I wasn’t aware of Earthships. Pretty cool!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship
Our eldest is an architect and doesn’t care for the concept of single family dwellings or underground homes. I keep telling him with the right location it’s easy to have an underground complex of individual homes with plenty of green space.
Good thing; it looks like you’ll have to do a lot of that to build one of these.
The problem I have with the various hobbit houses is that they attempt to imitate a culture and lifestyle that is not only fictional, but is completely contrary to the idea of building a wackity-ass iconoclastic dream house at huge expense, off in the middle of nowhere and completely divorced from any existing community.
Maybe a bunch of people need to build a planned community for their hobbit houses; it’s probably cheaper that way anyway.
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who looked at that house and didn’t think it exactly looked like it was underground. To me it’s more like it’s just got some ground on the roof. I’d think part of the draw of an underground house would be it’s insulated properties. The house in the picture wouldn’t quite fit that at all with all the glass.
My favorites are from back when a house was a house 
I particularly like the idea of a “maid’s room” in this one!
We recently closed on our very typical traditional 2-story house in the mid-boonies of NY state. When we did, a colleague commended us on our environmentally sound decision to buy a 100-year-old house rather than having a new one built. I hadn’t thought about that at the time, but I guess it beats a lot of the new construction being hawked as “green.”
Although, these “Earthship” houses are essentially made out of industrial waste, so a new Earthship would probably be more environmentally friendly than buying a 100-year-old house.
You did good!!! 
Pictures, we want pictures!!!
All that old growth wood in your house will serve you well. The crap that passes for lumber these days is pitiful and it’s not properly cured. New houses don’t stand a chance compared against the workmanship/craftsmanship and materials in old houses.
really we do want pictures…
The Creek Nation have built their modern capitol building to be reminiscent of an old ceremonial mound. It has turf on it.
Boy, you’re not kidding. I’ve had to replace
wood in a windowsill twice because of rot.
I have found that much of the wood products available today are more than satisfactory for quality home production. Old growth wood isn’t the best wood to use for construction that uses fasteners such as pneumatic driven nails or even nails driven by my 24oz Hart. There are often problems with home construction that could lead one to believe materials are not as good as they were in the “old days” but the reality is often that the builder is not following proper construction protocols. The standards required of most home construction lumber are far and above anything that has gone before.
My opinion is based on personal experience.
Three years ago we enclosed what was originally one of two “utility porches” at our house- a Craftsman built in the 1930s.the goal was to build it to match the rest of the house. My husband and I hand picked all the lumber that went into our new “morning room”. We sent back entire deliveries more than once. Heck, out of two loads of pine bead board for the ceiling we only kept 11 boards! - the stuff they sent was full of knot holes, which I had specifically said to the seller, would not do. There are already several of these which have split down the length. Every year since I’ve had to “fill” the cracks that have developed in the wood trim, where ends meet. In our case the problem was the lumber. My dh spent a good part of his life as a professional carpenter building houses, commercial buildings, etc.. He used all his considerable skills in building this new addition. The only window trim in the room that doesn’t have cracks from the wood shrinking are the two framed with trim over 100 years old, salvaged from my old church which was built in 1892.
It still makes me sick when I sit in there and look at all the flaws that have developed in this short time. We bought the best we could find, but it obviously wasn’t too great.
I would agree though that windowsills that are rotting and needing replacing more than once sounds like a construction/water problem. There’s got to be something else going on there.