You’ve purchased a sparkling new business jet, but you have an old one lying around gathering dust. What do you do with it? Here’s a humorous idea from a guy in Colorado Springs:

…Use it remodel your house…

Carol McGraw wrote about Rick Broome’s creative remodeling techniques in an recent issue of the Chicago Tribune.

Rick added the front section of a Boeing 727 to his house, and then built a sunroom around it, yet you can’t see the addition when standing outside:

“But open a door on the north side of the house, and you suddenly find yourself walking down the plane’s aisle, enveloped in a cocoon of the original decor: gray rug on the walls; a pink, orange and blue mural; more gray industrial rug on the floor. You can also board the plane via a catwalk from the kitchen, or from gleaming rollaway air stairs near [Rick’s wife] Billie’s Early American couch in the sunroom.”

The 15,800-pound, 50-foot-long, 12.5-foot-wide, 27.5-foot-tall plane section presented some challenges during the remodeling process:

“When the 727 arrived by truck at the Broomes’ home in 2005, a massive crane had to lift the fuselage 100 feet in the air and set it down on three specially made girders behind the house. In 14 months, the house grew from 4,000 square feet to 6,500 square feet with the addition of the sunroom built around the plane.”

Rick’s wife, Billie, also faced a challenge:

“…trying to decorate a room around it. When she was hunting for a rug for the new sunroom, she had a hard time getting the color just right. “No one knew what ‘United Airlines Blue’ was,” she says. She had to lug dozens of samples home until she found the right one — that nondescript airline grayish blue.”

The article also contained tips for handling a plane at home:

“Rick Broome hooked up the plane’s first-class lavatory. He also:

* Brought in heat and air conditioning from the home furnace. (When he turns it on, it gives off that familiar whooshing sound you hear on a plane.)

* Put in a couple of comfy old chairs where the seats used to be.

* Used one of the 16-foot wing tips with a flashing red light as a chandelier in the sunroom.

* Plans to install a roll-down screen in front of the cockpit windows and fancy equipment to simulate flying.

* Will paint the floor beneath the plane so that at night, when he sits in the cockpit and looks down, it will look like a lighted city from 30,000 feet in the air. There will be stars painted on the ceiling.”