Building My Own Home

I want to build my own home.

I want to construct the walls, wire the electricity, do the plumbing. I want to build my home with my own two hands. Now, it may seem like a lofty goal, and even my own father has discouraged me from this endeavor. But what could be more rewarding than living in a home that I have built by myself, for myself?

My focus being sustainability, I have been researching sustainable building materials and homes. For example, tiny homes seem to have seen a boom in popularity over the past few decades, with many families innovating their living spaces to be multi-functional and earth-friendly. Alternatively, cob homes in the mid-West use cheap and readily available natural resources to create long-lasting structures that self-insulate. Pair that with my somewhat unhealthy obsession with Lord of the Rings, and you have this:

A beautiful cob cottage that gives off an elven feel. The cottage in the picture, a co-op based in Washington, is beautiful in an ethereal way, with lots of natural lights and a homey feel. Realistically, I recognize that I cannot feasibly create something huge, and have been sticking to smaller home designs.

What is cob?

Cob is a natural building material made from subsoil, water, fibrous organic material, and sometimes lime. The contents of subsoil naturally vary, and if it does not contain the right mixture it can be modified with sand or clay. There are cob structures still standing, thousands of years after their construction. The breathability and self-insulating nature of the material is very appealing to me. However, the lack of guidance around building codes for this material make it difficult, expensive, and sometimes impossible to build. I'm thinking I'll plan a smaller cob project to avoid bureaucracy while still getting some experience with the material for fun!

What I want

Me being the idealist that I am, I want to build my home to last. The structures popular in modern-day suburbia are weak to fire, flood, wind, you name it. My own experience in a crumbling home (I'm being dramatic, but having the stairs and roofing crumble within a week of each other is stressful) has drawn me towards brick, stone, and cob.

At the same time, I think I can compromise some structure if the cost is low enough. As long as my home is one-story, with a spacious kitchen, I think I'll be satisfied. The aesthetic, however, is something I dream of. Literally. I want my home to be a magical getaway -- for me and my family. In the next post, I'll be discussing the struggles of deciding where exactly I want to buy land and settle down.