A House of Straw

The Three Little Pigs was written by someone with investments in the construction business, I am sure.  The first two little pigs--non-conformists--are rewarded by their out-of-the-box thinking by becoming lunch and dinner for the Big Bad Wolf!  On the other hand, the prudent third pig builds a brick fortress that no manner of huffing or puffing can blow down.  The message is clear: brick or bust.

Some of you know we had plans (dreams) of building our own house here.  We bought the land and paid to have the plans drawn up, but what the fairy tale fails to mention is that the third little pig was apparently loaded; building with brick is not an endeavor for those of us with limited economic means.  In my case, the reality is we don't have the money to do the building.

In the past few weeks we've been throwing around all kinds of options: staying where we are, after all; buying a flat in town; putting a mobile home on the parcel...  Among the many options we're considering, it occurred to us that we could build the house ourselves and save some money.  The other day on television we saw that in many places around Spain people are building their own homes with mud and straw--adobe.  I got in touch with a man we met this summer who has built several houses using different alternative techniques in hopes that he could help us build ours or at least give me a lead on someone in the business who could.

I got a response nearly immediately, but unfortunately he tells me that building with mud and straw isn't kosher according to the School of Architects.  That is to say, that unless we were building out in the middle of nowhere where nobody cares what kind of house you build and who oversees it, we can't build our house of straw.  To get a building permit to build in town, you need to have the house plans approved by the School of Architects.  So there you have it: no huffing or puffing required to demolish our dream.

...And so it's back to square one.  We'll see where all this leads.