💾 Archived View for gemini.onedimension.net › thought › building-a-house.gmi captured on 2023-05-24 at 17:36:50. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I've always wanted to build my own house.
It seems like perhaps the most important thing a person can do with their hands and their mind. If you're the sort to try and build everything yourself[1], this is the the pinnacle. You might bake your own bread[2], grow your own food[3], generate your own electricity, build your own oven, but in the end the final and most essential piece of it all is building your own home.
The idea of having your own little cabin to yourself is something that's very much in vogue, despite being part of the cultural imagination since Thoreau (possibly before?). But the idea of building your own little cabin with your own hands[4] is a bit more interesting; people don't seem to imagine this is something they can actually do. It's too difficult, the professionals do that. It's too time consuming. Too expensive.
I'm unconvinced on all accounts. I think it's something that's possible to do by a novice, in a reasonable time frame, in a reasonable budget. The key, as I have learned from my own projects[5], is simplicity. What is the simplest, most essential structure that fulfills all our needs, physical and spiritual?
An open question.
Last updated Sat Aug 13 2022 in Berkeley, CA
1: /thought/build-it-yourself.gmi
4: /thought/were-built-to-work.gmi
5: /thought/twelve-websites.gmi