Can You Build Your Own House in 2024?

A 2-part series on creating your own shelter in these difficult times.1: Options these days in 2024 2: Building a home from scratch and paying living expenses when taking a year off to build.

I started building my first house 64 years ago. I’d had some minimal building experience, but no formal carpentry training. I leapt into the breach, so to speak, and just started.

I learned as I built.

It gave me a modus operandi I‘ve used ever since:

Start rolling and the momentum will carry you along. Get some good plans drawn up, and then start. Don’t try to plot everything out in advance. You’ll have to figure out how to proceed and you’ll steadily improve your skills. Get help when needed and you’ll learn as you go.

“Never look before you leap.”

(Well, not always, but you get the idea.)

My first building, a sod roof studio in Mill Valley, California

My second building on the same piece of land in Mill Valley, was an architecturally ambitious project that, in retrospect, I should never have attempted. These are 10-foot-high poured concrete walls; I split the shakes from a deadfall redwood in Mendocino County....

I was fascinated with building from the start and as the years progressed, I continued to build, and then started interviewing builders and photographing buildings in various parts of the world.

In the ‘60s and ‘70s*, there was a huge (and largely underground) movement of owner-building. In my small town and environs, there were more than 30 of us building our own homes. (Now there are none — not a one.)

The idea was to get a piece of land and create a home that was efficient, planet-friendly (using local and natural materials) and aesthetically pleasing.

There is something so artistically perfect (to me) about this little ‘70s house in the French Pyrenees. The proportions, the upturned eaves, the eyebrows over the windows and door. Built by Jeanne-Marie and based on the old stone barns of the region, but using wood rather than stone — architecture without an architect. (Our friend Paula once said to us that “France is the California of Europe.”)

Well now, things have changed big-time. Where my building permit was $200, today all the permits required here in Marin County are like $70,000. My gravity-fed septic system? $3,000 (and working perfectly). Now, due to collusion between regulators and engineers, new systems cost between $50-100,000. And etc.

Starting as the Shelter editor of The Whole Earth Catalog in the ‘60s, I ended up publishing 15 books on owner-designed, owner-built hands-on building, including everybody’s favorite, Shelter in 1973.

Point is: I’ve spent a shitload of time thinking about hand-built housing, and it’s from this experience that I’d like to offer some advice. Say to you 30-year-olds trying to get a roof overhead without getting indentured to a bank for 30 years, or paying exorbitant rents.

What would I do now if I were say, in my ‘30s?

Me in Big Sur in 1967, 32 years old

1. Consider the option of finding a run-down house and fixing it up: in a city — maybe in a neighborhood where they’ve just chased out the crack dealers. Or in a small town, or a run-down farmhouse in the country. Make sure the foundation is sound. Advantages: you’ll most likely already have electricity, water and sewage disposal.

Dan and Julie Perkins fixed up this 1200 sq. ft. farmhouse in Indiana, built in 1918 — “…little by little.” “One of our goals was to retain the original farmhouse feel.” Details in Small Homes: The Right Size

2. A second option would be to convert a single-family home into a duplex, halving costs.

Jay, Rachel, and Romy Nelson couldn’t afford a home in high-priced San Francisco, so they made a tenants-in-common agreement with a friend and subdivided the house into a duplex. This is legal in San Francisco and allows multiple parties to pool their income to qualify for a bank loan; this essentially cuts the cost of a house in half for each party. Details in Small Homes: The Right Size

3. Convert a school bus into a home; rent space to park it in an industrial part of town.

ePhelia Kwong and Julian Lafaille couldn’t afford land in the very expensive area around Whistler, BC, so they fixed up this bus and now park it on a farm in the area. What I love about school buses is the all-around windows, which orient you to the outside, giving you a feeling of spaciousness and avoiding the claustrophobia of a small space. From Tiny Homes on the Move

4. Live on the water.

   

   Harry Bryan built this shantyboat in the UK for about $75,000. It’s built of natural wood (no plywood): oak and cedar. From Tiny Homes on the Move

5. Go nomadic while you search for the right place to build. Travel around the country in your rolling home. (See our 2022 book Rolling Homes: Shelter on Wheels)

   

   Drawing in Rolling Homes,: Shelter on Wheels, © 2020 by Al Ortiz Jr, Instagram @alortizjr

6. Think outside the box. Convert warehouse space to living.

7. Build an ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit) in family or relatives’ back yard. A lot of cities/towns are relaxing requirements for ADUs in order to create “affordable housing.”

   

   Excellent book by Mike Litchfield

I’d say that anywhere within an hour or two of a great American city (SF, LA, NYC, Seattle, Austin, Chicago, etc.) it’s gonna be difficult, if not impossible, to build your own home, as did hundreds of thousands of us in the ‘60s.

“Affordable Housing” Is Practically an Oxymoron These Days

A lot of what’s happened is due to the fact that bureaucrats beget ever more bureaucracy, and these boys have layered on requirement after (often unreasonable ) requirement. The hoops you have to jump through and the fees are absurd. (It’s said that it takes at least a year to get a building permit in SFO.)

FACT: The farther you get away from the bureaucratic tentacles of cities, the easier and cheaper it is to build.

The last thing I’ll point out here is that I’ve never had a mortgage or paid rent for the last 54 years. Think about it.

To minimize your housing costs, the same principles are still relevant: use your own hands to create your own home. Your computer isn’t going to build it for you.

---

Here’s me talking about building in 2010. Sorry for poor picture quality, but the words are the relevance here:

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxgscKh3WVoh5xf3nzM6UPda6G_CDKSG3n?si=zhMdFyL4VL91LoY8

We could all use a little more analog in our lives.

*They say “The ‘60s happened in the ‘70s,” but that’s only partly true. The ‘60s happened in the ‘60s and the ‘70s.

In future posts, I’ll offer advice for building from scratch on a piece of land, and how I would finance (living) expenses when taking a year off to build.

I’m starting to have fun on Substack; the platform is really well thought out. Friendly. I’ve got a lot of stuff planned, still experimenting with best ways to present photos and words.