welcome

the happy couple

Snacking on the foundation walls...

Are we crazy?  Moving out to the country to keep chickens and grow veggies, with no furnace or air conditioning?  Sounds perfect to me...I'm Mika, and this blog is a record of my family's journey building a green home in the Okanagan.  You'll get to know us better as we go along, but for now here's a little bit about us...

I am a full-time mom, part-time designer and the chief researcher for our little project. My wonderful husband Greg, besides contracting our home, is a respected local mason (Remco Stucco and Stone),  and the proud daddy of our two lovely munchkins.   Little girl is 4, little boy is 2 and they can't wait to move out to "the forest"!  (That may have more to do with the promise of dogs and chickens than the house... but I'm not complaining...)

We have had this dream of a healthy sustainable home on some acreage for years.  Ask any of our friends or family... they've all heard about it.  Years of planning, and wishing, and moving around town into homes we had built in order to save up for the property we had always wanted.  We are so excited to finally be starting this project, and so I am recording this here for extended family and friends (and whoever else might be interested!) as well as to catalogue and record all of the wonderful trades and suppliers that help us along the way.

All that said, I suppose I should add a disclaimer that says that Greg and I are NOT experts at building green... just a couple of landowners who are muddling through our version of a sustainable house.  We are making our best efforts to keep the carbon footprint low, use as many local materials as possible, create a non-toxic environment, and require minimal energy resources to maintain when complete.  All this for a reasonable price, in a relatively short time frame... too much to ask?  We sure hope not....