Minecraft Creations: The Jungle Greenhouse

The Jungle Greenhouse I am proud of as it won me the Lanslide 4.0 Minecraft Competition and even then it was only half finished, of course I must admit I was only competing against one person as we didn’t quite get the number we had last time but even so this time I was determined to make something, and make something good. To be honest that did mean I spent a lot of time in Minecraft but I didn’t really have a problem with that, just glad I won something to the chagrin of my colleagues who were trying to win at least something the whole night, I do remember last Lan I was trying my hardest to win the Armagetronad comp but ended up coming second by a very small margin but anyway, all’s good. The screenshot below I took with the default texture pack, the rest were with the Faerielight 256x256 “Resource” pack as they are now called.

Where I got up to at the comp

 For the competition I had an idea in my mind about a Jungle Treehouse, just what kind is all, I did originally want to Make a sort of series of houses along platforms that connected with bridges, but when I saw a group of jungle trees on a high hill I just knew it was going to be something similar to what I usually do lol, so I made various platforms of jungle wood planks on different tops of trees as I usually do but instead of making all of the individual rooms I ended up buildings frames out of jungle logs making all of the platforms apart from the tallest one into one large open room, I also built around one of the trees so that it would be inside. I made the roof in a similar design to what I usually do, I was going to try something else, the topmost level I made into a sort of penthouse with a balcony intending it to be my bedroom and that’s basically where I got up to for the competition, I reckon I did pretty well for the time limit. After I got home I decided to work on it some more where I then got the idea of it not actually being a house but being some sort of greenhouse a jungle greenhouse. 

Front and back view of the completed Greenhouse

 

My usual layered rooftop

And thus I fashioned huge windows and  grew more jungle trees in every square space in the big room that I could find, I also worked out how to make the taller jungle trees (4 jungle saplings placed together then add 2-5 bone meal) I turned the upstairs “penthouse” into a sort of wilderness Herb/Alchemy lab similar to Dr Earnhardt’s lab from Farcry 3, except mine is purely for research purposes and not for creation or hallucinogenic drugs (well mostly) I included a sapling/flower garden plus a covered mycelium mushroom garden and an alchemy section with 3 cauldrons and Alchemy tables with an additional garden bed outside. 

Indoor jungle trees!

My drug Alchemy lab

Sapling/Flower and Mushroom garden

The next problem I had to deal with was how the hell you get up to the Greenhouse/Lab as in case you didn’t know Minecraft jungles (and jungles) in general are notoriously difficult to navigate as they are very dense with bushes and are hilly so creating a decent looking entrance on the ground would not be that easy, so I had a look around the general area down below the house and found a nice secluded spot where the Jungle biome meets the forest/plains biome which was nice and clear and had some stone showing through, I decided this would be a great place for a (semi) secret entrance and began to dynamite a tunnel upwards towards the bottom of the greenhouse where I eventually came up right under it, of course the place was still a fair way up so I made a downwards extension from the bottom of the house to connect the with the tunnel and built a narrow staircase up. I made a stone staircase from the entrance up through the tunnel as well as some iron doors for the entrance and decorated (and hid) everything I could with vines.

The shady entrance

Stairway up to the... well other stairway

The stairway up from the tunnel into the house.

I then got a fantastic idea for making the whole place blend in a bit more with the rest of the jungle, yes that’s right I covered the place in vines which looked good coming down the walls both on the inside and outside of the greenhouse. I also added them to the upper tiers of the roof (as you can only hang them in edges or corners not hanging from the bottom of a block itself) and this made a great “hanging vines” effect, I might have put a bit too many around but meh it’s supposed to be jungely and wilderness isn’t it?

Vines

More vines!

Even more vines! (may have gone a bit overboard)

 So when I finished that the place was looking pretty good, but I needed to fill it with a few more things, I decided to continue the greenhouse/natural alchemy lab theme down below and put logs of various tree types with bushes on top for collecting ‘samples’ as well as tables and chests around the lower area for examination and storing. I created another alchemy lab in a corner and made another plant and mushroom garden with examination table at the bottom of the stairs up to the main lab, and that was pretty much it.

Logs and bushes for sample and chests and tables for storing and examination.

The "corner" alchemy lab

The lower sapling, flower and mushroom garden.

 I was in a bit of a hurry to get this thing done so didn’t spend too much time on every little detail and did forget a few things like more glowstone for the plant gardens and alchemy labs and I did actually forget crafting tables but I guess crafting tables really aren’t needed in retrospect as this was a Greenhouse and also one of the very few things that I’ve made which isn’t supposed to be a proper Minecraft house.

So I’m happy with it in that regard and I’m glad that I did end up finishing it, stay tuned for more Minecraft shenanigans on Angrathar’s Amarthine Minecraft server that he very nicely set up and paid for us all to come on and play on a server to ourselves.

JD

You call that house?