The Future

Strange...the same thing happened this week as the week before - we were about to put a bid in on another house, this one had been on the market for two years, and just like that someone else bought it. Strike two. We have one more in mind but after that there don't seem to be any options. Hopefully the third time is the charm...

Yesterday we had a nice day in Leiden. Naomi's friend was sick in the hospital with a nasty skin infection, so we visited her for awhile. Naomi also picked up an old Singer sewing machine that someone was willing to trade for a bottle of wine - turns out it is from 1909. Now she will spend some time restoring it.

We also went to the botanical gardens - oldest in the Netherlands - and I saw a vision of the future. We entered a greenhouse for some tropical plants, and stepping into the warmth from the cold, rainy, windy afternoon was quite the blessing. After a few minutes of enjoying the heat and the tropical plants, I asked myself, what if we could do this every day?

Since then, I have been designing our future house in my head. We need to find a nice little plot of land somewhere with plenty of trees. Someone will need to install a geothermal heat pump. Then we will have someone construct a similar greenhouse over the top - two or three stories high with plenty of space underneath.

After the shell is there, we could do most of the rest. The kitchen would be open, levels that we want to keep cool, like the movie theater and bedrooms, can be created partially underground like hobbit homes, of course there would be a swimming pool with a tiki hut, lots of tropical plants, and catwalks with sitting areas to give some elevation. It would be like living in a tropical paradise but without all the mosquitos.

I have also found that it can be done on a budget - there is a company in Sweden that does the whole thing, wooden house and all, for about 225k dollars. http://www.ecorelief.se/vart_naturhus.aspx Anyway, someday in the future, I hope we can make this idea into a reality. For now we will settle for life in Suburbia.

Some not-so-tropical plants that I managed to capture before the battery died.