Project Start

Hello all, and welcome to the first entry of the FeteHaus blog. My name is Bob and I'll be your tour guide, village idiot, and soothsayer on this little journey. The journey, you ask?

To (re)build a small, smart, family home for my parents that utilizes time-tested design/build principles, energy efficiency, recycled materials, and renewable energy.

Let's start at the beginning:

I've been in New Orleans for almost a decade. I came here in 2002 to matriculate at Tulane University...(skip a bit)...studied abroad...(skip a bit)...and then I said, "THAT'S MY QUICHE! VENGEANCE IS MINE!"...(skip a bit)...Hurricane Katrina came and I was displaced for a short time. I came back to rebuild, graduated, and have been involved with building things ever since.

In the Summer of 2008, I was offered a life-changing opportunity to intern at the Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Vermont. While there, I was immersed in a community of designers, builders, students, teachers, ruffians, drifters, musicians, and rebels. It was the perfect environment to do what the school does every day, which is teach people how to interact with their environment.

Once I got back from this internship, I was energized and eager, with the idea that I would shift my focus to the nascent solar industry in New Orleans. I received training from a local solar training program, got an interview with a solar company, and got a job installing PV and Hot Water. Life, it seemed, couldn't get any better.

That is, until reality set in. After a series of unfortunate events, a letter to the bosses, and employee discontent, my "position was eliminated." Kind of Draconian, no? Anyway, I can't say that I'm bitter (But I FEEL HULK RAGE, RAWWWRRRR, SMASH!), but if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now, which is my own thing. Luckily, I have a couple partners in this lil' excursion, and we're having a great time being our own bosses.

Finally, to the subject of the blog: My parents bought a house in New Orleans. For my entire life, my parents have labored, sacrificed, and saved in order to give my siblings and me the best that life has to offer. This project is a labor of love, in the hope that some measure of what they gave to me can be given back to them. But I don't have all the time in the world to do this, I have to be done by the end of April. Why? BECAUSE IT'S JAZZFEST TIME! and the house is located steps from the entrance to the festival.

That is why I decided to call the project "FeteHaus."

Fete: a French word meaning festival, celebration or party, which has passed into English as a label that may be given to certain events.

Haus: a German word meaning house, home, building or structure that is a dwelling or place for habitation by human beings. Plus, architects love the word "haus." (see Bauhaus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus)

Essentially, its a celebration house, a party house, something that can be a symbol of the celebration of our family and life in general. It seems to fit snugly with the cultural history of New Orleans as well as with the general joie de vivre.

I've already started, but the pictures you see are a testament to the condition of the place when it was bought: Termite ridden, rotten, falling over, etc. Time to make this $h!+ become ShiNOLA!