Snusmumriken

Now. I’m living on the westside of oslo. I live in a shared appartment in a functionalistic living block from 1930. It’s nice. It’s got lots of lovely stuff that i’ve always wanted. A dishwasher. A lift. A bathtub. A waste-something (Søppelsjakt). But i’ve always had lots of plans for my hypothetical future home, and whenever spring comes and the sun is heating up the concrete of the building. Whenever the 7th floor turns tropic, - i start looking for alternatives. Here are some of my alltime probably never gonna happen - favourites.

Caravan
For some reason, i’ve always wanted to live in a caravan. Not the “stand in one place” variety, but rather the german kind that moves around. Not the “behind a car”-kind, but the “this is a car”-kind. I’ve been looking at ads every spring and autumn for quite a few years now, but it hasn’t happened yet, although there are affordable ones out these. The problem is parking and electricity. Renting parkingspaces are pretty damned expensive, and I fear I would be rather afraid of the dark whenever I ended up in the woods.

Eco villages and hobbit living.
I’ve been looking at different eco villages ever since i learned what it was some years ago. There are several in Norway: lofoten and Hurdal. Most seem to be extremely family oriented, which I guess is nice for the families, and alot sadder for the random single person looking for a nice farming community. I guess one of the awsomest eco villages around is the danish eco-manor Svanholm. It looks to be awsomely collectively run with common kitchen, kinder garden, farmwork, and even cars, all of which appeals to my inner communist - besides it’s basically self supplied. The backside is the very high “joining in” fee. It does look pretty damned tempting though. Another extremely awsome looking one is the village of Lammas in wales. The houses are of the “build it yourself from stuff you find and recycled materials”-kind. A nice example is this house right here. It really makes me want to become a hobbit. The problem is of course that I’m no farmer, and I don’t know if I really want to become one. Still I’ve been looking at all the cheap norwegian farms around in norway, that are empty and which wants people to buy them… and it would mean that I would be able to hold goats and make cheese. I’ve always wanted to hold goats.

Eco domea
Eco villages aside: at one point I want to build my own house. Partly because it would make me feel very manly, partly because there are so many cool ways to build. One of my alltime favourites, even cooler than building a big campsite out of discarded moelven barracks, is the eco domes. There are building plans and stuff on the website I linked to. In norway one would need to build a basement and so on before erecting the actual domes, but they are indeed really nifty looking. I’m dying to make the awsomest house in the world.

But returning to reality… i’m making a second batch of improved wheat and chickpea bread, and I’m being a good girl and writing my exams. Functionalistic living blocks from the 30’s aren’t half bad. Although they, unlike both the hobbit houses and the eco-domes, don’t look like they’re fetched from a Thore Hansen illustration.