Hobbitry; living underground, part 2
Mistakes

As I told you in an earlier post, when we built our underground house back in 1980 we made some mistakes. Not for lack of care, but for lack of adequate information about the process.

The worst mistake was failing to make the house big enough. We were trying for maximum efficiency and a simpler lifestyle, and trying to make our funds stretch as far as possible, and we achieved those goals. But we built a house for an image of our future based on two adults growing old together. We had no idea that several of our children -- and their children -- were going to move to Arkansas and join us, so that there was a serious need for a "rec room" of some kind where the kids could hang out, and for a guest wing where people could stay while finding jobs and places to live. We had no idea that we were going to start a small business and run it out of our house, so that there would be a serious need for places to put copiers and computers and printers and scanners and cameras and large quantities of stock -- books and tapes and videos and CDs and limited edition prints, and more. We had no idea that the house was also going to have to hold a small-press operation and a recording studio and a nursery (the plants kind of nursery) and an art studio. We built way too small. And with an underground house built in solid rock there is one fact that has to be faced: You can't just add on another room.

The second mistake was putting a flat roof on the place. It seemed like an excellent idea at the time. It gave us a big open area of concrete that was the perfect place to do container gardening, and the perfect place for kids to rollerskate ... things like that. George built a big screened porch in the middle of the roof, and we put porch rockers and a hammock inside; instant luxurious leisure, with no ticks and no bees or wasps, and fresh-air-and-view in all directions. You could landscape the earth all around the roof, with shrubs and flowers and ornamental trees. You could sit up there and talk, with suitable food and drink and company. It was wonderful.

Except for something we'd never thought of. The house sat in the middle of an open area that had been pastureland for cattle, and that porch was the tallest thing in the pasture. Every lightning bolt that came along headed straight for our place, and getting through the storms was an Experience. Every time there was a lightning storm we lost three or four light bulbs and at least one small appliance. Every two or three storms, the lightning fried one of our telephones. The special effects -- and the noise -- were absolutely spectacular. Trust me: You wouldn't have liked it one bit.

Another feature of the flat roof that we hadn't anticipated was that when the rain was heavy it came right on into the house and poured down the walls. We would stand by the walls with mops and buckets and big towels, trying to keep up; sometimes we managed to do that, and sometimes we didn't. George tried everything to seal the roof so that it wouldn't happen [insert long list of sealing compounds and doodads here], but nothing ever lasted through more than a couple of hard rains. Obviously, this wouldn't do.

Unlike the mistake of building too small, the flat-roof mistake was fixable. We had to give up that wonderful flat roof with all its benefits -- very reluctantly, I assure you -- and replace it with a peaked roof, and that solved the problem. Lightning strikes went from one per storm to one every ten years. The problem of water getting in and running down the walls went away. And it gave us an attic, which was useful. Progress was made, therefore.


[Now -- before you point out the obvious to me -- it is of course true that there was a way to solve the building-too-small problem and the flat-roof problem at the same time. If there'd been money enough available, we would have built a second story -- with a rec room and some office space -- and put the peaked roof on top of that. That was certainly obvious, but the money just wasn't there. Life is like that.]