Got Offbeat Architect Kids?

I write for a living so me and my six year old son Cedar can hang out but does that impress Cedar. In a word, no.

He could care less what I do but he loves Offbeat, he likes the houses and the furniture; he really wants an extravagant treehouse I can’t possible afford.

Him and I have been working on a rather insane sugar cube home because he wants a house that he made posted on this blog. We are having major sugar issues that involve us adding paint to the sugar rather unsuccessfully. I know, cubes disintegrate in liquid! Or I should have remembered that. Why the heck do you think I write instead of build offbeat sugar houses.

Long story short; he really likes all the past Lego posts and is always building his own Lego structures that he thinks should be posted here and I turn them down. I am so a nice mama, I’m just waiting for the right house. Well he got me.

Today he built a typical Lego house. The house itself is not super unique and it’s tiny compared to other houses he’s built.

But (and here’s how he got me) it’s sustainable! 

Cedar’s offbeat (green) house:

Here’s the front:

He told me he made it small because of needing smaller footprints (Go Cedar) and that the grass is painted not really grass to save water. Did he use eco-paint? I don’t know.
And another view:

His best green living plan; the wind power. We recently watched a show on wind energy and we talk about it a lot. Although I’ve never technically seen a red turbine and it’s sort of in weird proximity to the house; you gotta give the boy props.

What’s not green about this house? Well, the massive television antenna — we don’t have a big TV and we don’t have a big TV antenna sticking up off our house but a TV that does have that big an antenna must be attached to a suck all the energy up TV.

This guy lives here. I don’t know if wicked knights are sustainable or not. But here’s what Cedar says, “He’s sitting on a pile of leaves, watching the sun set.”

Well, a wicked knight with gentle feelings — too cute.

Is there a deal behind this post. Two in fact:

1. If you asked Cedar to define the word “sustainable living” he would look at you rather blank faced I suspect. But that doesn’t mean kids can’t understand concepts — the words come in time but get your kids on board early with green living and they will own it for life.
2. I’ve been wanting to do an Offbeat kid structure post for a while now. If you have a kid who is under 18 years of age who has built something offbeat send me the photo and I’ll work it into a post. (Or two if all of you have remarkably talented children). Have they built a structure with blocks, mashed potatoes, paper? Send it in. You can see my email in the sidebar and I know that some of you have cool offbeat kids so send those pictures in with a little project info and hopefully we can get a nice Offbeat kids post up at some point in the near future.

Don’t forget to check out Home & Dining’s 300 tips for fabulous home living!