Ah, the 4th of July, when we finally threw off the chains of our English oppressors and gained the freedom to do all sorts of things, like become stupid college students [1] and set off really loud fireworks all night long in residential neighborhoods. What I wouldn’t give for a couple of Redcoats with bayonets [2] to patrol my block for a few hours.

Anyway. A friend of mine who’s also an RRR [2] reader was making fun of my previous post [2] at a pre-Fourth party the other night. “It’s like, ‘Nothing’s happening, so I’m going to write about nothing, blah blah blah.’” (Yes, she’s a very mean and horrible person. Hi Kim!) But it’s true: Nothing is happening. Well, a little something. The architect turned in our studio plans [2] for approval yesterday; the city [3] told him they should be approved and ready for permits by… July 20th. Two weeks from now, and about a week before I go on a month’s vacation. So, uh, whattaya you guys wanna talk about?

One thing that’s on my mind as we wait for the permits is whether all this is worth it. My wife and I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Boulder [4]. (When the students start bombing our place with bottle rockets, we tend to hate it. A lot.) So we might move soon – like, within the next couple of years. I want the new studio: I need a home office, which is currently in our bedroom – not a good separation of home and work, let me tell you. I want the studio to be green – not because I have so-called green guilt [5] (a notion which, frankly, is total BS), but because it makes a lot more sense in my situation than typical or “normal” construction techniques. The place will be warmer in winter, cooler in summer, more energy efficient, and thus cheaper to own – the list is long.

But is it worth it to go through 20 percent more rigamorole just for a green building? If we were to rebuild with standard-issue construction, I’d probably be done already. I might not have even needed to tear it down in the first place – I just would have sprayed a gallon of pesticides over the thing every month and called it good. If we move along and sell this house, will the real estate market [6] look at the studio and say, “Straw bale? Oh, that’s totally worth another $50,000!” Is the next guy going to care that I reused all the beams? Or that the walls are R-42? Or is just going to want to know if the stupid college kids are going to set his new house on fire?