Minecraft - Hole in One

Let's run this down. House? Check. Lots of chests? Check. Diamond Tools? Check. Nether Portal? Check. Lots of material? Nope. So, what's a nice easy way to get a lot of materials that is both useful and cool? You dig a huge hole in the ground!
Now that I knew what I wanted to do, the next question was where to put said hole. Well, I had a staircase leading from inside my house down into the "crawlspace" below my house which, since my house was floating, was open. Unfortunately, it was also still filled with water. First order of business, get the water out. That was the easy part in the grand scheme of things, it just took a lot of sand to actually do it but the end result was a nice dry basement to start digging from.

I marked out a hole that fit the space and had an odd number of blocks (so that it had a single block center). The area turned out to be 9x9, and the digging began. My staircase was going to be two wide, with a 2x2 landing at each corner. That meant 5 steps down along each side. I dug my first level down, then hollowed out everything the rest of the way around until I came back under my steps. I then backed up and dug the next layer of steps down, hollowed it out, steps, hollowed, steps, hollowed all the way down. What really surprised me was the fact that I never hit anything other than the occasional pocket of resources. No caves, no lava, no water, nothing. Just more stone, dirt and gravel.

The creation of Netherrack and Glass with water flowing
through it. This is at the top looking all the way down.

Once I finally hit bedrock, it came time to hollow out the 5x5 center of my huge shaft. At the same time, I wanted to create a unique way of lighting the shaft. The solution: Netherrack and glass. I started hollowing out the center at the very top. At each of my landings, I created a 3x3 glass ring in the center with a block of Netherrack in the four corners. Then I'd dig down to the next landing and build another.

Once the Netherrack was lit and the torches on the wall removed, it created a very nice look with plenty of light.

The pool above my new shaft.

Back up at the top, I created a glass ceiling one block below the top level and flooded it with water to create a nice pool. I then broke out the very center block and let the water flow down the center of my shaft through every hole in the glass. A very awesome waterfall indeed. The final touch was more lit Netherrack around the outside of my shaft. I did this, then went back to the bottom of my shaft to create the pool for the water to actually land in instead of just running everywhere. When I came back up, I realized my mistake.

The pool at the bottom with my glassed-in lava
blob in the background. The bottom of my staircase
is back behind the lava.

I noticed it right away. The wooden floor in my dining room, which was exposed underneath, was gone and I was looking up into clear skies. I quickly went up the stairs and realized almost half my house was either gone or on fire... After a brief "Oh $#!*" moment, I realized I had the lit Netherrack too close to my wooden floor. Needless to say the Netherrack got put out very quickly and I proceeded to put the fire out in the rest of my burning house as well. That was fun. The "shower" in the upstairs bathrooms were what had saved a large portion of the house from completely burning down.

So first my roof gets blown off by a Creaper, then I practically burn my house down to the ground. I wasn't having the best of luck with my house. So, the rebuilding began again. This time, I covered the entire sub-floor with cobblestone which proved to be a good insulator against the fire. I learned that lesson the hard way!

The Underground Farm. The water actually flows off the
pool at the top of the shaft.

Over time I would continue to work on this shaft. I made an underground wheat and sugar cane farm on the first level and my train station on the second. I connected the bottom of the shaft to the bottom of my staircase that runs from bedrock to air and surrounded a blob of lava with glass. Needless to say, I had plenty of building materials to begin working on my big idea.

Next time, I get my wife involved and the ground leveling process begins. Plus I run into a nice little surprise that was nice at first, but a hindrance in several aspects of my project.