One Previous Idea + One New One

Over the last few days I have been busy with Minecraft. I finally settled on the Azaz Arid resource pack for the 1.5 Ravine world, and started to get some work done but had a decision to make.

I had decided not to change the walls to snow and keep it as stone - but all stone, no dirt or gravel, mainly because the stone looked alright in this resource pack. I also smelted a lot of cobblestone to turn into stone brick, and decided to use this as the base material for the wall borders. Once again however, I wondered if I should just start again. This ravine is poor, no off-shoot caves for rooms, (So I have to dig out rooms), no abandoned mines, just a very straight ravine. Not even a curve. The other thing to keep in mind, and this is the main thing; I started this world in 1.5. This is a long time before the new biomes and woods and a lot of the recent changes in Minecraft, let alone pre-Amplified.

So I have decided to re-start in the latest snapshot, fully taking advantage of modern Minecraft. The hunt for a great ravine, begins!...


Podzol Home! NEW!
Whilst looking for a new home I was flying about, (I usually fly about to find good stuff then when I find an adequate spot, turn it to survival mode.), and I passed this huge Pozol area! It's the modern biome with the really tall trees, leafy dirt and dirt blocks that don't grow into grass, as well as being littered with clumps of mossy cobblestone. So massive was this biome, and this was just on an ordinary world setting - not amplified, that I felt compelled to start a new world there! After I continued to look around I found an area I thought might be good and landed, and changed to survival mode. It was night-time however, so I spent most of it hiding.

In the morning, despite finding a good area, there were aspects of it that were a block higher than the rest, so some of the area had to be levelled out. I did not plan the shape however, and used the natural lines of the ground, the edges wherever it went up a block, to decide on the shape of the house. I think it's going to be a modest sized home.

The shape of the house is more longer and not as square as I thought, where I didn't measure it out. A lot of trees in the home to remove at first. Along one side I did consider building out to the side as well. Just because it's a rectangle now, doesn't mean it will stay one. I will try to shape the house more so it's not to squarish or rectangular. I placed some more rough markers in dirt outside one of the doors that I deemed to be the front, for a future porch and over-hanging roof:

Since these pictures, I have used more dirt temporarily to try and shape some walls inside and try and get an idea where everything is. I'm still not sure however what material I will use for the actual outside walls. I considered making it "Natural" in wood, but it's an ovious choice, too much so. I now have more dirt walls, one hard floor to the back door (Birch) and a small enclosed hallway entrance, in which I have stairs going up as well. They don't go up to anywhere yet, but they go up! I have also transformed one of the clumps of mossy stone outside into a source of infinite water, created a small pond, and gone adventuring, planting standard seeds and melon seas on a shore for now. Whilst travelling I eventually went far enough to find standard trees and brought back Birch and Oak saplings to bring back and start a farm.

 

We have glass! I also found a nice cave behind the back of the house full of the new stone types, after testing some in my inventory crafting area (For what the polished versions would look like), I grabbed loads of the Andesite (grey one not speckled) and some of the pink standard granite for the kitchen work tops. The Andesite, as you can see I have used as a decorative border at the bottom of the outside walls..

These stairs don't go anywhere yet, but never-the-less, we have a small hallway just inside the front door!

This will either be the front room/main living area or a gigantic hallway!

The extension to the side (Did go head with it in the end.), will be the kitchen. Of course I will alow spaces for chests, sinks, fridges and ovens etc.

The back room, a temporary bedroom now, just to set the spawn point, but at least I have some company!

A better view of the layout and more noticable over-head shot of the only hard floor so far! It's going to be a pretty nice sized house, and with an upstairs as well it's going to be very comfortable! I long for the day when these temporary dirt walls become soild already!

What should I use for the main exterior walls? If you have any ideas please let me know! So this is my exciting new project! It wasn't planned, but oh well, a new project! Ironically, not that far away is a decent ravine however I eventually found one on a new world...

This very unassuming ravine, on a new world doesn't look very interesting from above either - but is decpetive. It actually splits into at least 3 - 4 other ravines, and has an abandonded mine! By those statistics, it's a perfect choice for my new ravine home using the latest snapshot! Already I have started planting trees around the edge to hide all the glass that will be covering over the top. I think the man-made stairs where I dug to the surface, a little way away, is just out of shot here.

