Everyone Get Excited, Hobbit Holes Are A Reality!

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

I had shared this photo on facebook today:

hobbit hole.jpg

As you all probably know by now, I've always wanted to live in a hobbit hole, and I know many of you have as well. I gleefully looked up the website for these Green Magic Homes, which would cost you more than $5000 admittedly if you wanted a standard sized family home, but it's still much cheaper than a regular house. I did the math and to get the skeleton for a 2000 sq foot home, it would be $82,000. You'd need to build it yourself and probably have someone do the plumbing/gas hook up, but it's a hobbit hole still.

Here's the website where they have plans that are already made, or if you've got $500 laying around, they'll make up plans directly for you.

Anyway, I thought it was a neat idea that you could have a hobbit hole for less than a wood and frame custom built house in any size you want. I have already pestered my (very good-natured) boyfriend about building one of these places, and when we do, I'll invite everyone to come visit. I briefly had an idea to have lots of Downers create a whole neighbourhood of hobbit holes, but I'd need more than just me on board. Ha.

Imagine affordable hobbit holes, customized for all of us Shire-lovers here. I'm beside myself with excitement at the possibilities.

What do you guys think?

EDIT:
Here's another article about this particular company.

[Galadriel55]

Wow... That's certainly something! Wouldn't it be cool to just have that in your back yard, even if it's not enough to live in for the whole family? If only we all had an extra $5000...

[Pitchwife]

They'd have to have lots of windows for me, as I just like to see things outside when I'm writing or doing stuff. Also a garden large enough to serve as pasture for a couple of sheep, chicken and ducks - or actually, they could all graze on the roof, couldn't they? How awesome would that be?

What would really be great is if individual holes could be connected to form a warren - or, to use the proper word, a smial.

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

They'd have to have lots of windows for me, as I just like to see things outside when I'm writing or doing stuff. Also a garden large enough to serve as pasture for a couple of sheep, chicken and ducks - or actually, they could all graze on the roof, couldn't they? How awesome would that be?

What would really be great is if individual holes could be connected to form a warren - or, to use the proper word, a smial.

I'd want lots of windows too, and a huge garden. It reminds me of a project my friend and I did in middle school where we imagined our own hobbit hole with a garden and lots of goats and rabbits.

Also, different smials could be connected with long hallways.

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by TheGreatElvenWarrior

Also, different smials could be connected with long hallways.

This somehow conjured up the mental image of a Borg cube made of interconnected hobbit holes and covered in grass, with roots dangling from the soil taking the place of cables.

[Bêthberry]

I think we should build some of these in Iceland, and hold them as a time share. Imagine a Barrow Downs moot in Iceland!

yes, there is a Tolkien connection.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

yes, there is a Tolkien connection.

Little is it known, but the country of Iceland was closely tied with the development of the canonical concepts of the banana and the banana-peel...

I do, however, agree that it would be a marvelous thing to have.

[Galadriel55]

Letting my imagination go free is not always great. I imagined out a smial where the upper half is a jungle and the lower half is basically Khazad-Dum.

To set a more realistic goal, I think that if I were to design a hole, I would have a room where everything is made of just wood and rope. I'd macrame the whole thing. It would take me ages, especially since the biggest item I made so far is only as long as my hand, but it would be fun and pretty. There can be a hammock, and a couple plant pots hanging from ceilings, a wooden table with decorative macrame on the edges, macrame cushions, all sorts of weird wood-and-macrame decorations... It would be lovely, and not un-hobbitish. To make the picture perfect, there would also be a tree growing through the room, but that would make it a talan more so than a hole. (I warned you that my imagination is ready to turn this into a jungle )

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I think we should build some of these in Iceland, and hold them as a time share. Imagine a Barrow Downs moot in Iceland!

yes, there is a Tolkien connection.

Oh yes, perfect. We'll name the little neighbourhood The Wights at Great Smials. Surely nobody is going to try to take us down for copyright infringement there, because it's not like anyone uses the word 'smial' in the movies.