Welcome to the Sjodin Dream Home Blog!

We are this daring couple, ready to start our modern design, energy efficient, eco-friendly and healthy dream home. This is where we will detail as much of this process for you who are trying to do the same, or are just curious how this baby will turn out!

This is our first home. And it will be custom designed, and we're considering being our own builders. Sound ambitious? Yes, we are. But, that's us!

Below is a rough color sketch of our future modern house on our 3 acre Austin Hill Country lot! We haven't decided on the colors yet, but just to give you an idea, we picked the purple/yellow cream below. The catwalk will have horizontal cable and steel railings. Keep checking this profile for more updates!!!

Southwest 3-D


Northeast 3-D


Here is more information about it:
Our walls and roof will be made from SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels made of styrofoam sandwiched between OSB wood boards) that will cut energy costs to up to 75%!!! Our roof will appear "flat", but actually be a low slope roof supported by styrofoam blocks and lined with a thin membrane surrounded by parapet walls (walls that are higher than the roofline to hide the slope). To the left is a roof garden where we want to grow organic vegetables/fruits. There will be 2 balconies, a part/open-air garage port, chemical free 16'x40' swimming pool, geothermal heating and cooling, solar panels, rainwater collection, and might be plumbed for graywater use. We will not have a lawn, but keep the natural dry terrain, using a lot of regional plants in our landscaping (called xeriscaping). The exterior will use stucco, stone, and wood panels, hardwood trellises, horizontal cable-steel railings on the front catwalk and north balcony. There is a 2nd floor entrance from the catwalk and a 1st floor entrance by the pool and carport (hidden and to the right). We will use stained concrete with abundant fly ash in it on the bottom floor and very sustainable bamboo flooring at the top floor. All bathrooms only have shower stalls except for master bedroom that will have a custom-made Japanese style soaking tub/shower combination done with stone-slate looking tiles and stair to get into the tub. We are importing Swedish toilets with larger pipes that use less water and NEVER stop up! We will have energy efficient European Electrolux appliances and a Swedish washer/dryer because they are high-quality and worth their extra expense. To save money, we will also use IKEA kitchen components (drawers only, no cabinets to crawl down into) and will either have a custom concrete with recycled materials mixed inor quartz countertop. There is an inner balcony that overlooks the 2-story open living/dining room and kitchen and a spiral stairway that goes down to the 1st level. We tried to avoid walls, halls and also incorporated a lot of sliding doors for the guest bathroom and small bedroom upstairs. I'll post more fun stuff as it develops. Slated to start Summer 2007 and should hopefully be done SOON after!

And in addition, here's what the pool will kind of look like, accept I want the coping (edge around the pool) to be more straight line with no curves.

Anyway, we will be updating this blog even more frequently when the building breaks ground.