MAIN WORLD: Three Month Update! Part #2

  Main world, survival.
Begun in 2010 in Alpha, I found a mountain with a hollow front and lava pouring down the front, round the back a single block waterfall coming out of the wall.. I decided it was a nice place to make a home! In 2012 after 2 years and developing my building style I began a mass re-generation scheme of my world, inside and outside. This is the story of my main world...

One of the other major changes in Minecraft, was the introduction of stained glass; a very big welcome introduction for me. At first I didn't think I would use it and experimented with a three coloured window somwehere within my home, but the crafting process convinced me I wouldn't really use it. After all, you can only colour the glass blocks, but; you still can get colored panes by then crafting them, in the ususal way into window panes.  As nice as my almost clear glass is in my Painterly texture pack, compared to the satined glass it doesn't compare. One of the first areas I began experimenting in was the huge sun windows in the main living area.

As it was:

 Today:

As a result, I have also made other changes with the glass as it just looks so much nicer, and smoother than my regular painterly glass. The following changes were also made to the bedroom with darkened glass (Black) for privacy, the re-built bathroom shower, and to the glass in the science lab.

Yeah, the rest of the decor is still a "to do" project!

To show the bathroom shower, I should mention that I finally began the major upgrade on the decor. Apart from some very minor changes from a long urinal to a new location for the bath/hot-tub, nothing has changed in this room for a very long time! The old sandstone decor was very tired, out-dated and not imaganitive enough in any way:

Blurgh! Bland!

All this has changed however with an adventerous plan to change the walls and floors to Nether Quartz. The idea being for the walls to be the more decorative Quartz with the plain quartz for the floor, and a last minute decision to have the same basic quartz block as a border to the bottom of the walls. Also to have pillars.  There's still some work to do as it takes a lot of Quartz! as well as being constantly harrassed by Ghasts in the local neighborhood of the Nether!

Still work to do..

As you can probably tell by the wider front, the shower (Still a working shower!) was completely rebuilt. Although I'm not very good with redstone, I have become much, much more better (or at least confident?!) in hiding redstone. In the old shower you could visably see the piston in the ceiling holding the water back. The logistics with the redstone was a bit of a nightmare, but I love the results. Now, (Also to help light levels); one of the glowstone lights retracts back up into the ceiling to release the water then neatly slides back down into place after the shower.

The other change was of course stained clay, and after finding a Mesa biome 5000 Minecraft miles from my Half-way house (Last post) I have gone a bit crazy with it! I changed the light grey wool passage way down to storage to it (Same color in stained clay), and have changed walls that use to use sand as a decorative block. Back in the day, before I got my "Stop enderman stealing blocks" mod, this use to be a major problem and I would often find one block holes. Although it wasn't a problem after the mod, after a long time I did tire of the sand walls myself. So the walls in the main living area were changed from sand to yellow hardened clay, the open hall-way ajoining to the dining room, from sand to orange stained clay.

The passage-way to the dinning hall:

Now I should mention that yes, that is a dark oak floor; and yes in the earlier shot of the bedroom that was acacia floor planks. When I found that Mesa biome I also found a savana biome with acacia trees. I did go further and also found the dark oak trees. After a lot of chopping down, I brought back some sapling specimens to replant; but his would intern mean I needed new areas for tree farms.. So far I had on a nearby mountain - the mix of spruce and jungle trees, and near the actual food farms the two tier regular tree farms:

As eagle-eyed readers might see I have a new second set of stairs going up.. I flattenned some of the bumpy mountain wall out, to create a limited area for arcacia trees to grow. At first it was just a three tree-farm but I took the mountain wall back even more to double my supply:

Spin around where I am stood above, and I had to dig into the mountain (Being very weary of where the maze was up there!), and created a new 2nd route to the top of the mountain for the new Dark Oak plantation:

Note to self!: Remove that redstone torch! I was low on torches and had redstone on me okay!

