Holy geez good for you! Sorry to hear about your injury. Glad it hasn't held you back! Ours took so long to build, we were able to do it out-of-pocket, which ended up being a perk of the slow build. So yeah, rent-free and self sufficient! Yay for us both! 🥂

For us it was kind of an all-bases-covered retirement plan. But we severely underestimated how much work it was! 🤣. But totally worth it!

We've never seriously looked into metal shutters but have vascillated between some kind of curtains or cellular blinds. Still haven't decided because at the end of the day, the place works fine and we can hide behind our second greenhouse which has a mix of curtains and blinds.

You have to make so many choices along the way. We have fantasized about the insulated metal shutters too. Still debating on some kind of blind/curtain system for our window wall to preserve heat in the winter and block sun in summer. But our second greenhouse really helps to moderate temperatures.

We put in a barely used 10k BTU AC unit and run it on sunny days in the summer to help with temp and humidity. We also have a tiny 5k unit in the shed to keep our electrical room cool. My husband loves electricity, electronics and automation. He used to repair tube amps back in the day!

We're just the opposite. We have automated and electrified almost everything but with different levels of operability depending on power availability. But we also built in different times. Must allocate power for the tube amps for sure! I mean: priorities right? Love that you're loving your house!

You're right about that! But I have to say, we're pretty happy with our place. We do have to keep wood fires in the winter but another concern for us were the increasingly hot and humid summers. So we didn't insulate the floor and it acts as a giant heat sink. But slippers in winter are a must!

We run our big electrical appliances on sunny day diversion loads. We have 5500W solar so lots of headroom. Like today! Just waiting for the 20 gal tank to finish heating up for my shower. Playing Wii in the meantime. ☺️

So you have a lot of off-grid experience! We're getting there! You have nice long winter days in Colorado compared to us though and much more sun!

I think there was a hernia operation in the middle of our build too, we think caused by pulling 4 gauge wire for our solar 😲. We do have a tankless hot water heater but also a 2 gal electric in the kitchen and a 20 gal electric for sunny day showers. Trying to use the minimum fossil fuel possible

We've noticed we really don't get much sun Nov-Jan so we haven't done a sun oven. We do have our wood fired oven in winter and run a Caldobake electric oven in the greenhouse in summer. Where is your house located and how long have you lived in it?