Home Tour Part 1: Hobbit Home in the Jungle

Welcome to my Hobbit Home in the jungle!!

i often feel that I live in a dream world, and I stop frequently to look around at the paradise surrounding me with complete wonder and gratitude that I should have so much. All of my life I believed that I would eventually live in a thatch-roofed house with palm trees outside, so being here in my self-built hobbit house, surrounded by fragrant green-ness mixed with lemons and bananas, is a feeling of complete rightness.

Tropical living is often based outside … there are few days when one can’t sit outside (with shade) to do many activities. So my house is very open. The windows are covered in a wide-mesh screen (keeps out birds and bats, dogs and cats) so hard storms blow lots of water and small debris right into the kitchen (usually the really windy storms come out of the north-east which is the kitchen-side). Like houses in a flood zone, the house is accommodated for the occasional “sudden cleansing” … anything that must be kept dry is kept well-sealed or in an inner room.

Living in a small thatched house is not everyone’s idea of perfection, but there are lots of things I love about it. Not only is it cool, and natural, easy to repair, and quiet (have you ever tried to converse under a metal roof in a jungle deluge?), but it is also a complete ecosystem in itself. Surprisingly, a good thatched roof will last about 40 years with upkeep and no trees hanging overhead.

I DO have trees hanging overhead … or ONE tree mostly … directly outside of the back door is a tree of giant lemons. I leave it there for several reasons … the lemons are incredible, the tree hangs mostly over the metal roof of the kitchen, not the thatch, it keeps the house cooler, and it is home for our two parrots, who can also enter the back of the house on a “run” that goes in through a hole above the windows and across the ceiling of the kitchen / dining area. More detail and photos to come on this home feature when we get to the Kitchen Tour.

The back section of the house does have a lamina (metal) roof … it is a safety feature since this is the area that houses the kitchen. I no longer cook over an open fire built on a stucco covered table, but even a gas range can be a danger under a thatched roof on a hot day.

The walls of this house are a local type of construction that has been used since the time of the Maya. Walls of sticks are filled with broken-up rocks, and then all is covered with stucco (a local product). (The topic deserves a complete post of its own).

For the exterior stucco walls, I decided on a latex paint … yellow on top and green on bottom. I’ve never been brave with colour, and the Mayans would probably have gone with something much brighter, but i like the way this evokes sun and plants, (we’ve kept more trees than is usual and have a blessedly cool fresh yard with little bright sun). The upright posts, as well as a lot of the roofing woodwork inside) are either a deep rust red or yellow oil paint. On these posts, it is critical to the health and longevity of the house to keep out the ever-present termites.

I love the way the house kinda flows with the land and blends with it’s surroundings. And these back windows catch the afternoon breeze perfectly!!

Stay tuned over these next days … I’ll be publishing more posts on the “Home Tour” series as we look at the inside of the house, and tour the gardens.