Speaking of reducing those energy bills…
David and I have tried hard to design the house for eco-friendliness. Although the house will be pretty conventional in form, we decided to:

• Angle the roof for the best access to capturing solar energy
• Reduce the amount of windows (and thereby heat) on the west-facing portion of the house
• Plan for as much rainwater capture as possible
• Reuse as many of the materials in the existing home as possible
• Create comfortable outdoor spaces instead of increasing indoor square footage
• Use environmentally-friendly materials whenever possible, like Marmoleum and IPE

The solar panel thing has had us stumped, it seems so expensive to break into this market when it seems like fuel cell technology is right around the corner, but it turns out that going solar little by little might not be as expensive as I had originally thought. The comments on that post are enlightening–just as many great ideas and experiences shared as in the post itself.