what would be your dream home?

[Andy Hamilton]

I like to watch Grand Designs on Channel 4 from time to time. There are some very lucky people on it who get to build their dream homes.

If cash and time were not a problem then I have a few ideas of where I would like to live.

I would love to live in a castle a full working one with a portculis and drawbridge moat and all that. With a castle wall surrounding my land. The wall would be made from wood and straw bales. Inside the castle walls would be enough land to live off. Along with a self build project whereby many other people could build either there own castles or just simple houses.

When I look at many modern build, especially from the train they are simply boring it would be great to put a bit of fun back into new buildings. I also think that there are a lot of brown field sites in Britain that go to waste. There is a huge disused spot around the back of Temple meads station next to the canal, so the moat could be filled from there. The canal is full of fish so that would help for food.

Not sure if it is posible to build a sustainable castle but it would be great to give it a go.

What would be your dream housing project???

[Masco&Bongo]

I think my dream home project would be just to be able to buy a nice piece of land (with enough for a large garden for the pooch and a large vege patch) and be able to design my own house...

As many windows/much glass as possible to let light in
Proper "green" insulation (as opposed to the yellow fluff)
Properly plumbed in facilities to use grey water on garden
Lovely kitchen with plenty of room for cooking/baking in
Sadly, a built in music system so I could play my fav music anywhere without having to lug my little stereo from room to room (all computer controlled)

Oh yes, and it would have to be away from people!!

[Andy Hamilton]

how about built in speakers that activate when you walk in with an ipod? Invent an attachement for it that is infra red and plays through nearby speakers, I am sure it could be done. 40 000 songs on an ipod that would be enough would it not? - or pehaps a bluetooth system that did the same, could run off a nearby laptop that was charged by solar power.

many windows is a very good point! really makes a difference to a house.

[the.fee.fairy]

An Earthship! One with 3 bedrooms, and a beautiful inside reed bed 9for the greywater) and an outside one.

And...recycled bottle greenhouse...a big one with plenty of room for me to grow everything.

I'd need a good few acres...then i can have an orchard/fruit tree bit, another bit that i'd let run wild. I'd have a lake with some ducks and swans and fish and frogs, and a bit that was like a pets corner, with sheep, cows, pigs, hens and rabbits (i know i'd have to have them slaughtered at some point...couldn't do it myself!).

oooh...and a tipi in the garden for summer!

[Martin]

what's so daft is the fact that these are all achievable dreams - in the practical sense of being "doable". Unfortunately, the only people free to pursue dreams like these are the rich - land is inordinately artificially expensive - all it would take is a scheme to split up large unused farms into smaller units, to be used as self-sufficiency holdings - just insist that in exchange for a relatively low plot price, they MUST do an eco build, generate their own power etc....................
These SHOULDN'T just be dreams - these are people who would help the planet by their lifestyle - why the hell isn't the government encouraging it?

[Andy Hamilton]

Because you don't pay tax if you are selfsufficient - simple as that!

[Martin]

enough to make you spit - innit!

[Muddypause]

It does seem that progress can be made in some of the more enlightened Planning Authorities - that self build co-housing group in Bristol springs to mind. Other co-housing groups have had success in persuading the planners that they have a Good Idea, and to let them have land with Planning Permission at an affordable price. Also, I was talking to someone over the weekend, whose dad lives in Scotland (I think in Dumfries & Galloway), and apparently if you buy something like 10 acres or more of agricultural land up there, and plan to use it as a smallholding, you will get planning permission to build a house as a matter of policy, because they need to attract people there, where they have a dwindling population.

I agree about the insidious nature of property prices, but don't see how it could be otherwise in a capitalist, overcrowded island such as this, where property ownership has become the only way of securing your future tenancy. I blame Thatcher. And the Enclosures Act. And the land clearances.

[Martin]

ok, back to the thread title!
Somewhere within spitting distance of the coast (walkable) - perhaps with a small deserted bay where I can keep a fishing boat, and soak up the rays or leap into the briney....... a pleasant walk to a wooded valley, with a modest thatched strawbale house (rather like the one shown on Channel4) - all the old nonsense we fit - solar hot water panels, small wind turbines - perhaps a poo-power plant too, just for fun!
Probably an allotment sized kitchen garden, a herb garden.........(an old walled garden would be nice)
Perhaps a clifftop "shed" to sit in and watch the sea on a nippy winter's day, and a proper wooden khazi, with a similarly pleasant view - so you can sit and cogitate, and enjoy the country too!
Half a dozen assorted yurts and tipis for guests.......
No mains electricity, gas,drainage, phone, internet ........

