green: eco home

click on the photo for the original source.

I loved reading about this home, so I'm sharing it with you. Check out the cool supplies this guy uses to build homes with. I'm in awe.

From Interior Design

Bakker's commitment to recycled or recyclable materials gets a full workout inside, too. Since interior partitions aren't load-bearing, he could construct them with structurally flawed concrete blocks found abandoned in a field, where they'd acquired a patina of weathering and stains. Only the drywall fails to meet his exacting eco standards. "Magnesium-oxide board wasn't manufactured yet locally," he explains. Which is why the ceiling and floor sport expensive Australian plywood rather than a much cheaper but dubiously sourced Chinese import. Cabinetry, shelving, beds, and the front door are made of heavy-duty plywood once used to crate mining equipment. "It's so beautiful, with branding marks and stenciled numbers all over it," he says. He adds that many of the house's plywood surfaces were sealed with store-bought soap, "an old technique from Scandinavia."

Reading about this really makes me wonder what it takes to accomplish something like this. Money, obviously. But initiative, land, know-how, connections, influence, skills of persuasion, what else? Is it possible for a "normal" person to build a home out of reclaimed materials, or do you need to be a Big Name?