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Lately, I've been getting into the idea of living in a cottage or cabin...I've always been fascinated by the tiny house movement, and since I've become a homeowner with all the problems that come with it, I've started to yearn for simpler living that a small cottage or cabin in the woods would allow. I've looked at a lot of pictures and started figuring out what I would want in my mind, and now I'm ready to build one...in Minecraft at least.

This should be a fun, relaxing challenge...for once the goal isn't to build something huge like a subway or castle, but to build something small and spend more time focusing on the details. This topic is to catalog my progress through the project day by day.

Day 1 - Finding a Location and Building the Framework - Wednesday, February 21st, 2018
The first day was mostly spent finding the right location for my cottage. In my mind I was looking for an elevated location in a forest, but not something that was so hilly that I would have to spend a lot of time leveling the ground into something that looked unnatural. After a lot a lot of looking, I found a suitable area just outside the winter biome, on top of a hill that gently slopes down onto a shore, which my cottage will overlook on two sides. On the other side, you can just barely make out another building off into the distance, and if I were to build the house high enough you would be able to see the edge of the winter biome.

After a bit of leveling, it came time to determine what dimensions I wanted my cottage to be. It needs to be large enough to be able to have furniture in it and presumably live in, but small enough to be a cottage. After a bit of experimentation, I decided on 15x17 blocks, but I ended up rounding the corners of the front, to allow for something like bay windows to put a table in or a reading nook. I'm really building it as if I were going to live in it, and because of that I have some idea of what I want to do in mind.

The ground floor will hold the main living area, kitchen, and bathroom. The kitchen and living area will be together in an open floor plan, while the bathroom will take up a small corner of the floor, and there should be stairs leading up and down. The second floor is where the bedroom and office area will be, where I would presumably spend most of my time when nobody is visiting. My inspiration for this floor is the Inquisitor's bedroom in Skyhold, though my version will be airier and on a much smaller scale...this area will lead to a balcony or two, though. Finally, the basement will basically be extra space for storage, guests, maybe some games if it were in real life...I've always wanted to have a game room with a pool table, ping pong table, etc.

So after finding a location and framing it out, this is what I have so far.

From the Front

From the Back

Again, it's very basic, and I don't intend to use cobblestone as the final building material, but for now I'm just getting a sense of the size and shape I want the house to be, and how the first and second floor would look and relate to each other. Nothing is even finalized yet, but this is how it looks after the first day.

I will try to share my daily progress, so more to come.

Day 2 - Building the Framework (again!) - Thursday, March 15th, 2018
Soon after making my last post, I realized that I wasn't happy with the direction of my cottage, because most of the views would be away from the ocean, so this time I did a lot of work changing the orientation.

Overlook

As you can see, what was the back is now the front! I also decided that instead of having two small bay windows, I would move the door to the side and have a larger window area. You can see it in place, it just needs some glass at some point in the future. I cleared a lot of the front area out last time before I even started building, so it's ready for flowers gardens, outdoor furniture, and anything else I think of to put out there. It will also have a winding trail going to the ocean, which you can see in the distance.

From the Door

Through the door, you can see the stairs going up to the bedroom and the future kitchen and living space. I spent a lot of my time with the stairs, because I needed to understand where things would go on the second floor. Overall I wanted the stairs to be easily noticed and accessed from the front if you're going upstairs, but just as easily ignored if you're not. I also wanted there to be plenty of space at the top of the stairs so it didn't feel like you were coming up into the wall on that last step. May experiment with making the stairs a tile wider, but I'm not sure.

Also, the torch on the side marks the general area I plan to put a balcony door on the second floor. Like I said, needed to understand where things would go there.

Top of the Stairs

Speaking of the second floor, this is the view looking from the top of the stairs into the back yard to the ocean. Very expansive, especially because there are no second floor walls at the moment! I'm not sure where the walls and windows will be yet, but I want the upstairs to be airy and have a lot of great views, so a lot of this wall will probably be window. This wall will also have a door to the balcony somewhere.

Inside the Living Area[/spoiler

Finally, back down the stairs in into the living area. You can see the front door from the inside, along with the main front window. This area will be the actual living area, while the area behind the camera will become a kitchen area. Not really sure on the details yet...I haven't spent much time in Minecraft trying to make furniture or decoration before, so my attempts to do so will probably be the majority of my logs by the end of it, lol.

My time here was dedicated to getting the basic structure set up again, so next time I imagine I'll finish up the structure , figure out the details of where I'm going to put doors and windows, and perhaps begin looking at alternative materials for the walls and floors, since I've read that making entire structures out of cobblestone is newbish, and it's not very cottage-y anyways.

Is this the one you were looking for, Moot?

Yes, it was...thank you!