From Craftsman to Moco

In The beginning 12.29.06
My wife and I and our two children Evan(4) and Aidan(1) live in a wonderful 1916 craftsman house in N. St. Paul, Minnesota that we purchase ten years ago. We are only the second family of owners to call this wonderful little gem of a house home. However, After 10 years of renovations our families needs, my wife's business and our own personal desires have pushed us to do something new. Something different. Something that allows my wife and I (both of whom are creative professionals) to express our vision of what a home is and can be.


I've started this blog to allow our friends, families and anyone else who will listen to my ramblings a glimpse into the minds and experiences as two creative people take the journey to building their dream home. A modern contemporary home, designed to meet our wants and needs while considering the environmental impact it will have for our children and future generations.


The location 12.29.06
In the spring of 2005 we decided that our current 1800 sq. ft. home was busting at the seams with two small children and a growing business. With that said we know finding a new house would not be easy. We are both creative people with a vision in our head of what we could see ourselves living in, especially if we were to leave the wonderful house we have called home for the past 10 years. We both knew that if we were going to move we would have to build something special, something custom, something that we could allow our creative minds to impact the way we live and work on a daily basis — but where?

In may or June we thought we found a lot in old downtown Stillwater. It was a short distance from the area we live and a bit more of a drive for me for work (I'm in Downtown St. Paul) but Stillwater is a great little city and the lot seemed like a diamond in the rough. We made an offer the seller agreed but at the last minute he pulled the sale off the table. There were issues with the neighbors, the city and sites ability to be built upon and when it was all said and done we were glad that we didn't pursue it any further. On the Fourth of July, after a outing with Friends we drove down McKnight Rd. On our way home. I saw a sign for a lot for sale. The neighborhood looked nothing like what we would pick to live in. A dozen or so half million dollar McMansion homes all built sometime in the later 90's or early 2000's. On a lark we turned down the street and to our surprise the lot sat in a quiet, slightly wooded cul-de-sac but nothing like we had imagined. On the south side of the street was a wetlands, on the east side sat the only two house in the cul-de-sac and on the west side of the lot was another quarter acre wetlands. It seemed perfect, so we checked to see if there were any covenants on the development that would keep us from building the type of home we wanted. To our surprise there were none, so just three weeks later we signed papers and purchased the lot.