I visited Danny to check on the progress of his house. (Previous posts: one, two.) Habitat for Humanity of Northern Virginia brought it nearly to completion with impressive speed, and now Danny is putting the finishing touches on it himself. It looks great, thanks in part to Danny’s many improvements to the plan, such as the back porch, below: The front room and front door: The kitchen: Overall, it’s coming together very well, thanks to Danny’s ability to deal with our mistakes. He reduced the excessive number of windows I had specified (which left barely any room for things like …

This is Danny: Danny’s house was flooded by several feet of water during Hurricane Katrina, and needed to be gutted. He then hired a company to raise his house onto a new foundation to bring the floor up to around 4 feet above the ground. However, during this process they found the rear 2/3 of the house to be structurally unsuitable for raising. The result is a house in which the front is still standing and simply needs refurbishing, while the rear is essentially being rebuilt from the ground up: I worked with Danny to come up with a new …