What we walked into....

We tackled a few more renovations in this move than we'd originally intended too....and so the before/after pics of that are going to be a little while yet.  But for those of you who are just too curious about what the Dome house looked like when we walked into it (pre-renovations), here are the original photos taken from the real estate site.

Warning:  50 shades of brown ahead:

This is what it looked like when we went to see it.  Easy to see why one of the house nicknames in this area is "the Igloo House."  Other nicknames also include:  "The beehive," "The Franklin House (because it looks like a turtle shell)," and "The Hobbit House."

 

Same view - but in summer.  I almost can't believe it ever will be summer again so this might be the only shot I'll ever have like this.

 The back of the house.  This large window is directly into the kitchen and lets enough light in this house to bring sun to the whole upstairs!

 The garage.  A huge selling feature for me even though, as I write this, the garage is completely full of boxes of stuff.  Not sure how so much stuff gets accumulated  but in the spirit of purging, I asked our movers to put all boxes labeled "basement rec room" into the garage so that most of it will be on a garage sale and not back in my basement.

The kitchen.  This long bank of cabinets runs almost exactly across the center of the circle which is the house shape (12-sided actually but round enough).  Lots of cabinets.  One thing you can't see is that they've run the exhaust from the range directly out through (yes, through) all of the upper cabinets from the range all the way to the window.  So...in the after pictures you'll see in a week or so, you'll notice that we've built in something above the cabinets to reclaim that space for food and dishes. 

 

Did I mention everything is a shade of brown?  Very cabin-esque.

More brown - the large entrance closet, the shiny floor which reflects the sunlight from the big window into the whole house

 There's the big window.  

 

 Main floor 2-pc bathroom and laundry.

 Small living room.  It's really more of a sitting room.  I don't think we'll even have a tv up here....just a place to sit and hang out.  Interestingly enough, everytime I think about my dream house and how I would design it, I always put a place IN my kitchen with a couch or a couple of cozy chairs for people to sit in while meals are being made.  This is, essentially that set up.

 Basement "bedroom" which will be getting a window.

 Basement rec room - really a great size for us even with the intentions of building one more bedroom down here.  We're pretty happy with this and because it was all recently re-done, we're not doing a whole lot of renovation down here.  

 Basement bathroom....small but easily enough for my teens.  Shower is around the back of the door.

 View from the front door area:  to the right, that sitting room and to the left, stairs to the loft. This is a good photo of the ceiling construction.  Giant triangles, manufactured at Hanover Doors, brought to the property and assembled on site to my understanding.  It's really a fascinating house.  The big puzzle for one of my math-oriented kids is how/why some of the connections are six-sided and some are five-sided.  It keeps him up at night staring at his own ceiling.

 Masterbath/ensuite upstairs in the loft.  Yes, those are swinging saloon doors on there.  Look now because those were one of the first things to come down in the renovations (especially because this is the only bathtub in the house and there'll need to be a bit more privacy up here). A very large closet in here though - I'm excited about that.  Big enough, I think for all of my clothes, including my dresser.

 

 Another view of the masterbath....coming in from the door.  Did I mention everything in this house is (was) brown?  Chocolate brown toilet, sink and jetted tub.  

Upstairs loft area.  Can't legally be called a bedroom by real estate standards because there's no window.  There was a skylight but it leaked apparently (as they tend to do) so it was taken out long ago.  This room will have to serve as my bedroom and craft room as well for a few years while my kids are all still living at home but it's easily big enough to do so.  This picture is a bit deceiving as well in that the wall at the back is completely straight up and down - not angled as it appears. 

Well...I may have bitten off more than I can chew in the renovation department so those "after" pictures, like I said, will have to wait a bit....but for those of you who were anxious to see what we've gotten ourselves into....there you go.