"old school" way makes the root cellar a separate building which I think is brilliant. The earth on the roof keeps it cool, stone walls make it cool, and you can make a ice room, which is basically a room with some either plastic or ss sealed containers to keep the moisture in, with frozen water, you can freeze the water during the winter. It keeps pretty well. it is very good for storage goodies, aging cheese, you name it.
@ wifezilla...
well it is more complicated
we have building plots: you pay annual taxes for the property and anything that is built on it.
then there is farm land. which you cannot build a house on, yet you do not pay any taxes for it, as a matter of fact, you get some money from the government and the European union to cultivate/use the land.
Finally... when you own and/or rent more land then our polish "states" average farm, you can try to get a permit to transform a piece of it into a... well homestead land I think it describes it best, and THEN you can build a house on it.
I do not need a TV-room - I do not watch tv.
I need a place to sleep - that would be the loft
Place to put my computer - also the loft, but on the other end
And a library, to put my books in- that would be a nice cover for the mess in the bedroom and the working are, so it would make a great dividing walls in the loft. shelves for books.
the ground floor would make up of a kitchen, shower/toilet room, utility room, a day/dining room period
It would be out of cob, with sheep wool insulation, with some wood heating source. It would be small yet cozy.
Even though I could build it under the limit ad hope nobody would bother, but in reality... it is better to just rent the land or at least on paper rent the land and transform a piece of land to a homestead land, and get a building permission for a house.
I found a nice foreclosure piece of land, it is just over an acre. it has power line up close so connecting won't be a problem, it is CHEAP and I mean CHEAP. BUT there is a catch this acre is a half of 2 acre plot, I did however talk to the guy that takes care of the auction and he said the other half owner wants to get rid of it and possibly quite cheap. It is bordered by a small creak on one side, and a dirt road on the other. it has a good half acre of nice forest. But what is more important it is about 20 miles from the place where I will be studying to get a degree which means that even though it would be HARD to make studying and carrying for some animals, but I think I would be able to pull it off. there is a catch though, it is a farmland which means that you cannot build anything bigger then 35 square meters that is about 350sq ft counting by the outer edge of the building. it is still about 200 ft on the inside making a sleeping loft would up it to about 300 usable ft.. which ain't that bad if you ask me... the smaller the space to clean, the better.
