20% discount: Mention Montpelier Home Tour when booking/buying before 10/31
The five homes on the 2014 Montpelier Home Tour
On Saturday, October 11, Chris and I opened our home to members of the public who were taking The Montpelier Home Tour.
This very local fundraiser is spearheaded by The Montpelier Chamber Orchestra. The MCO invites four other organizations to participate. Each organization sends volunteers to staff each house on the tour so the homeowners needn’t be there. Then the five organizations share the funds raised. This year’s participating organizations were
- Montpelier Chamber Orchestra
- Montpelier Senior Activity Center
- Main Street Middle School Foreign Language Program
- Green Mountain Youth Symphony
- The Montpelier Montessori School
At our home at 485 Elm Street, Montpelier Senior Activity Center volunteers and staff were the docents for the many people coming and going. It was a nice connection, as I teach gentle yoga at MSAC. Chris and I were on hand most of the day and talked to dozens of friendly visitors. Our general contractor Malcolm Gray of Montpelier Construction was there, too.
In addition to inviting people to view our home, with its extensive remodeling to accommodate an independent business space for Massage Vermont, the building underwent a deep energy retrofit. The building is now 2/3 more efficient than it had been, according to blower-door tests. We’ve added
- Rigid and blown-in insulation from the foundation to the roof
- A new roof
- High-performance, passive-house-standard doors and windows
- A ground-source heat pump system to replace the old oil furnace for our heating and cooling needs
- A photovoltaic solar panel array
- A rain gutter collection system with a tank for watering the garden
- The Garden at 485 Elm, a community garden open to whoever wants to apply and commit to the work for feeding ourselves and each other, plus others in need through a gleaning partnership with Community Harvest of Central Vermont
- A plan whose implementation will begin in Spring 2015 to grow native plants and habitat and protect the riverbank from increased erosion, stormwater runoff, and invasives in partnership with Friends of the Winooski River, U.S. Fish & Wildlife, and the Nature Conservancy. We hosted a workshop on August 27 that you can watch on ORCA Media.
When I review this list I just typed, no wonder we’re excited and want to share it. These projects represent our investment in our own futures and in our community.
If you’re excited about this, too, contact us before Oct. 31, 2014 and mention the Montpelier Home Tour. You’ll get 20% discount off the next treatment you schedule for yourself (the appointment can occur after Oct. 31) or gift certificate you purchase (3-year expiration date). You’ll also get 20% off whatever number of treatments or gift certificates that you pre-pay for before Oct. 31, 2014.