I'm Charlie. This is my house that I built for me and my partner
and our new baby. We've been living in a caravan
for about 4 years and we got sick and tired of the cold winters and a damp caravan. And then Lammas turned up very close to us. We started seeing
what they were doing, building with natural materials, low cost housing, very well insulated. It seemed to make sense. The process was quite organic. We started with a basic idea of what we were going to do. So we had a twenty foot round circle. We decided it was going to be quite a small roundhouse, because I didn't want to get stuck with something massive
that I couldn't finish. So we started with a 20 ft across circle. We put that up and we put a reciprocal frame roof on it. The roof poles were so long they were hanging over. So I decided rather than cutting them off, It was better to design the space around what we had there. So we laid out different ideas of where things would go. And it just kind of came about. Going into the forest finding the right piece of wood. The process was pretty amazing really. It all came together A lot of people say when you start building a house like this it sort of builds itself. And that's definitely true in a lot of ways. I had a lot of great help from a lot of people who are very skilled at what they do and love to do specialist bits of woodwork. It's got a lot of different character from different people's energies. In terms of planning permission, I decided when we started that I wasn't going to bother to get planning permission. It took a while to convince my Dad that that was the way to go but we knew we didn't have of a chance. And also I've lived here all my life and built tree houses around here and it just seems like a bigger version of that. It really didn't even cross my mind. So we started, and managed to just about
finish the building after about a year and a bit. And then the planners rocked up. They were quite impressed by it. But at the same time, they've got a job to do. It seems very mad. We're in a place that no-one can see. It's not affecting anyone. I hope that it's quite a beautiful building. I think more people
should be allowed to do it. Keep the young people in Wales. Well, not just Wales, all over. If you need low cost housing, it's cheap, people can do it themselves. I think that's part of their worry, but definitely there needs to be a change. People need to be able to get on with it. You can't plan something like this. It takes away the creativity. This is inside. This is the reciprocal frame roof. We've got a cob floor here. Which has turned out quite nice. Straw bale walls. Lime render on there. This is the kitchen area. It's open plan, generally.. We've got this main circle. Living space. We've got this
spiral staircase around the tree. Which is a chill-out area up there, and extra sleeping space. The bathroom is round here. We've got the fire there. We've got a big stone wall here to hold the heat. It's still warm from the fire last night. It acts as a bit of a radiator. A bit of thermal mass. And then behind here is another platform. Bit of a music area underneath there. I managed to fit my drum kit in! And then we've got the main bedroom. There's a Meg in here changing Eli This is the master bedroom overlooking the pond. It's one of my favourite rooms, I think. Eli seems to be very comfortable here. A nice quiet environment for a baby to grow up in. There's a skylight up there for a bit of extra light. My parents allowed me to build on their bit of land. It doesn't really bother me but at some point he'll probably sign the land over to me. Just this little patch. So I didn't have to pay for the land. which was very fortunate. But the building overall, I can't say for sure, cost between
10 and 15 thousand pounds. I think it could be done a lot cheaper. We've got underfloor heating in there. We've got mains electricity. All mod cons. That's bumped up the price. We decided that
we wanted to do it properly the first time around, and be warm and happy.
