Wednesday, August 5, 2009

YMCA Dream House

One of the things that we did in Ohio was visit the Lake County YMCA Dream House. Every year they build a new home in a different location within Lake County and sell tickets for a chance to win. If you win, you can choose to take the house or a monetary amount - I think it's $250K. The catch is you can't sell the house right away, you have to live in it for at least a year.

Phil and I don't live in the Ohio area anymore, but it's always fun to look at these newly built homes. Doesn't the house look nice from the outside? It's hard to believe this house is actually worth less than our house in New Jersey...just goes to show how expensive property is on the east coast.



Each room of the house was designed by a different designer. Let's take a look around...
The first room off to the right when you walk into the house is a little sitting room.


As you continue into the house you enter the living room with the kitchen off to the right. Look at all the shiny new appliances!


This is the side of the kitchen that opens up to the living room. There's no island in the kitchen, but it has plenty of counterspace and feels very open.


This is a view of the living room from the kitchhen. Not sure about the choice in color, but overall very nice with the high ceilings. You can kind of see where the 2nd floor overlooks into the living room at the top left.


The far end of the kitchen opens up into the dining room, which leads off to the back patio on the left. Very bright with all the windows.


Next you walk past the living room and the sliding glass doors to the patio to the master suite. I'm not really partial to the master bedroom being on the first floor, but the room itself was nice.


The master bedroom leads to the master bathroom. There's actually a fireplace on one wall that you can see through into the bedroom. And the bathroom comes complete with a tub and a standing shower.


Angled double sinks to avoid fighting for the bathroom in the morning.


Inside the master bathroom is a walk-in closet. Look it's Steve and Anthony in the closet with Su-Kyi.


Then we made our way upstairs where the rest of the rooms and the second bathroom were. This was the upstairs bathroom. Nice and simple.


Bedroom above the garage. This room was surprisingly long. Too bad about the slanty roof though. I would have went for something other than bunk beds.


Another room - I think this is supposed to be a guest room. It has a little alcove off to the right of the closets with a mini-fridge...


Bedroom number 4 - it was a smaller room, but the way they designed it was a good use of space. And look it's almost the same bright green as our bedroom at home!


And then the final bedroom at the end of the hall. Nice and roomy.



Laundry room on the first floor.



They even had some cute woodsy decals on the laundry room walls. Phil and I are planning on redoing our laundry room soon, so this definitely gave us some ideas.


The last stop was into the "man cave" in the basement. Complete with flat screen TV, fake fireplace, shag rug...


Foosball table...


And bar...


The "man cave" had some nice decorations, like this chair made out of skis. Apparently when you win the house you get to keep all the furnishings.

Once we were done looking around we hung around for a bit while May and Anthony filled out their tickets. Steve and Rebecca made themselves at home in the living room.


Meanwhile Phil got to play with Su-Kyi. She was letting every one carry her around. Just don't let her see her mommy!

Aren't they cute? Looks like Phil is getting in some practice...

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