I recently stumbled on some great new discoveries in my quest to find affordable ways to build my dream house. First, I was ecstatic to discover a fellow Chicagoan who is living my dream and blogging about her experience. Kathy is a city planner who had all but given up on her fantasy of building a stylish, affordable prefab home in Chicago. Then she found Square Root Architecture and Design, a Chicago-based firm that has grand plans for their Urban-C3 home concept. The mini-site for the project states, “The U-C3 is designed for the middle-income budget, integrating a holistic approach to the building process by merging economy with ecology.”

The main components of Kathy’s new home will be built in a factory in Indiana and assembled on site in the lot she and her significant other have purchased in East Village. (I believe their max budget for land was around 70K.) The architect estimates the home can be completed for about $125 per square foot (cost of land excluded), but Kathy’s craving for high-end appliances and a few pricey design features have pushed her budget up to around $175 per square foot. Still, that’s fairly reasonable considering most modern single-family homes in Chicago sell for $300 per square foot and up (at least from what I’ve seen).

Kathy’s blog details some of her efforts to build a home that is both hip and eco-friendly, including her quest for the perfect kitchen cabinets. She wanted something that was a bit higher-end than what you might find at IKEA and low on toxic chemicals. She settled on cabinets from Eco Urban, a Chicago-based cabinet manufacturer of modern, NAUF (No Added Urea Formaldehyde) cabinetry. The site doesn’t offer any pricing info, but given the company’s emphasis on affordability, I’ll definitely be checking them out when I have new place with a kitchen calling out for a remodel.

In other prefab housing news, I recently found a site with very concrete pricing info on some cute, boxy homes called the “LV Series” that are being built near St. Louis by design firm Rocio Romero. The base model LV home has two bedrooms and two baths and the price of a kit starts at around $36,000. The homes can be shipped around the country for between $1,000 and $5,000 depending on your distance from St. Louis.

I’m always on the hunt for the perfect home for under 100K. Here are a few to add to the list.

• plywood cabin in Washington State
• readymade backyard cottage from Sunset magazine - This cottage was made from two prefab cabanas available at ModernCabana.com. I love the idea of plopping a few of these down to form the perfect country compound.

As much as I love good water pressure and a little room to spread out, I often fantasize about buying an Airstream and roaming the U.S. and Canada for a year or two. Sadly, another Christmas has passed and no one bought me one of these limited edition Airstreams designed in collaboration with Victorinox.

Unfortunately, my recent office upgrade has come at a time when I’m suddenly ridiculously busy at work. So, I’ve had little time to decorate my new space and even less time to blog. However, I did want to take a moment to give a plug to NYC-based Jamali Garden. Although some key items seem to be constantly out of stock on their website, they came through with a great selection of super-cool pots for some succulents I picked up at Home Depot a few weekends back. I placed a huge order—16 pots in all—and the total with shipping came out to just under $100.

Initially, I was frustrated that their online shopping cart doesn’t calculate shipping costs. Instead, you have to wait for a customer service rep. to contact you. It took about 24 hours for someone to get back to me, and they estimated shipping would run $31. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I got the invoice and shipping turned out to be only $15. Also, the rep. was very quick to put an $8 credit on my card when I called to inform him that one of the pots arrived broken.

Right now, I’m loving their low, round cement pots and I’m hoping they’ll eventually have these aluminum pots and saucers back in stock. In the mean time, however, these polished aluminum pots are a decent substitute.

If you love typography as much as I do, you might want to check out this Periodic Table of Typefaces poster. I just grabbed the gray version with silver ink for my office for around $20. The site has links to sites that influenced the typefaces chosen for the poster and there’s also an option to print your own from a high-res version that you can download for a donation of any amount you choose. There’s even a vinyl wall decal option if you’re looking for something you can slap on a wall now and peel off later.

The lovely, design-savvy ladies of Design Boner are having a photography exhibit this Saturday to showcase a collection of photos they’ve been taking every Saturday and Sunday since February of 2007. I have a lot of respect for anyone able to stick to a project for so long. The only thing I’ve been doing consistently since 2007 is complaining about the spiraling cost of bacon-wrapped scallops at my local Sam’s Club.

Here’s the info for those of you in the Chicago area this weekend:

6 & 7 Photographs by Design Boner
Saturday July 18th, 6-10pm
Chicago Art Department
1837 South Halsted
Chicago, IL 60608
http://www.chicagoartdepartment.org/2009/07/6-7-by-design-boner/

I’ve been saying for years that I wish someone would develop a truly affordable prefab home. Dwell magazine has been pushing prefab for years, but everything I’ve ever seen has run at least $200 a square foot.

