Want to See the Human-Sized Hobbit House That Costs Less Than $5,000 to Build?

This is not some set left over from The Lord of the Rings. This hobbit house is an honest-to-goodness man-sized home. Not only does it fit a family of four, but it cost just over $4,650 to build.

The Daily Mail reports that Simon Dale built the home without any prior home building or carpentry experience on a plot of land that was provided for free in exchange for watching over the owner's other property. Nestled in a Welsh hillside, much of the home is made from scraps and scavenged material and wood:

"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."

[...]

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.’

Dale and his family are now working on a new hobbit house that will be the first "low-impact ecovillage" in Wales. Learn more about Dale's projects here.

[H/T Gizmodo]