LAKE ELMO, MN · BUILT 2021 · 2021 – PRESENT
The Lake Elmo house
The one I had built instead of rebuilt: a 2021 Pulte house. My work here was the basement: a TV nook under the stairs for the kids and their friends, and an aquarium set into a wall, run by a Raspberry Pi.
THE STARTING POINT
- New construction, 2021, by a tract builder. Roughly 3,000 finished square feet, five bedrooms, one of the larger floor plans in the neighborhood.
- One basement window came crooked from the builder. I pulled it and reinstalled it.
The crooked window
Jul 2023The nook and the aquarium
Mar – Apr 2024The space under the stairs became a TV nook for the kids. Next to it, a tank set into a partial-height wall, with a Raspberry Pi behind it watching the water.
As far as it got
May 2025WHAT CHANGED
- Finished the basement: a nook built under the stairs for the kids and their friends to watch TV in, with LED strip lighting.
- Built an aquarium into a partial-height wall, with the tank, plumbing and controls behind it. "Aquarium Pi": a Raspberry Pi on the bench ran the monitoring. That code is gone.
- Never fully finished. The aquarium, its wall and the partial-height wall came out for the sale.
WORTH KNOWING
- Listed for sale August 2026.