Pipe Dream

Building my own home is my pipe dream. I have had a crush on Kevin McCloud ever since Grand Designs started eighteen years ago, that's a lot of years of watching other people build their own houses. Though in fact mostly builders build them, and the people just swan around in hard hats. I don't want to swan around in a hard hat, I want to create a place to live by my own effort, I figure it will be the only way I will ever afford to do it. I have no money, but I have to start somewhere so I decided to start learning more systematically about eco design and house construction. Will Anderson's 'Diary of an Eco-Builder' started as a series of articles in The Independent, and it tells of the trials and tribulations of building a timber framed house on a tiny plot in Clapham. This is not what I have in mind but there is always plenty to learn from other's experiences and he gives lots of advice and links to suppliers and so on. He is a real purist and works very hard to build the most ecological home he can. I liked what he says at the end, because I very much agree:

"Very occasionally, when the accumulating evidence of global climate breakdown saps my optimism, I wonder what difference our radical eco-specifications will actually make. But I have no such doubts about acts and works of beauty. After all, if we cannot sustain a delight in life itself, whatever future we face, what is it we are fighting to preserve?" 

This book is also available as a PDF download. 
I have been doing much more reading here, The Mud Home. My parents used to live in a house made of cob, and it was four hundred years old, so it seems like a reliable material. All I need now is a plot of land ...