I'm starting this blog in an attempt to keep all my links and research and brainstorming in one place. One of my major aims for the next 10 years is to build my own house, and hopefully do it mortgage free. Being a single parent relying on the government for my income this is not going to be easy!
Thankfully my plan doesn't involve a huge mansion, but rather a small cob cottage. The main building will have enough room for me to live there by myself when the children are grown and gone, with rooms that are part of the building but not integral to it for the bedrooms. The idea being that when they have left home those rooms can be closed off unless I have visitors.
I have chosen cob for a few reasons - environmentally it is great, using a mix of clay, straw and sand. It has great thermal mass so I will be able to use passive solar heating and it should stay a nice even temperature all year round. It is durable - there are many houses around the world that are hundreds of years old made of cob. It is flexible, the only limitations on design being your imagination. It is cheap - most of the things needed can be found on the building site. It is empowering. I can build myself a house that I own outright, from the foundations to the roof. I will be able to do all the upkeep on it myself too.
Great idea for a blog, and a very worthy goal, I'm aiming to do a similar thing myself, just at the stage of buying the land at the moment... exciting :)
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