Wow - that was a lot to catch up on, but worth it! I think about self-sufficiency a lot, but don't follow through enough. So, I do garden and compost. We feed our dogs a raw food diet, that includes vegetables, so I've grown a lot for them. And in fact use some of the less desirable produce that might otherwise get thrown away in their diets. When we moved into this house we bought energy efficient washer and dryer. So not as small a foot print as some of you, but at least consuming a little less resources. We reuse plastic grocery bags for kitchen garbage and dog pooper picker uppers. We just finished making a large new bed in our yard (photos to come soon) via the lasagne method - everything recycled. We did buy some manure; but that's recycling too - right? Both our cars are paid for. One is a big truck, but it's 7 years old and we will keep it till it falls apart. Our other car is an '89 Volvo station wagon with 221k miles on it. We bought it this spring to replace the '90 Corolla I wrecked last fall. :( We plan on driving the wheels off of this as well. Our housing footprint is excessive, per Digit's research. We have 2,200 square feet. But it is a 30+ year old house, so that's "reusing" in a sense too. We don't buy all our clothes at the thrift store, but we do shop there often enough. The only time I shop at Walmart is when I received a gift certificate last year. I hate what they've done to local, independent retailers! I do always carry a small bottle of water around with me. But I will reuse the same bottle for weeks. We do have a gas lawnmower, but rake our leaves the old fashioned way. Also snow shoveling and tilling are done with manual labor. Finally, Skybird, I love the Lehman's site. I've looked at that before and it totally fascinates me. I think that I would do a lot more things "by hand", including preserving, but I'm just not organized enough (or energetic enough), to work full time and do that too! Thanks for starting this thread Digit. It's a lot of fun to see what everybody is doing. Also inspiring me to do more.

Loving everyone's updates and photos! It's especially fun getting progress updates from those who broke ground around the same time we did in September. To the rest of you, yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I promise! Sorry I don't post much. Our wood floors are in, most of the painting is done, cabinets and built ins are installed, all but one bathroom tiled. Next up is stair risers and treads, banisters, closet organizers and extra shelving, light fixtures, railing on our veranda and finishes to the front portico. Quartz countertops will be delivered in a couple weeks. I can't believe we're still on schedule for moving in by Memorial Day with all the weather setbacks we had this winter. The flurry of activity on finish details at our house is exciting and is definitely worth the necessary headaches and aggravation along the way. Michelle, we have a vacation home at Crystal Mountain, and I agree that the architectural style around the village is fabulous - so charming. We are building a custom home south of you along the lakeshore (with shed dormers and other Craftsman details... a la Crystal Mountain) with roughly 2800sf on main floor, 1000sf on second level and a fully finished walk out lower level for around $100sf not including lot, and I feel we chose quality materials. I certainly don't feel we skimped. My number may sound low per sf since I'm including the lower level in the calculation. Our goal was to downsize since we'll be empty nesters soon, but ... ummm that didn't happen. We expect lots of visitors during the summer months since, and we wanted to have room for them and all our future grandkiddos, who get their own bunk room on the second floor.

Wow....what an amazing list of people.... too many of them no longer with us or active here. It is nice to remember some of their names and their struggles that we shared. Thanks for the memories.

@rmaccrea We can actually already do something like a door opening for a specific delivery driver. IIRC some even inexpensive security systems and/or door locks have that feature. For me, the infrastructure adjustments are more vital to our personal spaces (e.g. in our homes) as well as to national interests in reducing infection spread. It seems as though even with new construction, the overall emphasis is on features and doodads like gas stove size and all that's required to make that happen (e.g. extra money spent on air quality and draft) rather than things like pipes and wires and whole-home air adjusters. Much as they're handy for sociability, features like peninsulas and islands where several people sit cheek-by-jowl in the kitchen breathing onto the food food prep area should become quite quickly a thing of the past. This is what I mean by an infrastructure feature that might be helpful: What might be useful is to have the exterior doors of the home set up so that a CERV kind of thing sanitizes the person right before they come in the door or in a foyer/enclosed porch/ante room. A kind of air wash. This would simply be a feature of a whole-home system. As you leave the home, you should be able to push a button that gives the home a "cleanser boost" while you're out. I can do this with my CERV right now (if there's an undue stink from the bathroom, I can boost the CERV for 30 seconds and it clears right out), but it would be handy to have it do a more thorough cleansing while I go get the groceries. The other thing I can see happening is more minimalism in internal architecture and an emphasis on construction materials for impervious surfaces. It would be way easier to keep the house clean.... The closed air in a bathroom will need to get re-thought. Bathrooms are small confined spaces that can get heavy usage. Right now, most people have fairly simple fans that are decades-old technology, and some people are putting in enclosed booths for the toilet. This seems like a recipe for germ-y air. These booths, while cozy, always seem to emanate someone else-s aroma (These were around when I was a child, so I've had a lot of experience!). IMO a toilet booth should not be built in a home where the homeowner's priority is to minimize contagion. So, I guess, @rmaccrea my most important message would be "What do prospective homeowners want to accomplish overall?" and not specifically in one spot or another. The whole house should come from a place of addressing their objectives, from the ground up, architecture, construction materials, overall philosophy. That's an infrastructure thing, and in a world where we need safer and cleaner interior spaces requires a conceptual shift, attitude, a different paradigm altogether.