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!)
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
I've spent a fair amount of time learning about earth-sheltered habitat. They've been a favorite of mine ever since finding Gideon Golany's book at work back when I was 16. I also grew up in The Land Of Earthships so it was kind of second-nature. It's fair to say that I spent my 20s wanting to live semi-underground. "semi" because you need some sort of window. The ideal earth-sheltered habitat is cut into a south-facing hillside where it's cold and a north-facing hillside where it's hot. They're very siting-dependent. And that's where, if you start getting serious about it, you understand that earth-sheltered habitat is a specialty adaptation for places where habitability is greatly impacted. It makes a lot of sense in places like Coober Pedy and Cappadocia. Not so much anywhere standard stick construction works. Subterranean dwellings have severe humidity problems. They have severe water ingress problems. And they're really difficult to remodel, expand, or otherwise augment/modify the way anyone else's construction can be altered. On the face of it you wonder why they aren't adapted more, and then you realize that they used to be incredibly common - they're called root cellars and every farm had one. Nobody lived in them, though, because when your whole world is a basement you're a long way from living in a castle. I used to be big into geodesic domes, too, until I started looking at them for real. Lloyd Kahn wrote the two books most responsible for adoption of the geodome back in the '70s and 20 years later he recanted. The statistic Paul Wheaton likes to quote (without sourcing) is that 80% of all geodesic homes ever built have been abandoned (not sold). After a while you start to get all Occam's Razor on it - "if it's such a great idea, why don't more people do it?" Cob has its own problems. It's drafty, stinky and structurally transparent. A cob home is a bitch to permit (most stinky hippies don't). The actual construction costs also end up coming in about where stick-built houses do, as well, but without the resale value or longevity. Yeah, a thatched roof works but very few people continue to use thatch when they can get shingles. Which is sort of a long way of saying that I've stopped thinking in terms of "no financial or geographic constraints?" I've come to terms with the fact that I spent 2 years living in Bellingham, WA and have spent the past 20 trying to get back. I've started focusing on what I can build or buy for the money that I can reasonably expect to wrangle, not the money that will never be mine. And I've started to focus on optimizing what is within my reach while drawing inspiration from that which is truly impractical. So my ideas of "large castle-like.JPG) dwelling on an island with parapets and shit" has been tempered by the needs of having it close to town with enough land to build a clinic on it so that my wife can set up her birth center without having to commute close enough that her clients can get there quickly and comfortably. My dreams of a hundred acres upon which to practice permaculture have been tempered by the realization that I could feed myself on 5 acres and would probably spend 80% of my day doing so if I went that way. And what I've ended up with is "somewhere close to Bellingham with enough land to grow crops on close enough to town that people don't think it's that much of a drive." And somehow, the fact that the dream has been vetted makes the dream more exciting. Knowing all the steps on the ladder to the castle in the sky somehow brings it closer. Understanding the minute advantages and disadvantages of that I seek makes it more realistic to hold in my head. My cousin bought a bus. He traded it up for a motor home. He bailed on the motor home and got a house as soon as he could. There's a certain lifestyle that a bus conversion affords, but even when I lived that lifestyle I much preferred other approaches.
What is it about Bellingham that makes people love it so much? I met a guy from there and he could not shut up about the place. Reading your post and thinking on my own ideas for the ideal locale make me think once again that the car-centric model of US towns and cities could be better. I'd love to live really close to a walkable city where I could still get that "in nature" effect. But back to reality: life is about compromises and I'm cool with that. I'd love to be in a place where I have a ladder to a castle in the sky, but it looks like a lot of hard work and figuring out what's what are in order before then. Being outside of that though, does make me wax romantic about my ideal living situations, unrealistic though they may be. Awesome reply by the way.
