Cedar Lake Chalet - Chapter 1: The before (with no after) photos.

About Cedar Lake Chalet - Tucked far back in a tree-lined hill near Cedar Lake in Minneapolis, lies a modern, tree house style home that basks in the glory of its 1991 redesign. Our task at hand? Take it out of 1991. This blog has been setup to take you through the home, step by step, as we begin to renovate and bring it up to speed.

---

Before we did anything to this Redwood behemoth of a house, we took a collection of photos for archival purposes. These shots were taken the week we moved into the home. As we continue forward in our story, I'll be referencing quite a few of these photos to show you the changes that happened.

The general boring home specs are as followed.

• 3 beds
• 4 baths (Two full, two halves)
• 3,400 sqft
• 3 Decks
• Original built 1927
• Rebuilt in 1991
• Two furnaces (and a wood burning stove)

The kickass features are...

• Gym with 26' tall ceiling
• Meditation tatami room
• Sauna
• Crazy Vaulted Ceilings
• Bedroom Loft
• Redwood siding
• Redwood decking

Ok, ok on with the photos. I didn't include everything, but here's the gist...

The front door, which was eventually completely removed and replaced with 7', double doors and a beautiful, modern overhang.

A look at the redwood siding. There's only about 50k sq feet of the stuff :P

The front deck. This was pulverized and rebuilt into something much cooler.

A portion of our "front yard". Nothing more than a mailman and deer bath that was eroding downward.

The living room. A 90's travesty. What's up with the red wall?!

Looking up from the living room.

The kitchen is its full glory.

Eating area. That's a japanese garden behind the large window.

Stairs to the second floor. These were completey ripped out and replaced with open stairs.

An entertainment center perfect for not entertaining.

The second floor, looking at one of the bedrooms. Check out that window. It's rad so we kept it.

This bedroom has a loft with twirly stairs. Twirly stairs! They're great when you're 12...

Looking from the other corner fo this bedroom. Thrilled wife on the twirlcase.

Looking down the hallway that connects to what we call "the second house"

Looking down the hallway from the other way.

The master bath. Holy green batman.

Oh, and behind this door is a gym with 26' tall ceilings and three panels of 12' mirrors.

Looking down into the gym from the catwalk above.

A huge deck on the third level. A project that almost destroyed me. More on that later.

The back yard. Grown over with a collpased gazebo. The Sauna is to the right.

This guy! Before children, age and the punishments of remodeling.

Alrighty. That's it for now. On to our first project in the next chapter...