Other Floors of La Fortuna

The upstairs -- I didn't take many pictures. I got the view on the Main Floor, and the bedrooms are pretty much just bedrooms.

The Stairs Up break into two parts around a sizable landing, and the three parts (stairs, landing, more stairs) each have their own separate floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on the inner wall.  The tall windows on the landing look west over a Mormon Church and its parking lot about half a block away. Emphasis on over -- the west side of the house is the steepest drop off, so the Church itself is 50 feet or so below the floor of the house.  (HomoDommi commented that they are destined to always own houses overlooking church parking lots).

The church parking lot.  Not really going to be visible once the trees have leafed.

At the top of the stairs there is a small (5 x 8) landing (lined again with bookshelves), and with a nice computer table built in across one end.  A very nice place for the Teenager to sit and play games or do homework -- quiet, aloof, but open to the house, so not too far away from everything.

The upstairs has three bedrooms, all ordinary square rooms with small closets and big windows on the view -- Girl-Child's on the southwest corner, Teenager's next to it, directly overlooking the loggia, and, behind them, what quickly became known as "The Fourth Bedroom" -- windows on two sides overlooking the north, the driveway, the relatively ordinary suburban-looking neighborhood.  This room will be a guest bedroom, and until there is something better, officially HomoDommi's "art" room.  There is also a bathroom.

My room these first couple days in the house, the 4th Bedroom has the only ordinary view in the house.

The basement / Ground Floor

The taller window (see below) overlooks the koi pond and rock garden.

The portion of hill upon which La Fortuna is built is so steep that the "basement" is completely above ground.  The floor is mostly taken up with "The Red Room" -- appropriated as a television/games/guest bedroom already, with a door opening directly outside to the front side of the chicken coop.

This is The Red Room, before we moved in any furniture.  In the original plans, those windows matched steps outside along the side of the house.  In the actual layout now, that's just a rock garden with the koi pond just outside of the taller window.  

The Red Room was the Texan's guest room those first nights in the house.
The door visible at the back is to the L-shaped room. I am standing in front of the door to the outside.

Another room -- hardly a room -- is an L-shaped area almost the full length of the house. The spine of the L is perhaps 5 feet wide, the foot of the L perhaps 6 x 8, all with a half-finished, uneven floor. The whole room is only half-finished -- the head space is quite cavernous, but the non-walkable part of the room is a giant ball of rough concrete.  I think of this as the cartilage between the hill and the house -- protecting each from the other -- the house won't slide down, and the hill won't be eroded away.  The room, such as it is, is currently hip deep in quick and cheap shelving housing working supplies for the chickens, the koi pond, the garden, paints, all nicely labelled.

The back of the L

The foot of the L.

The space isn't really very useable for anything but storage, but I have no doubt HomoDommi will improve that.

There is a second door to the outside on this floor, as well, in an unadorned, concrete-floored hall/mud room.  It opens discreetly to the egg nests at the back of the coop.