Katherine sent this link, which I thought was funny/interesting enough to repost on [d]online. I was a late admirer of J. R. R. Tolkien. In 4th or 5th grade, Mike Fishbein read The Hobbitt. All I knew was that he could draw a much better dragon than I could (probably still can). So my 9-year-old mind figured that it must have to do with some secrets he’d gleaned from the Tolkien book. Not understanding most of the words or messages in The Hobbitt, I gave up after three pages.

So I was reluctant, 15 years later, to begin an admiration for Peter Jackson’s triptych of the sequel to the book that bested my grade school reading capacity. And while I still haven’t picked up another Tolkien book, I was hooked by the Middle Earth that Jackson’s scene designers created for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Apparently, so was Simon. And who would’ve thought Bilbo was carbon neutral?

You are looking at pictures of a house I built for our family in Wales. It was built by myself and my father in law with help from passers by and visiting friends. 4 months after starting we were moved in and cosy. I estimate 1000-1500 man hours and £3000 put in to this point. Not really so much in house buying terms (roughly £60/sq m excluding labour).

The house was built with maximum regard for the environment and by reciprocation gives us a unique opportunity to live close to nature. Being your own (have a go) architect is a lot of fun and allows you to create and enjoy something which is part of yourself and the land rather than, at worst, a mass produced box designed for maximum profit and convenience of the construction industry. Building from natural materials does away with producers profits and the cocktail of carcinogenic poisons that fill most modern buildings.