Build Your Own Low-Impact Home

It's amazing how we have collectively forgotten such important skills as building our own shelter. As consumers we're taught that it is better to have someone else do it for us and pay a high price. Unfortunately in the US we have pesky building codes to abide by if we want to do it ourselves. As someone who has worked with earthen materials, I must say that there is no better feeling than squashing mud between your toes and smoothing it out with your hands. Check out www.kleiwerks.org for an organization committed to teaching natural building across the globe. They have an east and west coast hub. It's not difficult. Just takes a little know-how.

Yeah I love the idea! I might just start building my own hobbit home for next year...

This is great! Beautiful home!

Builders have told me that commonly, trees are felled for no other reason, when developing areas, than for full access of vehicles - very unnecessarily, since many roads through existing trees are more than enough.

These trees are left to rot in some places, and burned in others - not only wasting beautiful trees, luxurious shade, and homes for wildlife, but making global warming more intense in two ways - by warming since taking trees out lowers temperatures, and by taking out the measn to filter our air and create oxygen, as trees and plants do, but also by burning, making more lethal smoke).

It's so easy to hire someone to save this beautiful wood, and for only the cost of hauling, then using some wood as is or having a lumberer create boards from others, you can save otherwise wasted wood.

Let's all send a message to builders that we want trees left up!

Tell people you'd buy property from that you want land and houses with existing trees and plants!

Also, recycling furniture - buying second-hand - not only stops pumping money into the corporations that are destorying our world, but it keeps trees up!

Read this for more:

WoodFix

There are still certain areas of rural America where building codes are almost non-existant, but there might be sacrifices (no access to high speed internet or a local café). My husband built our 900 square foot octagon in rural KY about 17 years ago. We incorporated recycled Arco solar panels, rain water cisterns, and we did cut down trees and had a portable saw mill come  to create 2 x 4s, trim and such. 
Our new life of voluntary simplicity equated to mandatory poverty, so we also used some less desireable, non-sustainable materials like wafer board and vinyl siding because they were cheap and readily available. 
Bottomline -- it's still worthwhile to move forward on green home choices even if you can't create the perfect hobbit house. As time has gone on, we have added energy efficient windows, more insulation and repainted the inside using all natural Aglaia paint (aglaiapaint.com) made in Germany. It smelled like rosemary and lavender. We coated it with a light blue sheer beeswax glaze, this method is called lazure and used in lots of Waldorf schools. It's almost as if the walls are breathing, illuminated and filled with light. The color transformed the entire energy of our place.

There are lots of good examples in the world, though they often drown in the mainstream drivel. Check out this architect from Ireland - Mike Rice at http://holistichousplans.com. There is a huge difference in using natural materials rather than concrete, metals and plastic. Any stressed out urban human would probably not be calm enough to get it, but having lived in the back-country for a while, the feeling is palpable. The modern materials make us ill in the long run.

Renovations really do add value to the house. This may not seem sensible at first, a bit of money to make a house look good that you are about to shift out of. 

 

 

Austin Custom Home Builder