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Fait Accompli: Our First House...Finished

sjdehner, member

45 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.

Jamie & Shawn Dehner

Our free-standing Vermont Castings Encore woodstove sitting on a locally built and quarried hearth.

Jamie & Shawn Dehner

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).

Jamie & Shawn Dehner

We built our vanity and medicine box by hand.

Jamie & Shawn Dehner

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.

Jamie & Shawn Dehner

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...

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 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.
  

Building a first house from the ground up was most certainly a risk - and it was not always easy. However, in the end the experience gained, money saved and custom results made every day of work a great investment.

Would we do it again if we had the choice? You bet!

A sincere 'thank-you' to Fine Homebuilding.

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Ipe Deck with Prairie Style Railing

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Comments (4)

sjdehner writes: Thanks for your recent post! Building our own house was a wonderful experience and we're happy to answer any questions. Please feel free to email us anytime.

Best wishes with your own house too : )

Jamie & Shawn

twotoadstools@gmail.com
Posted: 11:17 am on May 16th

vwsunangel writes: We absolutely love your home. We just moved back from Germany and want to build a passive solar home in TN. I would love to ask you some more questions about your home.

Elizabeth
Posted: 11:31 pm on April 3rd

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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