Little did I know, but just down the road a bit in our nation's capital, the Solar Decathlon was going on.  What is that, you ask?  Yeah me too....
Turns out the SD is a yearly competition for Architecture and Engineering students, who are tasked with creating an 800 square foot house that runs on solar power, but is in concert with today's lifestyle.  The resulting entries were amazing!  

We took Lani to see the houses and tour through them, and we were delighted to discover how innovative and appealing the designs were.  Even though they were 'cozy' compared to our cape cod, they all had a wonderful feeling of spaciousness.  The use of space, light, and flow was really topnotch.  Most gave me the feeling of being on a large boat--everything was pared down, and very organized but still comfy and livable. 

The kitchen pictured here is from the Louisiana entry...it's quite a bit larger than mine and very functional.

Though we only got to tour 4 of the houses entered in the competition, we took the opportunity to gather information from all the houses.   I'm determined to incorporate as many of the systems and ideas we saw as possible in my current house, and hopefully in the near future succeed at my goal of living off the grid.