On the subject of farms, I have also in the last week, finally switched my potatoe and carrot farms to automated harvesting like the wheat farm. More about that next time however as, if I don't stop writing now I never will! This post is already long.


Coming up: Enchantments, horse & donkey shenanigans, the mob area and portal relocation, enchantment rooms, diamonds and silk touch picks, that underwater/underground minecart project, Mount DOOOooooom and more!

MAIN WORLD: Three Month Update! Part #1

  Main world, survival.
Begun in 2010 in Alpha, I found a mountain with a hollow front and lava pouring down the front, round the back a single block waterfall coming out of the wall.. I decided it was a nice place to make a home! In 2012 after 2 years and developing my building style I began a mass re-generation scheme of my world, inside and outside. This is the story of my main world...

Well where to begin? After three months I've been busy as usual on my main world. I guess I'll pick up exactly where I left off three months ago with the apartment block. Back then I was still adding log trim to the sides of the extention, and whilst I still have more shutters and window ledges to do (Must get back to that!) I did finish the trim and add a lot more of said window shutters/legdes.

Finally got those balconies over looking the Netherrack bridge!

Now that I have found a mesa biome after travelling, I can go ahead and add the feature walls in the apartments, a splash of colour using dyed hardened clay! So I still have that to do, which also mens replacing the glass panes in the front bay windows back to glass blocks as the feature wall will cover the exterior wall on the outside. The mesa biome is 5000+ minecraft miles away from my half-way house, speaking of which..

Back in the day in Alpha, I had an area far way from my mountain home with snow and lava and therefore infintley burning forest. I loved this little area and built a little cemetry there. Unfortunatley, early on during the first year; I lost the world and wasn't doing proper regular back-ups back then. Although I recovered the world, a new chunk grew in that area's place, it regenerated (Bit like Doctor Who!) but was never to be the same again. I had some nice chunk walls on the way over there after. so much so I built a half-way house coming out of the front of one. It was only ever a very basic wooden home with a wood facade potrouding out from the chunk wall however, completetly empty inside apart from a fireplace. Never did anything with it, swore I would one day..

Back in the day...

Well, during the three month blog break, I was going around taking pictures of everywhere except this time I left the resource pack off. When I got to this place however, I started getting ideas on how to improve it.. As you can see - hideous chunk walls either side of it back then, so I decided to make those chunk walls part of the home; extentions if you will on either side of the main front facade. So after changing the rest of the oak logs outside to spruce, (I wanted it to be from natural material in the area, hence all the wood. Winter log cabin home?); the work began.

 

I would have loads of space on either side now, although after clearing out I didn't realise exactly how much on either side! I also found on the right side (Facing out from the house), the very end back wall, right at the back; backed onto a sizeable cave.

 

 

The left extention, as indicated by the new birch floor and placement of the birch blocks, will be the new kitchen diner! The other side, was so big it had to be split into two as shown with the temporary dirt wall. (Still there currently). The back room of which is now a store room that I'm gradually creating. The arch way incidently, wasn't meant to be there, a creeper spawned and did it's damage. I liked the size of the hole so kept it and developed it into an archway. Due to that, the immediate front room as you walk in - is becoming just a hallway, the first empty part of the room up to the dirt wall will be the new living room. I have already moved the fireplace into there.

 

Just waiting to be done and furnished!

 

 

Most likely, I will add roof overhangs on the extentions too, from the top spruce beam.

I have also done some work on the outer area, landscaping some small, half chunk walls and levelling the area for a second oak and birch tree farm away from the main ones back at the mountain home. I also built a little troll bridge across the water to it and changed the very slight sand chunk wall, flattening it so I could have a farm area.

The plan is, to make this half-way house a more nearer, fully functional, holiday home. A home away from home if you will.

Coming up: Coloured glass, dyed hardened clay craze, enchantments, horse & donkey shenanigans, deadly trips to the Nether, the mob area and portal relocation, new tree farms at the main home, enchantment rooms, diamonds and silk touch picks, that underwater/underground minecart project, Mount DOOOooooom and more!

The Journey Continues...

That's right, welovetomine is coming back!