I have started finding myself more and more attracted to the idea of living in a more remote area rather than in the city or immediate suburbs. As much as I love my cities and have lived in LA, NYC, and Sydney, I have also found immense joy from escaping the crowded, fast-paced, always connected lifestyle that we all live in now. I don't know if I could really live too far off the grid - I'm not about to go run off to the middle of no where. But there are some nice areas in Central California that are about 30 minutes from a real town - close enough to get groceries and get to the airport, but far enough that you aren't bothered. I would rather be on a piece of land that's separated from most people but within reasonable driving distance to a city than live in a small town though. Too much drama and interpersonal relationships when you get to small towns. I dislike the concept of everyone knowing all my business. I would love to build a dream house on a huge piece of land, lots of space, maybe a couple cows because cows are fucking awesome Go into town once a week, get groceries, freelance or telecommute from home, I could even see me with a couple little ones running around or on ATVs or something. Maybe I'm just overly stressed from work, or sick of being surrounded by million dollar homes that I know I will never be able to own, but it's been on my mind a lot lately. There are some ranches and farms on the Jalama Beach Road that seem just about perfect. 30 minutes from Lompoc, 45 from Goleta/Santa Barbara. And they have cows. I'm really falling in love with the greater Santa Barbara area - I always partied there since a ton of my friends went to UCSB, but it's such a great location once you look past the college party animals - less traffic than LA, mountains and a lake on one side, state beaches on the other. We took a detour (aka got lost) and ended up driving through these windy roads above SB with immense gated houses and glorious views. My Zillow app told me the houses were 10m-30m range. Even if I could magically afford it, it seems way too upscale for my taste. But the houses were gorgeous, albeit fucking huge. If you are bored, jump onto street view on the above link and check them out. Insane. As for the remote living - huge property with nice homey-house - I don't know if it'll ever happen. I'll probably get over this little fantasy in a bit. But right now it sounds phenomenal. It's actually more realistic than owning a home in the city I live in. Does anyone else have fantasies like this? Is anyone here from a remote area - do you love it or want to live in the big city?
You owe it to yourself to take a week driving up the 1. Lompoc rules, but Cambria is nicer. As is Morro Bay. I adore Pismo. Monterey? Shit doesn't really get real until you're through the Presidio and onto the other side; the stretch through Caspar and Ft. Bragg makes the "happy cows come from California" ads seem true. The Mendocino Coast redefines "bucolic."I'm really falling in love with the greater Santa Barbara area - I always partied there since a ton of my friends went to UCSB, but it's such a great location once you look past the college party animals - less traffic than LA, mountains and a lake on one side, state beaches on the other.
I found the town of Lompoc a bit trashy, but it was 4th of July and I had fireworks so I was happy, and so were the rest of the drunk firework setting-off families. I really want to take a good chunk of time off and do a real drive up the coast with no destination or time constraints, just wandering and exploring and taking in the majestic views. We drove the 1 instead of the 101 the last time we went to Jalama and it was gorgeous. We stopped off in Carpenteria & Summerland to get gas and do a bit of exploring - see the views and the beaches. I would be so satisfied if I could do that all the way up the coast. Summerland is the most adorable little thing -, antique shops, surf boutiques, summer cottages on a hill, with the most badass liquor store gas station combo. I found a $100 bottle of mezcal in their damn gas station! Thanks for the advice. I cant wait to explore. I'll definitely reach out to you when I get my time off request approved. It's going to be a bit though. Maybe in the spring :/
That was my bachelor party to myself. Swine Flu was in the news and I needed to get married in a week. I was in Los Angeles and my wife was in Seattle. I had a few days on a Davis Guggenheim documentary, but I opted to drive my Dodge Stealth up the coast the slow way instead. Took five days, I think. Went to the Monterey Aquarium (the first place I realized that such things are more interesting with children, therefore it might be worth having one), the Tillamook Air Museum, stopped wherever I wanted to. Oddly enough, because I was doing research for a script, I had the first five books in the Left Behind series on audio. Kinda wild - ripping up the coast listening to the Christian Apocalypse while giving the overblown concerns of CNN enough credo to force me to do what I really wanted to in the first place.
