One of my colleagues at work saw this video and recommended it to me.  Its an amazing video on how less is more and how to "edit" down your life.

Aaaand if you'd like to see his 420 sq ft apartment, check it out below!

House Plans

For Braden and I, this whole project started because we wanted a house.  It was convenient that we knew of Vereco prior to the build and since these homes can cost about the same as a standard home, it was hard to say no!  As we all know, the key to sustainability is to reduce what we use and thus reduce our impact on the environment.  In housing, we talked a lot with Vereco Homes about reducing the overall home size.  Having watched several hundred episodes of HGTVs home shows based in the United States, I had a very nicely warped perspective on how big a home should be to live comfortably.  It should be at least 1800- 2000 sq ft, right? Representing the "average Joette" here, I know that people do believe homes of this size are very desirable; Saskatoon wouldn't have suburbs if they weren't.  Being very skeptical that anything smaller would work just as well, I set out to compare different housing plans of different sizes and styles with the 1500 sq ft Vereco Urban House Plan as a reference point.

Vereco Urban Main Floor Layout

Things I really liked about the Vereco in comparison to other homes were:

Sample home layout with attached garage

1. Circulation space:  This is the space that is taken up solely by hallways, walkways, etc.  There is VERY little unused space in this home design.  This home is approximately 1500 sq ft with almost no hallway space on the second level and one hallway on the main level which has closets and bathrooms on either side.  I found this was key to the usable square footage in the home.  Take a look at the attached garage example below with similar outside dimensions.  A huge chunk of the main floor is taken up by hallway which is useless space.  If you want more info on this, I found a great article on circulation space here.

2.  Big spaces where the majority of living happens:  Braden and I spend 95% of our time in the home in the living room hanging out or in the Kitchen cooking.  This is where the space is.  The Urban design creates a highly usable living area with space to put a desk (so no need for a big office!).  It forgoes on a massive separate dining room which will get used a couple times a year.  We don't need a massive dining room table all the time.  We don't need huge bedrooms where all we do is sleep.  We don't need a massive laundry room that we use for a couple hours a week.  We don't need a bathroom with anything more than a bit of counter space and a nice shower.  Heck, we don't even want that stuff!  Also, homes with garages on the main have little family space and big bedrooms above the garage.  This makes big spaces where you sleep, and small spaces where you live.

Sample floor plan with hallways and inflexible space. From Houseplans.com

3.  Open concept:  The beauty of open concept is that you can adjust the spaces depending on what you need.  We found several designs with main floors that had fixed spaces for offices, dining rooms, kitchens, family rooms and living rooms.  These severely limit how you can use the spaces.  With an open living/dining space we will easily be able to have a dining space that fits 12 people when needed, and then shrink the dining table down and set it aside when we want to host people in the living space.  We have an island that will seat 3-4 people comfortably as well for dining or entertaining.  These simple adjustments are easy for us to do and make for a space to suit our everyday needs as well as when we want to host.

4. Luxury spaces well thought out: For us, our luxury extra spaces are having a walk-in closet and 2 bathrooms on the second floor.  These are extra spaces we believe will get tons of use and were preferred over having bigger bedrooms or a second floor laundry.  It was good to really think out what you want to do with your space and realize what space you will actually use and what space you can do without.

5.  Rectangular shape:  I found many 'modern' house plans with things like angled walls, small pop-out rooms, oddly-shaped counter tops and unique layouts.  While many of these were very different and visually appealing, they added up to lots of under-utilized space.  The designs that added up to the most space were rectangular or square, no/minimal ceiling vaults, minimal hallways, and no attached garage.

My conclusions were this:  Size doesn't matter.  It's how you use it.  If you plan out a smaller space well, it can feel like a much bigger space.
And as Steve Jobs said, "Design isn't just what it looks like. Its how it works"

Looking for inspiration and cool homes? Read these!  We used these to help figure out unique ways to save space and learn where our most valuable space is.  We don't have to go to the extremes these people did, but it offers a great perspective (and subsequently makes our home layout seem HUGE)!

