My Journey

I have been living in my house for more than three weeks now and I have not reacted to anything. I can hardly believe it, but I did it! All of the research and material testing paid off. I am so relieved I don’t even care that the project ran over budget. I should be […]

My house passed its final inspection and the certificate of occupancy was issued on Monday! It will be several months before I move my furniture in, and it will be two more years before I have a finished house with a garage and a landscaped property, but the house is functional, and after six months

I now have a basic kitchen. The backsplash will come later, when I can afford Motawi tile. Many chemically sensitive people choose metal cabinets for their kitchens because they react to wood stains, preservatives, and paints. But I had solid wood painted cabinets in California, and now that zero-VOC paint is available I decided I

I had the hardest time getting people to understand what I wanted in the room pictured below. This entire room is a soapstone sauna chamber. I put my shower and bathtub in this room as well because it made sense to use the heat from the sauna to help keep the tub and shower areas

My house is coming to life! The septic system has been programmed and is running. The hydronic floor is turned on and is generating a silent, even heat. Most of the light fixtures have been installed, and the final coat of plaster is drying. When researching materials for the house I initially chose lime plaster

After drywall comes drywall mud, followed by paint. Drywall mud has not been a problem for me before but premixed versions can contain plasticizers, skin sensitizers, and more gypsum. Murco makes a hypoallergenic mud in powder form that has more natural ingredients. The project manager found a subcontractor willing to take the time needed to

Drywall photos are straightforward and boring but the decision to use drywall was complicated. Drywall is gypsum board and it is fabricated from both naturally occurring gypsum, which is a mineral, and synthetic gypsum, which is a power plant byproduct. It comes with new paper backing, recycled paper backing, or embedded fiberglass threads, and some

I have a front entry with house numbers, which I believe means the USPS will now deliver packages to my door. And I have a roof, which somewhat annoyingly shifts from medium grey to white as the sun moves across the yard. Inside I have metal studs with electrical connections and copper plumbing. Drywall is

There is still no roof and we had to order more battens, but my house is starting to look like a real house (Photos 1, 2 and 3). There are windows and doors, an insulated attic, and a ceiling inside. The base coat of clay plaster is drying and the interior walls are being framed

As a chemically sensitive person two of the biggest challenges to long term camping are doing my laundry and shampooing my hair. I can’t use laundromats because of the fragrance residue left from other people’s detergent and fabric softeners, and campground showers often reek of the previous user’s scented soaps and shampoos. I bought a