"Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame." - Erica Jong
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About us

We are Laila and Rogier Noort, married happily (really!).  Rogier is an IT Consultant, Laila is an Office Manager, well, that’s what we do to make money. We do a lot of others things for (a) living. Video, photography, website, blogging, building an environmentally friendly home.

For us the decision to live off the grid and in a house which takes full advantage of the four elements was a journey on itself.
After realizing that our current way of (ab)using the Earth and her resources is not sustainable we started looking for a way to not be depended on the grid and all it stands for.

We found the Earthships on Stumble Upon and thought this to be the answer. A self-sufficient dwelling made of recycled materials, how good can it get?
During our journey we volunteerd in Normandy to work on the Trott’s Earthship. Here we met Lotte, a young inspirational woman about to earn her degree in sustainable architecture. As a joke Rogier suggested that she’d design our house and we would build it, a win/win situation.
This was the kick our greatest adventure to date needed and the journey to living off the grid in a sustainable manner got serious, very serious. This blog will tell that story (and a bit more).

Got questions, want to make contact? Please do!

lagor

As far as information goes.., below is everything I do on the Internet posted as it happens.., it’s called a lifestream.

August 18th 2010
Tags: Chenogne, How we do it

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Making a Home

The plan is simple.., you already have a piece of land.., you just buy and transport some sort of living quarters.., add a few utilities and presto.., you have second, and temporary home. But.., of course; "The best laid schemes of mice and men Go often askew, And leave us nothing but grief and ...
May 16th 2010
Tags: Alternative, How we do it

One Comment

A Temporary Home

We all know that building a house takes time. At least, building a proper house takes time. When you realize that most homes build nowadays have a life expectancy of 20 years (which is shorter that most mortgages) it makes sense to put a bit more effort into building your home ...
May 7th 2010
Tags: Life

2 Comments

Talking French

Building a house is an enormous undertaking but building a house in a country with a different language and culture almost sounds ludicrous. At this point it is safe to say that is brings its challenges. Of course we knew that it would be hard, we have prepared ourselves for extra ...
April 15th 2010
Tags: volunteer

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WANTED! Volunteers

April 2011 we are starting with our project of building an ecological sustainable house in the south of Belgium. Rammed Earth We will build the house with rammed earth, straw bale and local wood. We started thinking of building a sustainable house a few years ago and came across the earthships. It blew ...
March 23rd 2010
Tags: Chenogne, How we do it

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Getting a Green Light

Last Thursday we visited the established ruling order of Vaux-sur-Sûre. Or rather.., we visited the local "urbanism" office to see if our design would pass the scrutiny of said government. We also visited our small piece of the Earth, chatted with our neighbours and visited a gathering of Dutch Wallons. Oh.., and ...

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