In July 2011, Aidan spent a week at Camp Olympia. As I was driving north on Avery Road to drop him off, admiring the surrounding trees of Rock Creek Park, I saw an unassuming “Lot for Sale” sign planted at the intersection of Avery and Southlawn. I was immediately intrigued, since it was clearly a…
View We’re Building a House! »
Some historical background on our decision to build a custom-designed house on our lot in Derwood, MD.
View Architectural Aspirations »
A look at the ideals that shaped our design and building process.
View Guiding Principles »An overview of some of the energy-efficient and eco-friendly features of our new house. Narration by Elliot, cinematography by Aidan!
View Building a “Green” House »A look at how we implemented universal design principles in our custom home.
View Universal Design Features »
Interesting story behind the location of this shed… Montgomery County requires you to get a permit before putting up a tool shed, and one of the conditions is that the shed be in the “rear yard.” The rear yard is basically defined as the area beyond the house that is opposite to the side fronting…
View Introducing… the tool shed! »
Preliminary and final floor plans for our custom home in Derwood, MD.
View Choosing the Design »A start-to-finish video of construction, from staking out the house outlines to putting up drywall.
View From Staking to Drywall »
Alan Abrams, our architect, blogs about passive house and other build and design topics on his website. He also chronicled the construction of our home in a series of posts. [UPDATE: Looks like Alan’s site is down.] You can download a single PDF with all the posts about our house (8MB).
View Alan Abrams on Passive House »Join Anne and Elliot on a walkthrough of the new home!
View New Home Walkthrough »