Debra Moore

Good afternoon, Indiana permies!

We're in Fulton County, IN...an hour's drive west of Fort Wayne, an hour's drive southeast of South Bend, approx 100 miles north of Indy. We were blessed with a gift of 2 acres of land from my husband's parents; we bought a mobile home and planted our roots here 7 years ago. We have had some bountiful gardening seasons over the years, and this year we will complete our glass and concrete greenhouse! My hubby is tinkering with home-made wind generation, and we have a small solar array to power the greenhouse. I think we are finally ready to build our straw-bale home (hopefully this summer). We have 3 dogs and 3 cats, 4 grown children and 4 grand kids who keep us young at heart!! We are discussing livestock of some kind - he wants goats, I want chickens...maybe we will just concentrate on the house first and decide the animals later!

I joined this forum to learn from others, and to share what we have learned. I'm happy to be here, and hope to make some good friends!

Thank you for your replies

My husband and I have been saving to build a straw bale house. We are wondering if it is an absolute necessity to hire an architect to make blueprints of the home we have sketched out. We have planned a simple 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom with a very large kitchen; non-loadbearing with a hip roof. We have saved some money for our home project, and prefer to NOT have a mortgage. My concern is that hiring an architect will use a large portion of our savings, forcing us to wait even longer to begin our build while we save more to cover this cost. We have built an awesome greenhouse using only sketches, but we realize a home is a totally different build!