The adventure begins!
A quick back story…we currently live in College Park, MD. We love our house, mostly love the neighborhood, but several things are pulling us to move on.
- Schools – our kids elementary school, Hollywood Elementary, is wonderful…and we will miss it a lot. But as our oldest, Sophia, will be moving on to 6th grade middle school…we’re not so excited! The 3 rating on great schools along with reviews of VIOLENCE at the school – we decided that won’t be happening!
- We now have FIVE kids and our humble 1600sf house is being pushed to it’s limits. We all share the 1 bathroom upstairs (there is a 2nd full bath downstairs – but not used as a shower on a regular basis), the small kids rooms and small closets are a constant battle, and no open space for toys/playing – so we’re constantly stepping on sharp legos sprawled through the hall in the middle of the night…to name a few issues.
- My mentor and great friend (as well as baseball coach growing up) will be the general contractor on the project and lives “around the corner” from the lot we purchased.
- And one of the biggest reasons….I recently passed all of my exams and am “officially” an architect – and what architect doesn’t want to design and build their own house! I know it’s been my goal for as long as I can remember. Drawing floor plans and elevation sketches in middle school notebooks.
I’m sure there are several additional reasons…we will definitely miss College Park and all of the friends and fun things to do…but we feel great about this upcoming adventure!
“CASE STUDY HOUSE #01” – the title hopefully reflects the intent of this project – it’s the perfect way to TEST and APPLY the things we’ve learned in school/practice/life. And also hopeful that this is the 1st of several more to come, whether built for ourselves or others.
We will try and use this as a journal throughout the process. Â Report on the good and bad parts of the project and use it to remind us how to improve on the next one!