makin' stuff

i like making stuff (and i do mean that as generally as possible), so i made a house with google sketchup . the beta program is a free download and it is pretty easy to use. it has a few quirks, but most of them come from "user error" i.e. my fingers want the tools to work more like the tools in adobe (photoshop etc.). but i have the same type of issues between my pc at home (swapping the apple and ctrl keys) and mac at work (trying to right-click). so besides that type of thing it is easy--i've never designed anything architectural before and came out with something that i really like. now i have a reason to want a piece of property in the middle of nowhere (eastern oregon). my resident expert in architecture (karl's first year of college was spent at pratt, studying to be an architect and changing his mind) likes it too. if we ever get the chance, er...money, to buy a place of our own we are in complete agreement: city = old building, country = new eco-green house. either would be lovely. i stuck an eco-sod roof on my fantasy house here, with plenty of room for solar panels, radiant flooring and so on. of course i don't know jack about engineering so i look at things in a purely aesthetic way (why can't the loft be attached to two walls, with suspension on the third and/or fourth side? like a bridge? that would be awesome). i'm pretty sure this type of thinking would get me into some tricky situations, but why not implement some fresh ideas? now if someone can just give me a million bucks...