On 25 acres of completely wooded Vermont mountainside I have been building my home from bottom up since about 1983. I have cut down trees for lumber, dug the foundation for three sections, framed, wired, plumbed water and waste, piped gas, and even done some finish work. From above the house is a Z, with a dot which is the four story 14 feet diameter silo. The living room, master bedroom, and workshop have 22 foot long by 15 inch skylights for light- as we are tucked in the woods. I built a massive masonry heater in the living room. The silo is an exercise room and sauna on the first floor, Sophie's bedroom on floor two, my computer room on floor three, and a 360 set of windows for reading in the hammock  and yoga and plants on the fourth floor attree top level. There is a flat deck above for sleeping under the stars or sunbathing. I cannot express the satisfaction of building your own home. I have a screen gazebo out in the woods, and small horse and hay sheds I also built, but apple trees have replaced the horses. One of my best birthdays was renting a backhoe to dig the garage and living room foundations with power instead of by hand. What a gas.	Holliday with Nick and Jingle as snow storm ends.   Fayston is the most mountainous town in Vermont,  and we get more snow up here on the mountain than down in the Valley.
Living room with skylight and masonry heater. Skylight is 22 feet long by 14 inches polycarbonate. Same in bedroom and workshop.  Masonry heater is faced with local stone, rocks brought by friends for my 50th birthday, rocks I grabbed around the world, a few meteorites from outer space,  and a march of trilobite fossils from over 1 billion years ago. It heats like a dream.	Sophie watches the garage / workshop slab being poured
House from the back. Workshop with glass and deck over garage on right.  Old photo- top deck of silo now has a parapet/rail with a scupper.  I have film of dropping pumpkins- one large, one small- off the silo to replicate Galileo's famous experiment in Pisa demonstrating that gravity provides equal acceleration regardless of mass.	Kitchen- well, that was quick. hehehehee .  Two years of planning, plywood mock-ups, and I still have windows to finish.
Kitchen sink counter cut from 3/4 inch polyethylene cutting board material Labor Day weekend project	Living Room with Masonry heater core up, but no facing stone or chimney yet. Stoneware sculpture of angel in flight on wall by Mona Shiber.   Surrounded by woods, note how much more light comes from skylight above than large windows and sliding glass doors.
House from front, still lots of stone wainscoting to do.  Barely see the stained glass window over the garage doors.  All Subarus in driveway have at least 100K. One has 280K miles.  Subaru is Japanese name for the constellation we call Pleiades. Tractor out back is a 1940 Ford 9N.