MSN recently posted an article about the i-House, a new prefab home developed by Clayton homes, one of the country’s biggest mobile home builders. The base model is around 1,000 square feet and retails for around $100,000. This could be a huge leap forward for truly affordable, (relatively) stylish prefab housing, since the main problem thus far has been a lack of support from major construction companies with the resources to produce a large number of homes while keeping materials and labor costs low.

Check out the Clayton website for a tour of sample models.

A friend sent me a link today to a lovely little house for sale in Houston. It ain’t cheap, but I thought I’d pass it along for those of you who enjoy real estate voyeurism as much as I do.

A friend just sent me a link to an interesting article about large corporations that have recently revamped their looks—from basic logo facelifts to costly real-estate renovations. The new Pepsi logo (number 29 on the list) seems particularly heinous. Is it just me or does it look like it belongs on the tail of a Korean Air jet? The overhaul of Clue is also a bit unsettling:

“Hasbro updated the 60-year-old game of Clue with changes that include a fancy new mansion with a spa and theater, and new weapons like a baseball bat and an ax. Professor Plum is now an Internet billionaire and Colonel Mustard is a former football star.”

A spa in the mansion? Was that really necessary? I guess it might at least make poor kids feel better by convincing them that greedy rich people get what they deserve in the end. If Mrs. Peacock can’t be bothered to drive five miles into town for a pedicure, she probably deserves a wrench blow to the head. Now all we need is a version where Miss Scarlet can meet an untimely end from an unfortunate dermabrasion accident. That’d teach kids a valuable lesson about what happens when a 60-year-old woman refuses to age gracefully.

With the economy in shambles this holiday season, I hear the same two questions again and again from my readers:

1) How can I continue to give unique, luxurious gifts that my friends will adore without breaking my budget?

2) Where can I find gifts that bring back memories of a happier, simpler time—a time when all of us could achieve our dreams, even if that dream was to start an interior design firm staffed by headstrong, opinionated women and a sassy black man with a criminal record?

Well, dear reader, you need look no further than FrugalFag.com/Fashion. Why, you ask? Because, from now until Christmas day, when you order a Night the Lights Went out in Georgia T-shirt, you’ll get a second shirt absolutely free! After selecting the size of your first shirt, mention in the PayPal “instructions for merchant” area if you’d prefer a small, medium, or large* for your additional tee. (You should see a link that says something along the lines of “add special instructions for merchant” which will let you add a note, or you can just email me at frugal[at]frugalfag.com with the info.)

Keep one for yourself! Use one as a hilarious and absorbent way to clean up after sensual encounters! (Nothing breaks post-coital tension like a Julia Sugarbaker quote-fest.) Give one to a straight man and laugh at his confusion when older gay gentlemen flirt with him at the mall! The benefits of owning this timeless tee are endless, but this offer is not, so act now.

*I don’t want to cause a panic, but I feel I should mention that I only have two more larges and I’m not planning to print more any time soon. (Let’s just say I may have overestimated demand for Designing-Women-themed apparel, especially among skinny twinks.) So, if you have your heart set on a large, don’t delay.

S|Sense is a clothing boutique in Montreal that sells ultra-hip, high-end clothing for men and women. They’re having a 30%-off-everything sale until December 1st, so this is a great chance to treat yourself to something you’ll love and wear for a long time. Here are a few of my favorite picks from the outerwear section:

Mackage Seal Mix Grey Overcoat (Shown in photo.)

Refrigiwear Blinket Brown Jacket

Diesel Weighy Black Wool Peacoat

Energie Jabyl White Jacket

Energie Arhus Blue Jacket

Drykorn Basel Black Coat

When did a stylish men’s cotton sweater become harder to find than a McCain T-Shirt at Urban Outfitters? I realize it’s not the most serious problem in the world, but I’m so sick of stores only carrying itchy, hot, high-maintenance wool sweaters. That’s why I nearly soiled myself with joy when I spotted not one but two soft, non-wooly sweaters during a recent expedition to the Banana Republic superstore on Michigan Avenue.

First, I spotted this cable-knit v-neck sweater in “white sail.” Although the label says hand-wash only, it’s 40% cotton and seems to do just fine in my machine. The only downside is that I look really clean when wearing it which tends to make more homeless people ask me for change.

Next, I found this nautical-inspired knit cardigan. I know it might not look like much in the photo, but it’s cuter in person. It’s 100% cotton and is one of the few cardigans I’ve seen that doesn’t make me look like a blonder, shaggier Mr. Rogers. I also like that the collar is short and easy to flip up without looking too douchey. I know it’s pricey, but every time I’ve been in the store in the last few weeks there’s some kind of sale going on. If you can’t catch it on sale, just sign up for the email promo list and wait for the tidal wave of coupons before you pull the trigger.