dream house {the sliding house}

Last week The Morning Man and I were flipping through the channels and stop on my go-to pick HGTV.  A show called Million Dollar Rooms was on and it was so upsetting . . . we got sucked right in.  I kept trying to leave the room, but The Man kept yelling "Get in here, you have to see this."

First there was a couple who wanted both an eight car garage and a ballroom so they combined the two to make a room with carrara marble floors and hand-painted frescoes, that the husband could park his boring BMW's in. There were large and gaudy bedrooms, entry ways, and pool rooms, all for millions of dollars.  It was one of those shows that just make you squirm, with a furrowed brow and a dropped jaw.

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(EW!!)

But then, something amazing came on.  Next up was a house, and it was no ordinary house.  It was a sliding house.  The segment started by showing a man sitting in his all glass living area.  Outside is nothing but grass and trees and countryside, and then he began to explain his extraordinary feat.

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Ross Russell and his wife Sally built a home, in Suffolk, England, with the help of an old school friend Alex de Rijke.  The look of the house is similar to a traditional East Anglian barn, but with one push of a very special button the surrounding roof and exterior walls move.

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The glass living room/kitchen is made with very thick (very expensive) glass, to keep the space a reasonable temperature.  But in the cold winter months, or when the sun is scorching down, or when they just feel like a little more privacy they can push a button and within 6 minutes they have an enclosed room.  The buildings exoskeleton sits on railway tracks recessed into the terrace that surrounds the entire structure, and it's four electric motors are powered by car batteries!

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From what I understand there isn't a pool yet, but they made the tracks extendable.  So if they do decide to put in a pool, it too can benefit from a retractable roof!

All the doors match up to a corresponding opening in the exterior, and they made sure that there is always a way to get out in case the moving structure stops short.

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The Man and I kept joking about leaving the car too far out.  Oops! There goes the front end of the motorcycle!

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The house is absolutely beautiful, and the shape, with it's red timber cladding, is actually designed to look like a Monopoly Hotel! I would love to lay on the floor of the living room and stare up at the stars.  Everything else on that show was over-the-top (in a bad way) and really upsetting, but I'm glad we kept watching so I could see this place.

The Sliding House = A Dream House