Building a prototype house
I'm building, with assistance from the bears, a little shed in the backyard as a practice building for the summer cottage I intend to build sometime soon (probably not this year, unless I win the lottery [maybe I should buy a ticket, just to increase my chances a little bit?]) and, after several months of accumulating building materials from various sources (including our regular trips to SCRAP), we finally cleared a corner of the yard and broke ground for the project.
I've decided to build a rubble trench foundation, so we're trying to get a foot deep foundation ring so we can fill it with gravel, put a concrete pad on top of it, then use concrete rubble to build up the foundation to a foot above ground (aka termite) level. The concrete slab at the back of the property holds a concrete rubble wall that's on our side of the property, so I may use it as part of the foundation of the shed.
There are still no actual plans for the shed, though I've got two of the ballon frame walls framed up and sitting in the garage (the shed will be approximately 50 square feet -- 6x8 feet inside, give or take 4 inches) and ready to be placed on the foundation as soon as we get the floor in.