So this is my research lab, where I study the nature of the strange creatures who come out at night and the transdimensional travel that brings them here. You can't see it, but just off the coast from here is the underwater Nether-Henge. I'm convinced that figuring out this mystery is the key to returning to civilized lands. The dogs, I keep here to dispose of the remains after my experiments. Also, if there is a breach of containment, I'll need their help.
So first a little backstory: My spawn is a deserted Jungle Island. I'm just now reaching the Tanned leather portion of the BTW tech tree, because it took me forever to find some wolves and bring them back from the mainland. On the other hand, I discovered a zombie spawner on one of my sandbars just below the surface. So I decided to kill two birds with one stone and built this:
Underneath the house itself is my "Humane" dung farm design. The wolves get to live out in the open most of the time.
But when I need dung, a flick of the switch and...
That's a couple hours worth of dung. Not the best, but it works for my small scale operations. The design also gets my son's seal of approval: He thinks the walls going up are there to protect the dogs from the monsters at night.
Meanwhile all that rotten meat has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is just below the surface. But it's gathered in the hut itself.
Yes, some homes have fireplaces. I have a zombie place. It has two modes: XP farm and Meat Farm. They are switched between by moving a block with pistons. The buttons to activate the pistons are over where the arrows point.
The zombie spawner itself is very close to the surface, but I channel them to a 23 block drop underground. I then bring them back up to the surface with a water elevator as normal. I don't know why most people's elevators are two blocks wide and use signs: I find that one block with ladders works just fine.
Of course most of the hut is taken up by the Library.