I tried to live without it, I really did; but after three months - I miss it! I miss writing about my adventures, my updates to my main world, my new plans, old plans... I have a fair bit to tell, especially with my main world, I have started a new 2014 (Latest snapshots) base and of course there's all those old projects to get back to World1 - underground home, AllBases home conversion, the stronghold home, the ravine home - haven't done much on that last one in ages!

As far as this blog goes, due to all the past SPAM, only members of this blog can now post, anyone signing up just to spam the free minecraft gift card comments will be immediatly removed.

The next post will be in the next few days!

The Last welovetomine Post

It is with great regret that I announce that I've decided to end the blog.

It's been fun for the past three years charting the progress of my worlds, seeing how they've changed, however, I'm just not getting anything out of it anymore. With all the freeminecraft spam, despite moderating the posts, I'm just not getting the buzz out of it any more. Don't worry though, I'll just be playing Minecraft itself just as much! I shall be posting instead at the old official forum, but in bite-size managable chunks. So what does this mean for the posts? Well, there are boards for all the main worlds, threads for others, so if I need to update and mention a few things in a few different worlds, it will be spread across the forum in their relevant board/thread. This also means it'll help keep a regular active-ness to the site.

I want to say a big thank-you to all 28 members that sign up to read my scribbles, babbles, and what not, and yes those first ten will stay on my little notice board in my main world! Hell, I might just put all your names on their now! Alas it is time to close the doors, put things away in the chest and blow out the last torch on the walls of this here blog. Feel free to visit me from time to time at the forum if you so wish. Until then keep mining, exlporing, building and adventuring!

Happy minecrafting!

leangreen76 aka Peter.

Building Like a MOFO!

Last time I posted about this world, back in July, I talked about how the mysterious roof dissappearance on my apartment block led me to starting the renovations; making it prettier and making a lot of improvements.

Before the upgrade:



Last post:




Since the last time, I have made considerable progress, continuing to add the log trim around the sides and not just the corners, adding the window shutters (Hatches/trap-doors) and window sills (Upside down stairs). I had a good 80 - 90% done but, what I had also done was remove the old ladder up/water shoot down. In it's place I had build a double-back stairs, but come early last week I really started to not like it. I built it in the limited space, but where it double-backed on itself it just looked ugly and messy - it had to go. It was time to build the extension I had been considering for a while!

Right before the extension:

 

At first I just began to build out the back, this however became extremley problematic. No matter which way I tried to face the stairs, it took a significant chunk of the apartments size off, making them even more tiny. It also eliminated the space for the bathrooms. In the end I went to my creative copy of this world and tried to work something out. What I came up with, was to build it out at the side also, up to the gravel path. It meant I had to realign said path a bit, but is worth it.

Yeah... The path now curves round..

I did all the stairs first and temporary floors with dirt, just so I could get to all floors and, I know I know; it almost looks like I griefed it! The new outer wall to the side is at least 5+ blocks wide so the old exterior wall - now on the inside, had to be demolished. Just like the main body of the apartments, all sand levels would have to be converted to sandstone. Last week and continuing this week in the weekdays, I spent long afternoons going back and forth to snow biomes and to the desert. Thank God I have my horse to make the trips easier.

Each corridor is 2 blocks wide with a dividing wall between the corridor and the stairs down. I still have a lot of work to do, I litterally just finished converting all the sand levels for the main body of the apartments into sandstone this afternoon.

So here it is so far!:

New lobby (Just needs some more detailing):

Old lobby:

Once things are nearer completon, all torches will be removed in favour of glowstone.

One good thing is that by adding the extension, it also means the bathrooms can be a little bigger as well, so they're not ridiculously small. Still need to change all the corridor floors, thinking of changing the lobby floor, more window shutters to be added, decide on kitchen window alignment (Side, facing the nether-bridge), finish the roof, furnish the homes and make sure every single bathroom and kitchen is done! Then possibly add stained clay to inisde of the big bay windows to hide the exterior decor. (Allows for more personalisation, window panes in bay windows will have to be converted back to old skool window blocks as it will be double thickness (Interior, exterior windows - double glazing!)

So this is what has been keeping my busy as of late, as well as the Hexxit mod pack in the technic launcher, but I'll get to that another time!..