, bedroom, fireplaces and chimneys, federal, attic, colonial, john raabe
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Comments (2)

sjdehner writes: Thanks for the nice comments.

Building a house has been full of lessons and we enjoyed being able to share our experience on the website.

Fine Homebuilding was a great resource for us!

Shawn & Jamie Dehner
Posted: 8:24 pm on August 10th
Cermides writes: Jamie and Shawn -

Congratulations...very nicely done. Thanks a lot for sharing this with us.

Cheers,

Chris Posted: 4:30 pm on July 27th
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