Oh dear, the cows again. :) Cows are pretty dope though, fairly gentle for large animals, but if had to be honest, my heart is with pigs. As pets, of course. I used to have this guy in my life, but I had to sell him because he went from 1 kg to 100 kg in 10 months: Man, I wish I never had to sell that dude. I truly, truly loved the fuck out of that pig, even though he ate my phone. Lock, stock and barrel. Like I said, I think I'm a city guy at heart, but I'm from the woods. I'd love to have a great community around me, with enough space that we could breathe but still be neighborly and have services and rub elbows. Such a place, to my knowledge, does not exist. But I think fantasy is important, as it can shape our real life choices.
Awwwww oink oink Now I might want a pig! Besides being absolutely adorable when they are young, and massive when they grow up, I've heard they come in handy if you've ever got a dead body on your hand... (Hahahah I've been on a good cow streak this week, haven't I? Of course all the cow stuff stems from the single vacation last weekend. It's not like I'm constantly obsessing about cows...and the things they do...)
Uh huh, yeah, ok. :) Honestly, favorite pet ever. Did you know that if a pig trusts and likes you, that if you scratch its belly, it will just fall over and oink for you to scratch it some more? It will. And while you are scratching it, it will stealthily steal your heart . . .
Our old roommate had a bulldog that would do the same thing. She was fat and slobbery and smelled but the second she rolled over, tongue lagging out, steadily snorting, raising her head to make sure I saw her and her now-upside-down un-doopy eyes staring at me like she was a cokehead and I was holding a new bag of coke, none of it mattered and I just wanted to scratch it until it's chubby little legs were twitching so fast and she was snorting so intensely that she might pass out from sheer, unadulterated joy. Here's two videos: 1 2 Under my giggles, you can hear her snorts. I think yours was probably still better. When I move onto my fantasy farm and have my own fantasy cow and fantasy piggy, you'll have to visit.
Haha, I've always liked bulldogs. I tried to take a high school friend's bulldog swimming in her pool one time and it didn't work out so well. The bulldog was perfectly fine, but when it jumped in the pool it sank like a stone. My pig (Squeak) not only loved belly scratching, but if I opened a beer, I'd immediately hear hooves pounding my way. That pig absolutely loved beer and if I let him get into the whiskey, he'd run all around the house and the yard. Pigs can run a lot faster that you'd think, because most of the time they're so lazy. They're also really, really strong for their size. Once I came home and he'd busted open a section of the concrete balcony and bent a piece of rebar up and was suckling on it. If he wanted his head scratched and I wasn't paying attention to him, he'd scoop my foot up with his snout and start rubbing his head on the bottom of my foot until I took over. I would love to live in a place where I could have a bunch of animal pals! Unfortunately, that's (obviously) a downside to living in a place with lots of people around. I figured out that what I call "farm smell" is mostly pig and cow pee, but somehow if it's my animal, then it's perfectly ok by me. If your fantasy farm happens, then I would most definitely visit if I could hang out with some animals.
I would love to have a home that would be so efficient the cost of utilities would be almost non-existent. I'd use solar panels and geothermal heating and cooling to run most of the house's needs. I'd recycle the rainwater for showers and to water the vegetable gardens outside when needed. The whole thing would be crazy insulated to retain the temperature as efficiently as possible.
Speaking as someone who had three (of ten) projects on the LEED awards list in 2005, sustainability is a noble goal but unless you've got a serious power generator (your own personal wind farm, a noteworthy waterfall on the property), going for zero is a fool's errand. The real-world, technical term for your sketch is a ground source heat pump. a company I used to work for was the leader in GSHP design for the pacific northwest. They're pretty conventional once you get over the installed cost (2x-5x conventional heat pump designs). They also work better if you hang the radiator in a lake rather than digging into the ground. The real-world, technical term for your waste-water ambitions is greywater. "crazy insulated" matters a lot less than passive solar design. What you'll discover when you dig into it is that all these things can be accomplished without going crazy... but the guys who do it tend to not wear it on their sleeve. The goal is to make something efficient while also livable.
Ok, I've mentioned a few times that I'm looking for employment, but not having much luck. You seem to have had many enviable jobs. If I could ask you for your opinion, given your experiences, how does one either make good connections to get interesting jobs and how does one create a solid and versatile skillset? All my skills are in teaching and writing (which you have shown that you are proficient and experienced in). I learn quickly and I feel I have a lot of experience, but I don't know how to convey it well enough to get jobs I'm applying for. Any ideas?
