The dates at the top of each post are incorrect but Google Blogger doesn't allow the older posts to show first so the only way to get these in chronological order was to change the published dates on each post. However, we do give the original posting months at the beginning of each post's text section. Sorry for the confusion...thanks, Google!August, 2008: Almost two years prior, we decided that it was time to build a new house. 
We had lived in our current house for almost 18 years and raised two wonderful children, a son who is now grown up and living a successful life on his own and a daughter who will soon be graduating high school and heading to college.
Because we had learned so much about the "green" movement through interviews on my radio show, Maggie and I decided we wanted to build a green house, one that was energy efficient and environment friendly. Our efforts started with a search for an architect that knew something about green residential building. We could not find one in the Midlands of South Carolina, but we did in the Upstate. Bob Bourguignon of Sustainable Architecture in Moore, SC came highly recommended and after interviewing him, we decided to contract with him to design our new home.
After more than a year of working with him, we finally had our house plans. The next step was to find a builder. Of course, we could not find a builder in the Midlands either who knew much about green building. After interviewing several candidates, we finally decided on Jay Rogers, with Rogers Construction Engineering, mainly because of his professionalism and enthusiasm. He really wanted to build the first truly green, LEED certified house in the Midlands.
For those of you not familiar with LEED, it stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. LEED has been around for many years in commercial building but is brand new in residential building. LEED is administered by the US Green Building Council and awards points for various design elements which can result in Silver, Gold, or Platinum certification. Our home is going for Gold.
Here are a few pictures of our home as construction began.
We had lived in our current house for almost 18 years and raised two wonderful children, a son who is now grown up and living a successful life on his own and a daughter who will soon be graduating high school and heading to college.
Because we had learned so much about the "green" movement through interviews on my radio show, Maggie and I decided we wanted to build a green house, one that was energy efficient and environment friendly. Our efforts started with a search for an architect that knew something about green residential building. We could not find one in the Midlands of South Carolina, but we did in the Upstate. Bob Bourguignon of Sustainable Architecture in Moore, SC came highly recommended and after interviewing him, we decided to contract with him to design our new home.
After more than a year of working with him, we finally had our house plans. The next step was to find a builder. Of course, we could not find a builder in the Midlands either who knew much about green building. After interviewing several candidates, we finally decided on Jay Rogers, with Rogers Construction Engineering, mainly because of his professionalism and enthusiasm. He really wanted to build the first truly green, LEED certified house in the Midlands.
For those of you not familiar with LEED, it stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. LEED has been around for many years in commercial building but is brand new in residential building. LEED is administered by the US Green Building Council and awards points for various design elements which can result in Silver, Gold, or Platinum certification. Our home is going for Gold.
Here are a few pictures of our home as construction began.
