Dometastic

One very visible design element of the house will be the solarium. We have included it in our plans to Monolithic even though they don't do glass domes because we want to make sure that we are prepared for how it connects. This is something that we will add after we move in. Ideally we would like for it to be an all glass geodesic dome. Unfortunately, so far the only company we have found that makes what we want is in the UK. Solar Dome The plan would be for it to connect right over the front door of the great room of the house. I am leaning towards a combination of the above 2 images. Solar Dome refers to these as skylights. A glass dome attached to a 4 or 5 ft. wall would give us extra height and lower the cost of materials. The new front door would become the door into the glass dome. This area would be an unheated enclosed area that would only get heated if we chose to leave the house open to it. I spoke on the phone today with Monolithic and decided it was tim...

As I have mentioned before Mr. Dometastic and I want different things as we go through our initial planning phase. Maybe that is one of the reasons Monolithic has you create the word picture. Recording all the tiny details about your plan makes you work out your differences ahead of time. Or at least come to an understanding of each side.  Our first clash was over sky lights. I love sky lights! We had one skylight in our first house and it made that area of the house so much nicer. My plants actually lived for once. Mr. Dometastic hates them. Well... maybe hate is too strong  a word. He likes them in other peoples houses. He thinks they are weak points in an otherwise "defensible home". I argue that our armed attacking neighbors won't be able to climb the side of the dome to get to the weak points.  Initially this argument worked and we just went down in the number of skylights but as you can see in my previous post. Now there are NONE. Don't get me wrong, I...

Monolithic has many stock floor plans available to use as is or to change around. We decided to create a ranch dome (if that is a thing). It will be all one floor and very open with multi use areas. It isn't one single dome but instead 4 interconnected overlapping domes. The result is an aerial floor plan that looks like none other than good old Mickey Mouse. Then we added in a greenhouse dome. An all glass geodesic dome that will serve as a green house/solarium. This glass dome will attach to the house right over the front door entering into the great room. Our last house had a screened in porch but it was so far from the kitchen and not connected directly to the house that we never used it. We are designing it so that it will be easy to get to from the kitchen and just becomes extra square footage that isn't heated but should still get enough passive solar to stay above freezing in the winter. The kitchen and great room dome areas will be higher ceilings than the bedroom wing...

Right now we are playing the waiting game. Its fall in New England and in a very short time everything will be buried under snow. Not exactly the best time to be building a house but it is a great time to get our plans all set to start in the spring. I just sent over all our brain storming documents to Monolitic so they can begin the "feasibility study" part of the planning process. Read here about what that is - http://www.monolithic.org/feasibility-residential I sent them several documents that will help them guide us through this process. 1. Word Picture - This is just a text only file that describes every aspect of the house. Everything from the overall lifestyle to how many toilets we need. Being a visual person I found this the most difficult part but they made it easier by providing an outline of questions to follow. The result is a super detailed boring document that will inevitably change as we go along. The birth of this document has already been a source...

The company that we have decided to build our dome with is Monolithic based in Texas. http://www.monolithic.org You can see examples and read all about the construction process on their website. It isn't worth me re typing it here. The thing most people say to us when we talk about what we want to build is "Will it look like an igloo?" My answer.... Some do but here is an example of the home we are using as a style reference.

My long time client and friend is Catholic and ever since she heard we were selling our house she has been offering to send me a statue of St. Joseph to bury upside down in my garden. I am not Catholic... in fact I don't identify with any religion BUT I can be superstitious. After a year of only a handful of people looking at our house I told her bring on the good mojo St. Jo! Three days before our second open house he arrived from Amazon. A little 4" resin statue, instructions on how to treat him and a prayer card to read to him. I was skeptical but thought it couldn't hurt to bury him while my husband was pretty sure I was crazy. SO I buried him right in the front flower bed. Sure enough 3 days later we had an offer! This of course has completely triggered my superstitious side. My husband laughs at me but I can take it! Although, I do admit that I feel super awkward reading the prayer card (printed in China) to a plastic (made in China) figurine that I buried head fir...

Over 10 years ago my husband and I first became interested in dome homes. It was back in 2002 when we bought our first house. It was about as far from a dome as you could get but that was what we could afford. As we went forward with that house we began to plan and dream about our future house.....one day. Built in 1890 our first place enabled us to stretch our renovation muscles. Some of it not by choice! My husband had some experience when he was young working for someone that made custom cabinets and no doubt he learned some skills helping his dad with various projects growing up. All my skills were fine art based but I was very comfortable around power tools. During my time in art school, I had many sculpture classes using all the big wood shop machines as well as welding etc in metal shop. Not really renovation but better than nothing! Some conflict arises in how we approach projects. My husband is cautious and plans every detail. I just go for it. The first day of renovations...