"Getting hired" is its own special hell. It's fair to say the game has changed substantially since the last time I did it the way you're talking about, which was 2000. I'm in an industry where I get referrals. I get call backs from friends. It's who you know. The rest of the world is kind of like that, but in order to get there you have to get past HR. The trick is to know someone who is actually in a position of hiring you (while recognizing that the guys wading through resumes are mostly looking for reasons not to). Smaller companies are easier. What do you want to do and where do you want to do it? How old are you? How much freedom do you have? Just so you're read this. don't know how applicable it is but it still gets quoted from time to time.
Yeah, HR is the problem. I feel like I do well in interviews and that has been a major factor in getting most of my jobs. Right now, I'd like to get work as an admin at a university, or even a decent community college so that I could get reduced tuition on classes and some benefits (hopefully). I used to be an English teacher in Vietnam, where I was doing pretty well for myself but in the end, I didn't foresee myself doing business there forever and I found that I wasn't interested in "going native" despite the very comfortable lifestyle I was able to maintain. I think admin work in admissions or international programs would be a good transition for the skills I acquired by working with Vietnamese students who were set on becoming international students, by way of helping them develop the skills necessary to pass things like the SAT or IELTS exams and showing them what kinds of things to look for in a university. I also was looking into recruitment before I left, but not much came of that. Long term, I'd like to get into the Foreign Service on the public diplomacy track, because it seems like a great way to keep traveling while getting paid fairly well to do it. I'm preparing for the exam process, which I'm told is very long and byzantine (their words). Best case scenario, I'd get hired a year and a half from when I complete the exam process, which is spread out over a long period of time. A more realistic scenario is that I'll have to try several times to get in. One of the people that told me that was a longtime ambassador to several African nations over the course of his career. I feel like at this point, I'm on the other side of your link. I did just that and I had great experiences, but what I found was that I actually had too much freedom and now I want to start laying down some groundwork so that I don't wake up in 2033 wondering why I don't have any savings. As for my current level of freedom, I'm not bound to anything. I have no debt, but I also have limited money and cash flow. So I'm definitely willing to relocate, I'd just like to have a job before I do it. Edit: I forgot to add, I am 28.
Afk at the moment, but I'm excited to post my answer later tonight and to see others responses. This answer says a lot about someone. sounds_sound will someday design a home for me.
I'm not sure if he has ever designed a house? He's an architect and he has one of the best aesthetics of anyone I know. Plus he's one of my favorite people, so what could go wrong?
Aww - TNG. You do care. I like you too pal. I do design houses. My firm typically has four or five on the go - at various stages of design. I'm anxious to see what kind of homes you're into. Post some for me here when you have a moment. You want one in NC? You guys should buy some acreage - with rolling hills. I'll put something in the ground for you. Chances are 100% that it will not have a glu-lam curved roof. EDIT: If I were to live nested. It'd be in something more like this:
Aw, I love that house. I've seen it many times and often wondered if the owners wake up everyday loving it. It looks so elegant and utilitarian in a way that would make it feel very "of course this is the way the house is designed." That's rad that you're an architect. I wish you would've weighed in on our minimal discussion on The Fountainhead as I would've loved to have had an architect's perspective on the text and of Roark.
Yeah, I was sort of kidding. I would guess that having one of your close friends design a home for you to be a good way to ruin a friendship. Still, my wife and I have always thought it would be cool to have him do it.
I figured it was a good opportunity to rip on engineers a little :) Sometimes friendships need stress to grow. I mean, if you can't punch a friend in the face confident that they'll forgive you and be willing to punch you in the face too, if only so that you can both move past it, well . . . how strong could that friendship be?
I don't know about the kind of house (I don't really want for much in that area) but I've always said that if I ever make enough money I'd have one place in the middle of the city - a studio apartment or loft or something, and another in the middle of nowhere or a small town, somewhere where it snows, close to some woods. I've lived in both (truly now - I moved into an apartment in the CBD last week) and I love both of them. It'd be the perfect setup for any sort of creative practice for me, I think.
