So, the garden is started. Still lots to plant but ’tis started at least.

Quick little video to share. We’d started on a teardrop but moved on to a Gypsy Vardo, this is somewhat a pregnant teardrop. Still cool to see how simple they went with it, and I mean the bare minimum structurally too!

Posted from Naperville, Illinois, United States.

This is the neatest little garden cabin… Best part, I can see applying a lot of these little tricks as additions to our house plan.

An Earthship is a radically sustainable home made of recycled materials.

* Electricity is from the sun with solar panels and wind with wind modules.
* Water is caught on the roof from rain and snow melt.
* Sewage is treated on site in interior and external botanical planters.
* Heating and Cooling is from the sun and the earth.
* Food is grown inside and outside.

Earthships are constructed with recycled materials and perform as expected in any part of the world, in any climate and still provide you with what you need to survive.

Earthship Biotecture is a global company, based on 40 years of research and development by Michael Reynolds, principal architect of Earthship Biotecture.

This home has some really neat features, some of which we may be able to apply to the house plan to add some additional savings.

Designing and building a home in the high desert is challenging enough thanks to extreme temperature shifts, but all the more so for those who do not want to simply shut themselves off from their surroundings and live in an air-conditioned box – like the engaged clients who hired architect Lloyd Russell to design their sustainable desert residence.

A humble rusted metal canopy covers the house itself, providing essential shade to the entire structure as well as all exterior porches and patios. Combined with full-height sliding walls and windows, this plan enables the home to be cooled passively but also lends it a rustic aesthetic shell that blends it with the surrounding landscape and historical desert industrial and farm buildings.

The home is populated with all kinds of quirky recycled materials and fixtures, a strange blend of modern and traditional in its look as well as its structure and other physical components. The net effect is a home that looks comfortable and traditional but is also modern and functional, combining conventional aesthetics with green strategies to create an inexpensive an eco-friendly hybrid form.

Straw Bale Construction Portal
Nice site, great info!

]]> http://www.ourmissourilife.com/2010/02/02/straw-bale-construction-portal/feed/ 0 http://www.ourmissourilife.com/2009/12/01/avoid-rushing-into-home-ownership-for-tax-credits/ http://www.ourmissourilife.com/2009/12/01/avoid-rushing-into-home-ownership-for-tax-credits/#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:52:40 +0000 Rick Munday http://www.ourmissourilife.com/?p=304

(from Lifehacker by Kevin Purdy)

An $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers has been extended to cover contracts signed by April 30, 2010. A real estate professor writes that those seemingly free dollars might not save you any actual cash, however.

Joseph Gyourko, chairman of the real estate department at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, runs the numbers on five myths of home ownership, including the standard “buying is always better than renting” argument that we’ve previously posted about (and considered as a calculator). About the tax credit that’s regularly in the headlines, Gyourko suggests the savings may vanish quickly if you’re buying in an area with a moderately competitive market:

Just because you got an $8,000 tax credit toward the purchase of a home doesn’t mean that you actually saved $8,000. In areas where there is strong demand for housing and the supply of new housing is limited — including the Washington metro region — tax credits may result in the bidding up of home prices. In other words, the program has probably led to higher prices in these areas than we would be seeing without it. This means that some of the benefit of the tax credit is being passed on from homebuyers to home sellers.

Has the new buyer credit made you think twice about buying a home? Do you still consider home ownership a solid, if not exactly profitable, investment? Trade your takes in the comments.
5 myths about homeownership[WashingtonPost.com]

This has been an argument I’ve long maintained and has been backed up by friends in the financial industry. In particular with the market now, it makes absolutely no sense to buy a home. As you read above (following the links as well) you truly are better off renting or investing that money as opposed to buying a home. True enough, you don’t get the peace and quiet necessarily (a huge issue for me). But searching around may yield a rental that provides it.

It makes sense to downsize, lower your expectations of what a home “IS” and build a smaller home that you can actually afford.

Doing most of the construction (heavy lifting, stacking of blocks, driving nails and etc) you earn the so called “sweat equity” and lower your costs.

By downsizing your home (you DO NOT need a 3000 square foot home!), you’ve already lowered the initial cost.

By building with simpler materials and simpler methods you’ve lowered the cost of materials. You don’t really need that 10′ plastered wall with the arched ceiling…

Reading a book or two (or more) can show you the basic skills you need to build your home. Start using the books to learn the basics of household maintenance… Hiring out help is easy enough to do, and cheap enough when you don’t hire the first “Joe” you find.

With even the most basic skills, a good set of plans, and knowledgeable help you can build your own home.

Our current home plan calls for the following work to be hired out:

Slab – Concrete work.
Walls – mason to set initial course, mid-course set true and parge the walls when finished.
Roof – only needs to be hired out if we do standing seam metal roof.
Electrical – final connections only.
Plumbing – final connections only. Includes any propane lines that are run.

As you can see, it’s not a whole lot of work to be hired out. I chose a method of construction I know I can do. Concrete block – every kid in this country can stack blocks. I will only need a Mason 3 times for the entire home. Just that alone has reduced the cost of home construction by roughly 40%.

This design by Joseph Sandy brings a lot of Wright’s work into it.

Beautiful design, flow and simplicity. I can’t wait to see the finished plan! This has really gotten me thinking!

At just under 350 sq. ft. this design is compact, yet still provides all of the necessary spaces. The kitchen is not small for a 350 sq. ft. house, and the table can easily be used for extra space when cooking. The half-booth dining table provides space for up to seven people. A queen size bed fits in the sleeping nook. There is a 25 sq. ft. closet for clothing and storage needs. The 5 ft. desk is a good place for studying and computer use. The living area has an L shaped couch that provides plenty of comfortable seating.

http://mb-soft.com/solar/saving.html

Imagine if you happened to live directly over Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. Down below you, on a 95ºF hot summer day, there was all kinds of 56ºF air down in the cave! So imagine that you bored two large holes down from your house into the ceiling of the cave. You would then be able to use a standard furnace blower to draw air up one, to push it into the house through your existing heating/air conditioning ducts and registers. The second duct would be to allow your hot house air to go back down into the cave to replace the cool air you removed. Presto! You have awesome air conditioning!

Don’t know how I stumbled across these two links but they made for a good read. Thinking about it, I’ve seen quite a few people living like this over the years so it was interesting to see what goes through their minds on a daily basis.

http://www.wikihow.com/Live-in-Your-Car

http://carliving.info/

Natural Building Series

http://www.flickr.com/photos/robbibaba/sets/72157594275164829/