In the next few posts I’m going to focus on my house. It is a simple but modern eco-house that I designed and built with my own hands, and much help from my family.
I was determined that we didn’t go into debt to build this house because I felt it would significantly impact the way I work and volunteer, bring unnecessary stress into our quite relaxed way of life, and affect my ability to be fully present for our children as they were growing up.
I thought I’d start by sharing an article I wrote about a year ago for PIP Magazine Issue 2 (the Australian Permaculture Magazine). It introduces our house and garden, and the features we designed in:
- building an affordable and comfortable eco-house
- being a demonstration and educational space
- staying debt-free
- modular and flexible subtropical design – a pod for the children, an office pod, a guest pod and the main pod
- using simple methods so first-time owner-builders can succeed
- having a low ecological footprint
- using predominantly local, reclaimed and sustainable timbers
- producing all our own power
- heating our water by the sun
- catching breezes in summer and keeping warm in winter
- collecting all our water
- processing all our grey water
- processing all our humanure
- processing all food and biodegradable wastes on-site
- being surrounded by beautiful permaculture gardens
- creating an edible fun playground for the children
- connecting with the natural environment
- enhancing the habitat for native wildlife
- enjoying the process!
Here’s first page of the article with link to the full version on my website.
 |
| http://ethosfoundation.org/resource/article-morags-eco-home-and-garden/ |