Sunday, June 19, 2011

UR 45

Just so you can get an idea of things, here's an article on the home of one of our "neighbors".  And yes, the DART train does run directly behind our lot, although our house will be a little further away from the tracks than this one.

Well it's started

We're both sitting in the living room with laptops on our laps and a notebooks in our hands.  We're trying to decide if we can build the home we want at the Urban Reserve. http://www.urbanreserve.net/  The Urban Reserve was developed as the first neighborhood in Dallas specifically for modern single-family LEED certified homes.  It's a truly unique development near the DART rail as well right off the cottonwood trail which runs from North Dallas to White Rock Lake.
It's a dream to have the opportunity to build in this development, it's modern, architecturally significant and why not put our LEED accreditation to use?  Building a green home often has more upfront costs, although the reduced energy costs typically end up paying for themselves in less than 10 years.  Our biggest task will be picking and choosing which points we would like to try and achieve.  We currently think LEED Gold is the tier we would like to shoot for, but if we're able to go Platinum we will.

For now here's a couple of pictures of the property we're looking at, it's Urban 37.  It doesn't look like much now,
but just wait.

The straight on view.  As you can probably tell by the trees the yard drops down the hill where the grass ends here.

There are actually two lots shown here, we're the first lot so this house won't be our next door neighbor.

Love this sign, UR is still pretty new so tends to attract onlookers