Kozmic Dreams Virtual Home Tour

Virtual Home Tour

Click on each thumbnail for an enlarged view.

I lived in the same 1061-sqare foot bungalow home from the summer of 1994 until 2008 and had plenty of time to decorate it exactly the way I wanted. Most people described it as similar to a museum. The photos shown here are from the summer of 2004 except for the bottom three photos of the front of the house, which were taken in the spring of 2008.

Here is the front of the house. I have always loved the flowering crab tree in the front yard. It is so beautiful for a few weeks in the spring, as shown in the last four photos.

Before we go inside, check out the backyard. Notice the hood from the Kozmic Dream Machine, my first airbrushed art-car creation. It's the only piece I have left, but it was definitely the best part.

If you headed toward the park bench and turned to the right, you would have entered my garden through a gate. In 2004, I grew strawberries, boysenberries, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, peas, dill, basil, oregano, sage, and rhubarb to eat. I also grew zinnias, cosmos, cobra gourd and trumpet vine for aesthetics.

I normally didn't use the front door, due to convenience, so you would have been entering from the side door. If you headed up a couple stairs to the left, you would enter the kitchen, which is pictured from several angles below. Most houses in this area have a wall between the kitchen and dining area, but I was lucky enough to have had a former owner who decided to remove it. The first view is if you were to turn around 180 degrees and face the way you just entered through the side door.

If you were to stand in front of the refrigerator and look to the left, you'd be looking into the dining room, pictured below. The cabinet on the right of the first picture contains many of my favorite bottles, pictured below. Click here to see individual photos of my favorite bottles.

You could then choose to enter the living room from either the dining area or the kitchen. Below are a couple views from the dining room entryway. Further information is available about the Vine Sculpture on the wall and the Wooden Pyramid on the table by clicking their names. The family tree sculpture above the sofa is explained and pictured in detail on the Acrylics and Papier Maché Page. Hanging on its branches are my Pysanky (intricately-dyed eggs). My best buddy, Darwin the Amazing Border Collie, also appears in the photos.

Here is the view from the kitchen entryway. The trilobite collection is pictured in its former location on the table under the lamp, but all the trilobites are now in cases to better protect them from dust. The second and third photos show my Rootstein mannequin created in the likeness of Yasmine LeBon, wife of the lead singer of Duran Duran, Simon LeBon. I purchased her from E-bay in August 2004.

If you were standing in front of the grandfather clock, this is the view you'd see. Notice the tall fish tank on the left. It contained my two parrotfish, who are sadly no longer with me. There are photos of them on the Pets of the Past Page. Click here to see a movie of my parrotfish swimming. The large cabinet used to contain my collection of ephemera. Here, only the bottom shelf displayed ephemera. The other shelves displayed my rock collection.

Next, let's head down the hallway. Click here for a close-up of one of my favorite cypress knees, at the end of the hall.

The first door on the left is the bathroom. The fountain above the toilet provided acoustic tranquility.

The second door on your left is the den. This is the room where I spent the most time. It is where I watched T.V., read, worked on my laptop, etc. The majority of my cypress knee collection was kept here, along with my most treasured watercolors. If you're wondering what that weird thing is hanging on the wall to the left of the T.V., it is my Vegetanimal from Space. A sunny day was extra special in this room because I had three solar-powered rainbow-makers attached to the window. When sunlight struck the solar panel, it turned gears that made a prism rotate, surrounding me with rainbows. It was absolutely spectacular. I tried to capture it in a video on my digital camera, but the rainbows don't appear as bright as they are in real life. My dog, Darwin is in the movie too. Click here to see a movie of Darwin with the rainbow-makers in action. There are more pictures of him on Darwin's Page. In the last photo, you can see part of the door to the den, which is also a piece of artwork, woodburned and adorned with other natural objects. You can see close-ups of the door on the Pyrography (Woodburning) Page.

Across from the den is my guest bedroom, pictured below. I stored a lot of my art materials in here. It was decorated with an animal theme. The creature drawings by the mirror in the last picture can be seen in detail on my Drawings Page. I also kept my Hagen-Renaker Ceramic Animal Figurines in the glass-paneled secretary, which is my grandmother's first piece of furniture.

Next, we'll head upstairs. I lived in a bungalow, so it had just one bedroom upstairs. The stairs were right across from the bathroom. At the top of the stairs, you will see a ceramic head sculpture I made when I was 13 that usually had a flickering flame bulb inside, but it is burned out in the photo. Instead, it is pictured with a toad inside. There are more pictures of my clay creations on the Ceramics Page. Above the head sculpture was a dizzying spiral I made out of Color-Aid paper, a very highly-saturated paper that gives incredible "vibrating" effects when colors of the same hue are placed adjacent to one another. So be careful you don't lose your balance on your way up!

The first thing you would see after coming up the stairs is my aquarium on the right and a desk on the left that displayed my diplomas and favorite books. A promo display for my favorite guitarist, Steve Vai's album "Passion and Warfare" leans against the wall.

Walk past the aquarium and desk and you would have entered the main part of the bedroom. Different views are pictured below.

Now let's head back downstairs. On the way down, notice that some of my favorite watercolors are displayed in the stairway. At the bottom of the stairs is a beaded curtain.

Had we not turned left and entered the kitchen when you came in, we would have walked right downstairs into the basement, which my parents helped me finish into a nice living area. Here are some pictures of the main section which was used as the music and entertainment area. If you are curious about what CDs are stacked up in the background, click here. In the background of the fourth picture, you can see my terrarium which used to house my amphibians, but later was given to my tortoises.

Here is the other half of the room, part of which contained a wet bar.

Here is a closer view of the bottles.

I used the bar counter to display my autographed CD booklets and other music memorabilia. My three Xenopus (African clawed frogs) lived in the aquarium on the right.

Ok, let's head back out the way we came. Had you gone to the left of the steps instead and entered through the beaded curtains, you would be in the laundry room. If you made a quick right after going through the curtains, you'd be in my "office/computer room." Neither of these rooms is particularly interesting, which is why I left them out. So this concludes the tour. Hope you enjoyed it.

Go to Collections Main Page

[ Ephemera, Nostalgia and Antiques ] [ Virtual Tom Gaskins Cypress Knee Museum ] [ Cypress Knees and Interesting Wood ]

[ Memorabilia from Other Cypress Knee Attractions ] [ Trilobites ] [ Rocks and Minerals ] [ Other Fossils ]

[ Frank Zappa T-Shirts ] [ My CDs ] [ My DVDs ] [ Tjaps ] [ Hagen-Renaker Figurines ] [ Bottles ]

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