Fed up with huge mortgage payments, Simon Dale decided to take matters into his own hands.    Armed with only a chisel, a chainsaw and a hammer, the 32-year-old moved his family to a hillside in Wales and started digging.    The result is a wooden eco-home - constructed in four months and costing just PS3,000 - which would look perfectly at ease alongside the Hobbit houses in The Lord Of The Rings.    Mr Dale, who has no experience in carpentry or architecture, created his sustainable family home using scrap wood for floors, materials scavenged from skips and by diverting water from a nearby spring.    He said: "Being your own have-a-go architect is a lot of fun and allows you to create and enjoy something which is part of yourself and the land rather than, at worst, a mass-produced box designed for maximum profit and the convenience of the construction industry. Building from natural materials does away with producers' profits and the cocktail of carcinogenic  poisons that fill most modern buildings.    The family struck lucky searching for a site for their dream project. In return for looking after the area, the owner of the woods gave them their plot for free.    After digging into the hillside, Mr Dale - with the help of his father-in-law, a builder - first constructed the building's timber frame.    The roof, which came next, has a layer of straw bales for insulation and is covered with sheets of plastic to make it waterproof. Finally it is covered with a layer of earth, which ensures the house blends perfectly into its surroundings.    Once the outer shell was complete, the family made an interior wall from straw bales stacked on dry-stone walling and staked together with hazel sticks.    As well as being made from sustainable material the Hobbit house, as it is dubbed by locals, has lime plaster on its walls instead of cement, a compost toilet, a fridge cooled by air from beneath the foundations and solar panels for power. The owner of the woods gave the Simons the plot for free because   _
the plot was deserted and was worth nothing. he was deeply struck by their dream project. The home to be built resembled the Hobbit house a lot. The Simons promised to take care of the area.