I’m usually not the jealous type, but I honestly envy people live completely off the grid. I’m sure this kind of lifestyle comes with its own challenges, but it must be nice to never receive utility bills or have to worry about outages. Add to that the fact that this home is gorgeous and at one with the surrounding landscape in Big Sur, CA, and jealous is an understatement.
The Big Sur PreFab house, designed by Jennifer Siegel and Office of Mobile Design, is high up in hundreds of acres of California mountain wilderness and is designed to be connected to the landscape. The completely self-sufficient, 2-story home has 2150 sq. ft. of living space. That seems like adequate living space for a family, although the home does only have 2 bedrooms. Anyway, I’m not sure how practical it would be for a family to live way out in the wilderness.
The folded metal roofline is designed to enhance the productivity of the home’s 20 solar photovoltaic panels and two solar thermal panels. It also creates passive shading from the southern sun, which helps regulate the home’s temperature. The home is constructed with structural insulated panels (SIPs) via a manufacturing process that produced less material waste, a faster construction cycle and higher insulating properties, which all result in a lower total life-cycle cost of the home.
The first floor has a beautiful, open floor plan, with an emphasis on uniting the living, kitchen and dining spaces with the outdoor patio and garden. The second floor has airy 12 ft. ceilings and two bedrooms connected by a master bathroom and studio/office facing north. Other green finishes include LED lighting, penny cork flooring, reclaimed colored wood planking for the master bed’s headboard/closet wall, overstock handmade Heath Ceramic tile and a salvaged Clawfoot bathtub.
What do you think?
Could you live in a home like this waaay up in the mountains? Would ever build a prefab home?
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I’m Jennae Petersen, and I’m a lot of things. A mother, a graphic artist, a connosieur of beautiful interiors and a purveyor of all things design. Green Your Decor was borne of frustration in my attempts to find eco-friendly housewares that were also beautiful, and inspiration to do something to reduce my own carbon footprint and help others do the same in a beautiful way.
