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Passive House Update – 6 months to move in

By Michelle Marine

on Jan 07, 2015, Updated Jul 18, 2020

13 Comments

Are you ready for a Passive House Update? We are 6 months to move in and I thought I’d give you a little tour of the inside and talk a bit more about what needs to happen so we can get out of this barn and start living in a house again. Because truth be told, we’re all getting a little sick of barn life.

Passive House Update – 6 months to move in

Passive House Exterior

For the most part, the outside of the house is finished. Obviously, the garage still needs to be clad. It’s getting coreten {weathering steel} on the outside and I’m excited to see how it will look when it’s finished. But I’m not in too big of a hurry, because priority is on finishing up the inside of the house so we can move in. We also still need to complete the breezeway which will connect the house to the garage. It’s going to be a see-through glass breezeway, as far as I know, and will be the only way you can enter the house from the front.

Passive House Interior

This is the first floor. You’re looking into my kitchen, which I’m very excited about because it’s huge and will have awesome appliances. The first floor will also include a large pantry, master bedroom and bath, mud area locker dropzone, sitting area, dining area, and powder room. {I have no idea why those office chairs are in my kitchen, by the way!}

I have to share this picture of the toilet interior frame with you. We’ll have Toto wall hung toilets throughout the house which I love because they are super easy to clean. We ordered the toilets and the interior frames from Amazon and they’ve been here for a while. Before we can drywall, electricity, plumbing, and insulation need to be finished. At least you can see by the toilet frames – progress is happening.

The focal point of the house is the faux curtain wall on the south that boasts three stories of windows and a modern metal and wood stairwell. We’ve hired a welder friend to build the cable tension railings and Dan is building the see-through stair treads from trees he milled in Missouri with my dad. The house has a modern design and will have a European feel when it’s done. The goal is clean, modern, functional, and clean. Did I say clean? That’s the goal. Horizontal surfaces have been eliminated wherever possible because I’ve found all they do is accumulate junk. Ultimately, I will need a house keeper to help with the clean part. A window washer at the very least. 😉

The second floor has three bedrooms, a large laundry room, a bathroom, and a loft area. We’ll also have a small laundry area in the master bath as well, so as we get old and infirm we can still live on one floor and won’t need to go up or down stairs for anything. A fun thing about the house is the bonus fourth floor that the kids will be able to access from secret ladders in their closets as well as from a Jefferson staircase that will go up from the loft – about where the ladder is that you can see in the picture.

The basement will include our guest quarters, a large rec room, the TV area, and a bar. My husband is very excited about features he has planned for his bar. And I am super excited about nice quarters for our guests. We will be open for business in the fall of 2015 so plan your trips now!

In the next few weeks, plumbing and electrical is supposed to be finished so we can blow in about 1300 bags {or something like that} of cellulose insulation in our 18″ thick walls. Then the drywallers will be through to finish the drywall. I’m excited to get to drywall because I have a hard time visualizing the way the house will look. Dry wall will help me a lot!

One of my goals for my blog in 2015 is to share monthly updates on the house progress until it’s finished – so be on the lookout for another update in February. Hopefully, I’ll have good news to report then!

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