From: "cynthia Date: Fri Oct 17, 2003 5:50 pm Subject: Dream Homestead Well, First I would purchase a HUGE amount of land...100+acres to put it on. I don't just want a house, I want a working homestead and organic farm, with several types of chickens, guinea fowl, ducks, geese, pigs, goats, Dexter and Jersey cows...all with moveable fencing so I can rotate grazing/crops areas (kind of like the Chicken Tractor, only using a rotation in animal grazing, too). That being said, I would build a HUGE (at least an acre) geodesic dome greenhouse, with clad metal, and walkways running around the outside for ease of maintenance. Bullet proof glass, of course, so hail damage wouldn't be a concern (Hey, you said money was no object, right?), double paned, and glazed for insulation. Around the exterior of that would be an underground fiber mesh concrete construction house covered with a planted berm. Windows and doors would peek out from planted areas, so you wouldn't actually see the house until you were inside it. There would be solar tubes collecting light all at the top of the berm so the inside would be light. There would be NO wall to wall carpeting, though there would be area rugs of various types. I would have a capped septic system so I could capture all the methane produced in the septic tanks to use for all my gas appliances, and even a converter burner tucked away so we could burn excess methane to produce electricity. I would have wind and water turbines as well, so I could go off the grid. Of course, I would have to have DH put in a server, so I didn't have to go back to dial up computer service. There would be masonry fireplace/ovens so we could cook with wood in an emergency, and so we could enjoy a nice toasty evening with a wood fire when we wanted. Water tubes would heat the floors. There would be lots of natural and slightly color stained woods and lovely stone surfaces, deep, plush comfy furniture, and a gourmet kitchen with its own semi-open courtyard enclosed on one side by the geodesic dome, and on the other by the earthen wall. The master bedroom would have another semi-open courtyard, and a hot tub big enough for a romp in, as well as a steam sauna and one of those showers that hit you from all sides. We'd have everything handicap accessible for future planning (and for my MIL's convenience, and my daughters friends). Inside the geodesic dome I would have my tropical fruits and veggies and ornamentals. I would grow durian fruit, cocoa, coffee, vanilla bean, pepper vine, guava, citrus, mango, miracle fruit, sapote...EVERYTHING! There would be various divisions in 'weather' from tropical, to semi tropical, from humid to arid. And in here would be hammocks and wicker furniture and umbrellas and even outdoor beds. There would be more than one level of walkway through the jungle, and maybe a nice breeding pair of lion maned tamarins and some exotic birds (big enough not to worry about the cats getting to them). I would have a stream running constantly throughout the dome in a winding path, with brightly colored tropical fish all through it, and the walls inside the dome would be of pleached plantings. The overhead sprinkler system would always be accompanied by thunderstorm recordings. Sigh. Hey, you said DREAM house...right? ***