Going Back in Time - Back to the Round House

Goodbye Charlottesville. Goodbye round house.

About a year ago, we were probably putting some finishing touches on our round house. Maybe we were getting curtains. I held out on the curtains for a long time, drove Peter crazy. We did have some big windows. Like little sliding glass doors. (Actually the windows in our new house in Poulsbo are similar - not quite as big, though.) Most of the work we did before we moved in. The property was overgrown and full of poison ivy. Peter took care of most of that, with some help from my dad one weekend. He burned a lot of stuff. We were lucky that the owner let us work on the property before the sale was final. The other major undertaking was the floor. There was carpet in the bedrooms, some hideous peel and stick tile in the kitchen and one bathroom, tile in the updated bathroom, but the main part of the house was just subfloor. Subfloor that for some reason was painted red.

A picture of the red subfloor and one of the few right angles in the house

So... we had to do something about the floor and do something before we moved all of our stuff into the house. We have two dogs and the house is on a partially paved road with a gravel driveway. Because of that we knew we didn't want carpet. We would also have to schedule carpet installation and not knowing the time frame of when we'd move in, we didn't want to make that commitment to have professional installation. Another thing is that the floor was not level. Because of the way the house was built and the way it settled, the floor was a bit higher in the middle of the house. The inspector told us that hardwood would probably not work but maybe laminate since it was more flexible. So we decided (read: I convinced Peter) that we would install the laminate ourselves and used some really nice laminate flooring we purchased at the Habitat Store. We installed it over the course of three days then moved in our things. It turned out quite nice. There were lots of angles involved as you might imagine. Now that we've installed laminate in a 15-sided house, we consider ourselves experts. The instructions that came with the flooring said that the planks must be laid left to right along the longest wall, starting in a corner. We didn't start along the longest wall, but we did start on the only right angle we had to work with in the large room. We found that to be absolutely necessary to start the installation.

Laminate flooring installed starting at the right angle

Going back again a bit - I have this crazy idea that we're buying this round house and I start posting about it on Facebook. Lots of people comment, some have seen houses like this before, some haven't, then one friend says he wants to see a diagram. This is the basic layout of our round house, not to scale. And as mentioned above, it is actually a 15-sided house, not really a circle. The house was built in 1975. The same person also built two other round houses next door, which I think are 12-sided, and they are two story duplexes. There's also an A-frame house behind the round house. I don't know if it has anything to do with the other three, but there are some interesting shapes on Reservoir Road. Also bears. I shooed one out of the yard that was going through our trash can one night before we moved here to join Peter! But I digress.

Diagram of the round house. Lisa is available for your technical drawing needs.

The next update was the twins' room. Their room had five sides. I let them pick the paint colors and did this project after Christmas while they were staying a few extra days in Georgia. It was a surprise. This is what it looks like from a few different angles - I could not capture a small room with five sides in one photo.

Looking into Mary and Sophie's room

Looking out the door of Mary and Sophie's bedroom

Mary and Sophie's beds

Now February rolls around and Peter moves out. He finds a temporary studio to rent in Bainbridge Island, where his company is located, and he buys a truck. He sells his old truck, which in my opinion, was worth all of the upheaval. (Sorry for the jab. I admit, though, I did feel a little sentimental as I watched it leave.) I'm sure it was bittersweet saying bye to the S-10, but the new truck more than makes up for it. I'm left in Charlottesville to sell my dear old Maxima and to get the house rented (among other things). That brings us to the kitchen. Boy is it ugly. The property management guy comes to look at the house and says not to worry about the kitchen (as well as the aqua/magenta/purple bedroom), and I was somewhat relieved. But that didn't change the fact that I still had to look at that ugly kitchen for about three months. So, in the midst of what seemed to be a million snow days stuck at home, I decided I was going to paint the kitchen and replace the ugly peel and stick tiles.

Before picture of the kitchen. The "brick" is a textured wall covering. That stayed.

Kitchen after new floor and paint, also Sophie and lots of magnets.

Another "after" view of the kitchen. On the other side of that white wall is the front door.

This is a "before" view of the kitchen but check out the artwork and these cool stools I found!

One of many snow days that got me motivated to renovate! This was one of the first snowfalls of the winter.

I miss the round house, though we do have much nicer digs in Poulsbo, so it's mostly a nostalgia thing. Kitschy nostalgia. We are currently leasing the house through a property management company in Charlottesville. We were fortunate to find a renter to move in less than a week after we moved out. However, I just found out our tenants have accepted employment in another state and will be moving out at the end of October. So, if you know anyone looking for a unique place to live in C'ville in November, please let them know our home is available. And if they see a bear getting in the trash can, all they need to do is just step out on the deck and yell at him to leave and he'll lumber off.

Round house for rent! http://charlottesville.craigslist.org/apa/4649028013.html