Green and Black's

Dream Home

Barbara L, CA

We decided to semi-retire and move to Northern California after my mom died. We took three trips looking for a house and found nothing. Finally, we saw “the house”. It was everything we had ever dreamed of: beautiful views of the lake and ½ acre of land for us to turn into a garden. It was new construction and more money than we wanted to pay so it was quite an indulgence but we decided to buy it anyway. We felt badly about buying new construction because of more trees cut and more cement covering Mother Earth. The pros of buying a newly constructed house were that all appliances were energy efficient and it came with double paned windows and high insulation ratings. But to further balance out this self-indulgent decision, we decided not to heat/cool the guest rooms (until guests arrive), heat the rest of the house with just fireplaces, and replace all lights with fluorescent bulbs. We’ve been here four months now and my heart still leaps every time I walk into this house. We took our honeymoon twenty years ago to Switzerland and the views from this house take me back there everyday.