Buckajo Bothy

When most people see our house (or pictures of our house) they comment on its diminutive size - "are you 4 really going to fit in there?" - or its "fairytale proportions" - I reckon you should render it in lollies and call it a gingerbread house". So I was pretty refreshed when a work colleague of mine saw a picture of our little strawbs and said "Hey! That looks just like a Scottish Bothy!". "A Scottish Bothy??" I exclaimed, and so ensued a whole lot of oohing and ahhing as we perused lots of online photos of these outrageously cute little houses.

It was one of those funny things: The day before the revelation of the bothies, Pearl's dad and I had been commenting on how our place kind of feels like you're in the mountains somewhere, especially when there's heaps of fog and/or rain rolling around obscuring the actually-quite-close-ness of Bega town. We talked a bit about Alpine chalets, but that wasn't quite right. Bothies, on the other hand - perfect! Especially when I learned they are also drinking houses!!

I love that a strawbale building can satisfy so many tastes, and be built in an almost infinite number of styles. If you read The Straw Bale House you'll get the Mexican vibe that people are fully into in the south west of the United States. If you look at some of the fancy-pants places Frank has built you'll get the "I have heaps of money and really like straight lines but still dig strawbale" vibe. Look on the internet and you'll see everything from wonky little hippie houses like this

to McMansion-esque contemporary numbers like this.

And if you look at our place... well... you'll get the DIY slightly wonky hippie Bothie cross. LOVE it.

 While all this diversity in the strawbale building world is cool, it's also kind of frustrating. So many crappily made, badly insulated, highly toxic UGLY houses are being built that are just going to perform terribly over the course of their life, sucking energy as their inhabitants try desperately to keep cool/warm through the seasons. People could still be building the same shape and style of ugly houses (I dunno - people seem to like them...) but out of strawbale, and they'd probably cost the same, be better for the earth, healthier and much more comfortable to live in. Makes sense to me, but apparently not to too many other people. Humans man. What is up with their nonsensical ways???