Still young enough to be vital but old enough that the prospect of another 30-year mortgage led us to return to an idea we'd had for a long time. We'd build one.
But that turns out to be really expensive too.
Then we read an article by Jasmine Saville and their "hobbit house". Lovely, really. And we started to wonder if we could. Of course neither of us has the sort of experience to work wood like that, but we both had a bit of housing handicraft in our pasts, so I started costing out the materials and the sweat equity and it seemed to promise something.
This blog? It's because we tell people this, and they are like, "Are you going to build it yourselves?" We began to realize that we really do live in a different age. We are all very specialized, and we started to realize that this specialization makes a thing like building shelter--a basic human impulse--seem remote, impossible to many people, especially people in higher social classes, but really, most everyone!
We started looking for property in earnest 6 months ago. We have been "looking" for years but now we were serious. In early Winter 2009 we purchased this in the Susquehanna Valley. Price was an issue, and we passed up a bunch of stuff and then this came our way:
Anyway, we'll be posting updates to this project because we realized that other people were really interested in how two college professors were going to build a modern house, with all the fixin's. The Hobbit House would be great, but we'll settle for more familiar architecture. We'll share details as we go along, and I hope to provide some tips (and warnings about mistakes!) as well.
But we also hope to open a discussion on the politics of our relationship with the Earth, craft, and sense of place. We'll also share things about the people who help us. First advice: take help. And it is a good idea to think the process through, figure out what you can't do, and spend a few bucks to get that expertise. We're learning it's a balancing act to pay for what you must and do all the rest you can.
