When I started this blog we were planning a new house to be built alongside the old one that we live in now. I originally thought we would just remodel the old house, but it is as unique as it is uncomfortable and when I realized that it would have to be changed completely if we brought it up to the building code, I embraced the idea of new construction. We decided we would keep the old house as studio and workshop and so the new house would not need to be very large. It should harmonize with the old house and most importantly, respect and enhance it's setting. This was over three years ago. I imagined using the blog to document the construction process, but found from the very beginning that it was just too scary to talk about. I love this place so much that no decision can be taken lightly. Also, I feel like I might be pushing my luck, reaching too far beyond the already amazing circumstance of living here at all. Still, spending the foreseeable future in the old house as it is wasn't going to fly, so we took a deep breath and began. Now that the new house is almost done I can finally talk about it.
We placed it on a ridge of rock facing south to the semi-open meadow out front and the wooded ravine in back. It is V shaped, with two rectangles set at an angle to each other, each with part shed, part gable roofs. The shed roofs have clerestory windows to scoop as much sunlight as possible into the interiors. Also, they mirror the roofline of the old house, so that both structures are related. 
The new house looks big and complicated in the drawings, but in life it is fairly straightforward. It is about 2000 square feet.
Mike slipped on a rock at the beach this fall, smashing his glasses, chipping a tooth and completely obliterating my beautiful camera, so I am reaching back for old photos of the house and other things until I can take new ones again. These are the sketches the architect drew when we were in the initial planning stages.