Airing Their Green Laundry in Public

Jeremy Bell and Jessica Lax are just like your average young married couple, but with about ten-times the ambition. What started out as a simple plan of buying a new house in which to raise a family has ballooned into a large-scale building project—and they want you along for the whole thing by following their magnificent blog.

After doing a quick Google search, Bell was surprised to learn that there hasn’t really been a website dedicated to chronicling the building of a new home. "I love the idea of being able to document it," said Bell. “I love the idea of putting it all on paper and then getting it online so we’re there for the entire process."

Right now they are still in the planning stages, but the demolition of his post-war Cedarvale bungalow—their home for the past five years—is fast approaching. After that everything starts full blast. Even though stories about demolition are cool, we’re not about to downplay the planning stage. It’s really neat to follow Jeremy and Jessica (Alliterated couple! Please don’t name your kid Jason or Jennifer!) through finding the best green solutions to making their home as environmentally friendly as possible—within reason.

That’s what nice about it: everything green that they are doing you can do too (except for the whole building a new house thing, we realize that’s not for everybody). From finding the right windows, to applying for the government grant to environmentally friendly homeowners (who knew that building a new home your old lot and foundation constituted a renovation?), every choice they make is explained in layperson’s terms.

"I really want the website to stand as a guide for people, get people a realistic view—or snapshot—of what we’re doing," said Bell. When the whole thing is done, selected posts and pictures will all be published in a snazzy coffee-table book. And also expect the old Torontoist favourite: a timelapse video of the entire ten-month operation.

Image courtesy of Jeremy Bell and Jessica Lax.