Ideally, I would be living with someone, I think. I would be fine living alone, but I know it would probably be unhealthy and I would go for months without seeing anyone, and my mental health (already unsteady) would suffer because of it. But it'd be like what I have now, I guess - my flatmate is a creative type, too, and, like me, enjoys spending a lot of time by himself. So we have an unspoken agreement that basically whenever it becomes obvious that one of us doesn't really want to hang out we'll leave each other alone. Something like that would be good. I'd want the entire house to be a creative space, so I could work in different environments in case I came up against a wall.
Yeah, a few different spaces come to mind when I think of ideal writing spaces. The first is the rather obvious one, I think: a sort-of office, with a nice desk and a lamp, covered in pens and bits of paper and stacks of books. A relatively small space, but with a soft place to sit as well as the desk. Warm, with music playing - but something relatively soft and ambient, depending on what I'm writing. Could be c418 or it could be Joy Division. The second is the sprawling one, more like an artist's studio, with mess all over the floor - the good kind of mess - and louder music playing, some upbeat indie rock sort of a tune. The third brings Neil Gaiman's writing shed to mind, but something a bit more sparse. Silence, aside from the sounds of nature. Just a single pen and some paper - no computer or anything.
1) I love that Gaiman has a writing shed. 2) I own a Lamy fountain pen (not the 2000) and it's my most prized possession ever. It has been all over the world with me and it is so rugged and awesome and no matter how much I have neglected it, it will eventually work again . . . if I dip it into my mouth enough. Best $35 I've ever spent on a writing implement. I would highly recommend their fountain pens to anyone, even over Montblanc, which are nice (and fucking expensive), but you've got to take care of those nibs and get some decent paper! 3) c418 is nice, hadn't heard of him before. 4) A good, personalized mess is what makes me remember that I live in a place.
I didn't know about Gaiman's writing shed until recently, and now I'm just even more jealous. He also has a Narnia-esque lamppost in his backyard. A very cool dude. I like fountain pens, but have never used one for any extended period of time. I have a calligraphy set that I couldn't write anywhere near fast enough with. The pen I use (and it's only ever that one specific pen) is a Uni-ball Signo 207 (which I only just looked up). There's just something about it that I love. Writes easily while still being quite inky. My mother bought me a $60 Parker for Christmas or a birthday a year or two ago, and it just sits at home, not even in its box, because I'm using the box for another pen that cost about $2 that has sentimental value. I have to use this pen, and if I lose it I'll buy another the same day. But never in advance, only one at a time. I only just found c418 today, actually. Quite pleased with that find. Exactly! I used to always have issues with people telling me to clean my room, because to me, it was clean. I knew where everything was, and the placement of everything (which was a mess, but it was still placement) comforted me somewhat. There's something about clutter that you've collected - especially when it's nice clutter - that is just extremely homely and calming.
I can't say I have much experience with calligraphy, except for a short unit we had in art class in elementary school. It seems really cool though. I saw this video recently and it made me want to know more about it. Also, that dude is wicked cool. "Master Scribe." What a title! I really like inky pens. My hands are very often covered in ink, if I've been working like I think I should. This is the pen that I mentioned, my favorite one. Not incredibly expensive. A good pen or stationary shop should allow you to try them out. Also, that is a sweet lamppost.
Ooh, that pen does look very nice indeed. How does it write/what is it like? I might check one out this week.
I like it, but I am definitely biased as it was the only thing I used for a long time. It's a medium nib and inky, but not drippy, though you'll still get inky hands (which I don't mind, but I can see how it would be a turnoff for some). It's a great workhorse though. I'm certain that I haven't been maintaining it as well as I could (should) but it still works great.
Self sustaining(utility wise) beach in the front forest in the back. Lots of natural light but also built into the side of a hill for great insulation.
Those actually exist, you know. They evolved from flophouses so that sararimen could sleep one off.