[Dave]

I've thought about this on and off for years.

I'd want one central main room with a big table and an open plan kitchen to the back. A greenhouse/skylight in the roof to grow tomatoes and the like. Underfloor heating - a bit like Coed Hills in Wales if anyones been there? Then off the main room would be seperate appartments/rooms that are soundproofed from the main room so things can go on late into the night and people would still have their peace and quiet.

If we're dreaming here then perhaps a recording studio and film editing suite attached.

On the surrounding land all the food would be grown and volenteer wwoofers would come and help now and again. The waste water would run through a reed bed into a lake with ducks. Plenty of dogs and chickens running around the place. Oh and of course a cider apple orchard and hop plantation.

[Cheezy]

I've thought about this on and off for years.

I'd want one central main room with a big table and an open plan kitchen to the back. A greenhouse/skylight in the roof to grow tomatoes and the like. Underfloor heating - a bit like Coed Hills in Wales if anyones been there? Then off the main room would be seperate appartments/rooms that are soundproofed from the main room so things can go on late into the night and people would still have their peace and quiet.

If we're dreaming here then perhaps a recording studio and film editing suite attached.

On the surrounding land all the food would be grown and volenteer wwoofers would come and help now and again. The waste water would run through a reed bed into a lake with ducks. Plenty of dogs and chickens running around the place. Oh and of course a cider apple orchard and hop plantation.

Here Dave fancy moving in together, that's pretty close to the mark!.

To add further I love the modern barns made of green oak, so that would be the construction material. 3 other must haves:
Woodland for foraging, fuel and just cos I love woods
Stream/river, food and power
Wild flower meadow cos they're rare and beautiful
And close to the sea.

Not asking for much really!.

P.s I need cider apples as I have started up a North East Cider club at work. Any one got some trees that need scrumping let me know. We don't have many cider apple tree's in the NE for some reason!.

[Wombat]

I dunno, I kind of like the castle idea, or perhas and earth bermed house, partially underground, wonderful thermal mass.

Nev

[Stonehead]

A ramshackle house built of stone and logs, with an accretion of extensions that have developed over the years. There are three or four stone chimneys, one complete with smoke chamber for meat and fish; a vast, multi-roomed and stone-lined cellar, and a weird mix of rooms of different sizes - some with what appear to be unknown purposes.

The house is built high up a mountainside, looking south down a valley with a stream rising close by. The valley is largely filled with old-growth forest, occasionally dotted with clearings for my pigs, sheep and pair of mules. The only way in is via 4WD only track, and you get snowed in for up to two months of the year.

The outbuildings are equally odd, built of logs, stones, recycled corrugated iron, and anything else that came to hand. They house my hydro-electric set-up, battery bank, workshops, steam-powered sawmill (charcoal fired, see below) and brewery as well as housing animals and storing feed and bedding.

Dotted around the place are a methane generator, a charcoal retort (made of 44-gallon drums), an observatory, wood piles, a bread oven and a hot tub made of an old iron bath and heated with the waste heat from the bread oven.

There is a potting shed and a greenhouse for getting plants started, but no polytunnel because the weather is against it and they encourage you to work against nature rather than with it. (I don't mind getting a head start with my plants, but prefer to work and eat with the seasons).

And while the house appears cut off, I have several eccentric neighbours who live just over the other sides of the mountains and who, like me, are happy to walk over for a visit with a jug or two of cider in their pack and their guitar/violin/harmonica by their side.

There are a couple of old dogs sleeping on the verandah, feral children playing some game in the trees, and I've got my feet up after a hard day's work while the OH is just coming home from her "real" job...


- - -

I'm not too far off it - just need to move the mountains closer, put a stream in and plant a few trees!

[Wombat]

Sounds damn interesting Stoney..................put me down as one of the neighbours!

Nev

[wulf]

I'd love to have a house worked into the side of a hill - insulation for both heat and sound. It would be designed to be almost invisible to the untrained eye while still getting plenty of natural light at the front (so, a south facing hill if built in the Northern Hemisphere); deeper in would be rooms that could still be lit and aired by some natural arrangements (mirrors, etc) but where having a view wouldn't be a particular necessity (eg. the toilet or the recording studio).

Wulf