My Future Home?

A little dream of mine is to build my own house out of an ancient building material called cob. Cob is a mixture of clay sub soil, sand, and straw. This technique of building is especially popular in certain areas of Europe but has made it's way into the United States and Canada in recent years. Similar forms of building are seen in just about every culture. After much research, I'm very much considering this option. I don't like the idea of paying for a house for the span of my entire life when I could just build my own house. A lot of times, these type of houses are made using recycled lumber and other materials to cut the costs. Many people have made very livable homes for only a fraction of the price of a regular home.

Here, I created a model from a floor plan I drew a while back. I've been working on this project over the course of the winter and it's finally finished! Obviously it's not a perfect representation (especially where the roof is concerned), but it gives me a nice visualization none the less.

First, I formed ropes out of clay and laid out the forms of each room. Then I created walls using popsicle sticks and finally covered the whole thing in clay. It's painted with acrylic paint. The person I sculpted represents a six foot tall person to scale with the house. The rocks were collected from a river near where I live