1.  How to make 540 sq ft look awesome!
http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/4276209/list/Houzz-Tour--A-Family-of-4-Unwinds-in-540-Square-Feet
2.  Living with less:  how to get rid of the non-essential things in life- the story of a very wealthy man who's life stopped being about the material things.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/opinion/sunday/living-with-less-a-lot-less.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1381978689-S9P/M53C1rTFRJalu1FfUw
3.  Micro apartments: A solution originally intended to deal with high-density living spaces and high rent, this is a look at living with just the necessities.
PBS http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/july-dec13/microapartment_09-22.html


Ali and Braden

Demo Day!

When we bought the house and lot, we knew there would be some waste involved before getting to building a sustainable home.  After doing some reading, I discovered that in Canada it is estimated that 1/3 of our solid waste in landfills is from construction, demolition and renovation activities (Government construction tips).  The concept of home "deconstruction" is becoming more popular, and in places like BC, there are companies you can hire to do this for you start to finish.  Deconstruction is basically going through your house with a fine tooth comb and taking out every single item that can be re-used or recycled.  I read through this 93 page guide by the “Deconstruction Institute” in Florida and found it helpful for what is and isn’t possible to re-use.  I also found a great example of a person who did this here.  Essentially, you will find that there are all sorts of ways to decrease the amount of waste going to the dump- some of these are quite time-consuming projects (such as hardwood removal), and others are easy (appliance removal).  Braden and I were able to do most of the easy projects, but few of the more difficult ones due to the home's age and cost.

Reduce and Reuse

Braden and I were thrilled when we saw this old home on a huge lot.  The good part was the house was only 600 sq ft. This meant reduced material going to the dump in general compared to larger homes.  The bad part was that the home was built in 1920 and so much of the material had been extensively used and so were not salvageable.  If you buy a house that isn’t that old or is in good condition overall, it is feasible to sell the home and have it moved.  The huge advantage with that option is that nothing goes to waste, you save money by not having a demo fee and you may even make a little bit off the sale of the home.  The problem is that our home was in no structural condition to be moved.  I called places to see if they did deconstruction prior to demolition but this was not something any companies had heard of in Saskatoon.  Luckily, we have the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store.  They essentially have a deconstruction team!  The Re-Store came through our house and highlighted all the items they can take for re-use.  Things I thought wouldn’t be possible to take took, such as our 100 year old windows which sell at their store for people doing art projects.  Old air vents with fancy designs are hot ticket items for character homes too.  All appliances, light fixtures, coat racks, bathtubs, fences, counter tops, sinks, etc are potential items the Re-Store can take.  When their crew came, we ended up filling their truck full with items that will go straight to the Re-Store for sale and we get a tax receipt!  This was a perfect, no hassle solution which not only re-uses materials but helps out creating more affordable housing.

Recycle

Once the contents of the home have been removed for re-use, you’re left essentially with walls, baseboards, flooring, foundation and the mechanical/electrical parts of the home.  The bare bones of our home were really on their last legs and we found there was not much from here we could recycle.  So we asked a two questions: 1.  Could the item be salvaged without destroying it?  2.  Is there a demand for our salvaged item? Our hardwood floors were thin, short strips that were less than ½” thick and not candidates for salvage.  If you have hardwood flooring that is at least ½” thick and boards longer than 6’, this can be considered for re-use and there is demand for these.  After talking with the demolition crew we had coming in, we decided that given the poor structural integrity of the home, it would require essentially removing the roof and working top down to recover any good lumber from the home (which it turned out there was VERY little of).  We decided this was just not a feasible option for us but may be an option for others.  We opted not to attempt recycling shingles as we were not going to use shingles in our new home and the cost to remove them was prohibitive especially considering we didn’t know their age.  So you're probably wondering what is easily recycled?  Baseboards, copper pipes and all of the concrete in the home can be sent for recycling.  The Re-Store does not take care of these types of items, as they are quite time consuming to remove- so you have to do it yourself!

So what were the final numbers?

1 x cube van was filled with materials for re-use (fencing, appliances, fixtures, doors, windows, etc)

⅔ of the house that was demolished by weight was recycled (largely concrete)

⅓ of the house by weight was sent to the dump (plaster, knob/tube electrical, wooden structure, roof)

2 x 14’ trucks filled with old trees were sent for composting