Dear Readers, 

The mission and purpose of this blog is to educate ourselves and others on sustainable home environments and practices as we research for, develop, and build our own small home. 

In other words, through these public journals, you can read and watch us bathe in our own idealisms, come to some daunting realities, become slightly melancholy… then begin a stream of questions and a torrent of ideas as we tackle one challenge after another. 

The idea itself is ideal~ we want to create our first home, the one in which we begin to expand our own small family, to be holistically sustainable. We want this home to…

• meet Passive House standards.
• be small, yet utilize space efficiently enough that a small family could be raised under its roof.
• be made almost entirely out of healthy, sustainable materials.
• have plenty of natural light and integrate into its natural surroundings.
• have no literal connection to the land it is placed on except that of a simple foundation (we like to summarize it as ‘a small footprint home’).
• Rainwater collection, no well
• Composting system, no sewage tank
• Net Zero ~ own power generation and battery, possibility of off-grid
• Be rooted and solid enough to withstand forms of natural disasters

Overall, a home built and maintained sustainably is a home that provides healthy living. 

This home…or, ‘The Seed,’ as we so lovingly christened it as… will likely not meet all of our ideals. But it is a step; it is a seed with the potential to grow if its life, the idea, is given a chance. 

If our idealistic ideas do prove to be achievable, we have a pipe dream that such homes could be available to the masses through prefabrication… and we are keeping that additional fanciful idea in mind as we build The Seed. 

This blog is also admittedly aiming to serve as a way to fund The Seed (because, with so many ideals, it is going to be ‘un-ideally’ expensive). However, that aim is only secondary to its primary function as a platform for learning. We want our endeavors to create a dialogue~ maybe you can learn something from us, and us from you. If you see us ‘struggle-busting’, and have an idea, please feel free to share. If you are wondering “why in the world are they doing that, that way?” feel free to ask. Sometimes self-reflection and self-explanation is the best way to learn. We want our home to be holistically sustainable for our family, for our immediate community, and thereby for the environment as a whole… and that can start now with commonly curious people. 

Who we are: 

William and Shelby~ married in October, 2018, we are a couple who share a sense of adventure and a love of learning. We are eager to begin this insane endeavor, and we are just as eager to share it with you. However, if this blog and eventual YouTube channel result in being solely a chronicle of our ridiculous feats and of our attempts to move society towards sustainable living, and our grandchildren are thereby either amused or inspired, then this was a success. Although, if you learn something too, then that makes us smile all the more.

Sincerely,

Shelby Aldrich