by humanodon

Maybe it's the job hunting that's making me think about what "home" means and what kind of life I'd like to live, but either way, not having a steady job gives one a lot of time to think about these things. I think that can be important so that one doesn't simply flit from place to place, job to job until eventually one's life coalesces through sheer weight of attachment.

Earlier, I was going back and forth with Kaius in the comments section of his post about a bus conversion.

I really like the idea of living in an earth house like this:

It seems like it's a nice way to live and I'd imagine (since I'd build one for this imaginary scenario) that it would be easy to have a lot of built-in storage, well, because the whole thing would be built into the earth. The only thing is, it might be hard to find a community to build one in. It would be cool if there were a whole town with houses like that that I could afford to live in, but I have the feeling that there'd be a good chance that it could go the way of Arcosanti, which kleinbl00 did a photoessay on after we chatted a bit about owning lighthouses.

More examples here of earth houses can be found here.

Although, according to energy.gov:

The principal downsides to earth-sheltered houses are the initial cost of construction, which can be up to 20% more than a conventional house, and the increased level of care required to avoid moisture problems, both during construction and over the life of the house. It can also take more diligence to resell an earth-sheltered home, and buyers may have more hurdles to clear in the mortgage application process.

The site above does a nice job of explaining other aspects of owning/building an earth house too.

So, not only are they tricky to build, they're expensive and high maintenance (like a trophy . . . . I guess trophy husbands exist, so like a trophy spouse!)

Here's another site, that seems to offer workshops on how to build them, complete with dirty hippies prancing around to folksy music. I'm not much on that scene, but it looks like fun.

I think if I could build a house like this close to a city, that would be ideal. I think I'm really a city guy at heart, but I come from the woods. If only there were a way to marry the two and have it all be close to the beach. Perhaps next universe :P