A Home of Your Own

I think most people want a place of their own, a place they call home. There is something comforting about the thought that at the end of the day, you get to go home. Sanctuary. A place of rest and peace. All of your things are there. It may be nothing more than a comfortable couch and your cat but it's yours. It's you.

During my life, I've lived in a couple of homes that were mine. Even though they were old and needed lots of love and care, they were mine. My first house was a simple, craftsman style, cottage sort of place. It was by far my favorite. I put every extra dime I made, over 5 years, into it. The original owner was a lady that never married. She grew up in the house that her father built and eventually had to sell it because of heart trouble. Almost 60 years under one roof. That's pretty amazing. I was in military service at that time and ultimately had to sell it due to a transfer. Though I wanted to leave the duty station I was at, I did not want to leave my home. It had become part of who I was. The bright part of selling it though was that the buyer was a lady that had grown up in that neighborhood. She had moved away early in her life and had not lived in the area for more than 20 years. She really wanted that house and we did everything we could to make that happen for her. She wanted to go home and we understood that.

A lot of time has passed since then. I have often thought about the man that built my first house and why he built it the way he did. It would be easy to think that the design and plans he followed were the most expedient for him at the time, but I don't want to think that way. I believe that he had more in his heart and mind than an attitude of "just need to get it done". He was building a home for his family. Something I always wanted to do. That house was basically a conventional, stick built home. I like that just fine and may, some day, build one similar to it but as the years have passed I've become more interested in alternative building methods.

I started to learn about other ways of building from Mother Earth News. It has always been a pretty good source of back to the land kind of information. Some of their politics aside, most of the articles dealt with how to do things economically and in ways that were Earth friendly. One thing leads to another and pretty soon I had books dealing with all manner of ideas for personal shelter. I've seen house plans that call for old automobile tires, rammed earth, straw bales, underground and materials scrounged from the local dump. I've always liked logs. Especially the squared off type with dovetail corners. One summer, I went to a timber framing school in upstate NY for a week, followed by a week of how to build with cord wood. I really like that concept. The strength of a timber frame with cord wood walls as in-fill between the frame members. It's just basically masonry and firewood but can be quite beautiful if you use a little creativity in the process. The best thing about building with an alternative mindset is that in most all instances, the cost is very low by comparison to conventional building. Most people that I've known of in life that built this way, didn't have mortgages. They built as they could with the material they could acquire over time. In your mind you might think "how could anything alternative be as nice as what the common real estate market has to offer". I want to say that I have seen some of these places with my own eyes and most all are more beautiful and comforting than anything that money can buy.

Just because we are adults does not mean that we cannot dream and ultimately make our dreams a reality. I hope to build my own home someday. I don't know exactly what kind of house it will be or what method I'll use to build it. I just know that I want my own home again. A place that is mine. My sanctuary. My place of rest and comfort. Maybe in the end, someone else will live in it and think, "this was someones home".

Did you ever watch the Lord of the Rings movies that New Line produced? Bilbo's house at Bag End had a beautiful round door that was painted green and supported by the most ornate and wonderful hand wrought iron work. That's my kind of door.