Deciding to build a Hobbit Hole was the easy part.  Actually building it is a whole new adventure.  While browsing around on the Chinese equivalent of Amazon I stumbled upon a curious structure that I thought might work.  It was made of a styrofoam-like material, that you cover with waterproofing material and then concrete.  We went pretty far down the path of choosing that company for our Hobbit Hole.  We even designed a couple floor plans using their structures which we named the Gumdrop and the Twinkie.

As we got closer to purchasing that structure the problems inherent in communicating with China made us reconsider. I still really like that structure and hope someday to get one and build it, but for our first Hobbit Hole we wanted to be more sure of the end result. Fortunately, we found another company that builds something fairly similar. The factory is in Mexico and they have a sales office in the US. The new dome is made of reinforced fiberglass instead of styrofoam and it is made to be covered in dirt and grass.  So 4 months into the process we completely scrapped the plans and started with a new dome design.  Skip ahead 3 more months and we had our Hobbit Hole plans ready.

That is the rendering from the dome manufacturer.  What we have planned is not going to look like that.  We are going full on Bilbo Baggins decor.  We found a fella that’s going to make a big round front door, all the windows and interior doors are going to be round-topped, and there’s going to be a lot of natural wood and earthy colors. It has been quite fun looking through Pinterest for ideas and inspiration. The best source has been the first 30 min of the Fellowship of the Ring movie.  These are some of our favorite inspirational pics.  Hopefully we can create something that gets pretty close to these.

The goal is to make this a place apart from the world.  During that first 30 min of the Fellowship movie, Extended Edition, there is a wonderful description of what Hobbits are like. They enjoy peace. They don’t get involved in the dealings of the Big Folk. They love all beautiful things that grow.  They enjoy good food (and plenty of it). Their primary objective is comfort and being with the ones they love.  That is really what we are building.