Our £3,000 Hobbit house: The family home dug from a hillside and built with scraps scavenged from skips



Fed up with huge mortgage payments, Simon Dale decided to take matters into his own hands – literally.



Armed with only a chisel, a chainsaw and a hammer, the 32-year-old moved his family to a hillside in Wales and started digging.



The result is a wooden eco-home – constructed in four months and costing just £3,000 – which would look perfectly at ease alongside the Hobbit houses in The Lord Of The Rings.



Finished article: Simon Dale's family home which he built in four months for a cost of £3,000 Nestled: The moon rises on the house which is roofed with grass and blends in to its woodland surroundings

Cosy home: The house is heated by a wood burner and a solar panel provides power Mr Dale, who has no experience in carpentry or architecture, created his sustainable family home using scrap wood for floors, materials scavenged from skips and by diverting water from a nearby spring.

And while he was doing the building work, his wife Jasmine Saville and their two toddler children camped in the nearby countryside.

He said: ‘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 the 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.’



Sustainable: Simon Dale, who had no experience as a carpenter or architect when he started the project, used lime plaster and wood from the surrounding area

Woodland view: Mr Dale put the timber frame up first, then the roof, so his family could be sheltered while he carried out the rest of the work

Hobbit house: The finished article sits in the Welsh hillside and is almost hidden from view The family struck lucky searching for a site for their dream project. In return for looking after the area, the owner of the woods gave them their plot for free.

After digging into the hillside, Mr Dale – with the help of his father-in-law, a builder – first constructed the building’s timber frame.

The roof, which came next, has a layer of straw bales for insulation and is covered with sheets of plastic to make it waterproof.

Finally it is covered with a layer of earth, which ensures the house blends perfectly into its surroundings.

Woodland home: Simon Dale, with wife Jasmine Saville and their two children outside their home, just four months after starting work Once the outer shell was complete, the family made an interior wall from straw bales stacked on dry-stone walling and staked together with hazel sticks. Once the walls were up a sub-floor made from pallets was laid, with floorboards put down on top. Miss Saville, writing on her husband’s website, said: ‘Some past experience, lots of reading and self-belief gave us the courage of our conviction that we wanted to build our own home in natural surroundings. ‘For us, one choice led to another and each time we took the plunge events conspired to assist us in our mission. There were times of stress and exhaustion, but definitely no regrets and plenty of satisfaction.’ Window on the woods: The cosy sitting room looks out through the conservatory to the surrounding woodland From scratch: Simon Dale building his 'hobbit house'

Before and after: View from the unfinished window (left) and piles of stones on the house site



Foundations: The house takes shape with palettes laid as a sub floor, ready for floor boards

Helping hand: Simon Dale's son helps out gathering wood Family task: Simon Dale moved his family to Wales and started building

As well as being made from sustainable material the Hobbit house, as it is dubbed by locals, has lime plaster on its walls instead of cement, a compost toilet, a fridge cooled by air from beneath the foundations and solar panels for power.

Mr Dale said: ‘This sort of life is about living in harmony with both the natural world and ourselves, doing things simply and using appropriate levels of technology.’

Since building his house, Mr Dale is following the design to construct the first home in the Lammas Village, Wales’s first eco-development.

For more information on building low impact homes, visit www.simondale.net

Plans: Drawings for the hobbit house