Prefabulous + Almost Off the Grid

We were contacted by Sheri Koones in 2011 about the possibility of including our home in her new book.  After several discussions, emails, and photo sharing, she scheduled a visit and photo shoot at our home in May, 2011.  Sheri, her photographer Philip Jenson, and her son as her assistant, spent about four hours staging and taking pictures of our house.  To be honest, I dreaded the "staging" part and imagined having to remove every object from my home to make it look like many homes in books and magazines - cold, stark, and empty places where children and pets are forbidden (except for the photo-shoot when they stick the kid or dog into the middle of the shot to make it look "natural").  This was not the case with our house.  We tidied up, removed some clutter, but basically, what you see in the photos is mostly representative of our house.  The book, published by Abrams, came out last Fall, 2012 and we are so proud to be included in it.  It's not only a gorgeous book to place on your coffee table, but it contains a ton of good information and resources.  It's a perfect primer for people looking for information on the many different technologies and strategies that can be used to build an energy efficient home.