Ever Wonder Where House Hunters Narrator Andromeda Dunker Lives?
Have you, by any chance, heard of a show called "House Hunters"? If the answer is somehow no, never fear: You've got an astonishing 204 seasons to binge, as of publication, according to IMDb. The long-running HGTV sensation has been a favorite ever since it hit the air in 1999, and over the years, hundreds of people have found the house of their dreams. The success is so huge that even the people who created it are baffled by it. "We keep wondering: When are people going to turn away from it?" said "House Hunters" (and its various spin-offs) executive producer Terri Murray to The Washington Post. "And it never happens, and we sometimes wonder why that is."
We have an answer for you, Terri. One of the reasons why "House Hunters" is such a success is down to the inimitable narration, supplied by Andromeda Dunker. While Dunker doesn't appear on the show — she once told BuzzFeed, "If I were to come out more as a personality of my own, then it kind of breaks it. I'm not sure it would work as well" — her impact on it is undeniable, and we're willing to bet she knows a thing or two about houses at this point. Which got us thinking ... What does her own home look like, and is it influenced by her years working on the show? Let's take a look inside the home of one of HGTV's popular stars to find the answers.
Andromeda Dunker's home is in LA, but she didn't always live there
Andromeda Dunker now calls sunny Los Angeles her home, which makes sense for her showbiz career. She's far from an LA native, however. Dunker's first home was actually Yale University in Connecticut, where her father, A. Keith Dunker, was working on his postgraduate studies alongside Dunker's astrophysicist mother, reported BuzzFeed. It was her mother who gave Dunker her unique first name, after the Andromeda galaxy, with her dad approving. "I thought, Why not?" her dad told BuzzFeed. "It sounds like a great name."
After this, Dunker and her family moved to France when she was 11 years old and then moved back to Oregon when she was just 15 to attend college. From there, Dunker went on to move to Seattle to major in drama, and then eventually found herself in LA, after booking the job for "House Hunters" and sealing her fate. Her nomadic upbringing makes her perhaps uniquely placed to act as the guiding voice of the show and its various iterations; goodness knows she's had enough experience of moving to empathize with the participants!
Inside the home, her decor is as colorful as her voice
One look inside Andromeda Dunker's home, and you'll see that the vibrancy in her voice isn't just acting: It seeps into her decor too. If Dunker's design had a keyword, it'd be color, as shown in a home tour posted on YouTube by HGTV. Dunker favors bright tones throughout her home, from the yellows, reds, and blues on her geometrically patterned quilts in her craft room, to her turquoise heavy kitchen. She's also a big fan of brightening up her home space with eye-catching bouquets, as shown on her Instagram account. "I hate just gray and beige and white and stainless steel," she said as she guided cameras through her home in the video.
The color continues into her backyard, with cushions printed in colorful stripes, busy patterns, and zigzags thrown across a massive white sofa and over various deck chairs, offsetting the neutral tones with an eye-catching effect. "I love color! It's everywhere!" Dunker reiterated as she reclined on an outdoor sofa. We can certainly tell!
Andromeda Dunker's living room balances modern decor with vintage effects
Although Andromeda Dunker's home is a festival of color, the living room is perhaps the most muted of all of her spaces. As seen in her house tour with HGTV on YouTube, a modern, off-white sofa sits opposite a blue armchair and across from a bare brick wall, which Dunker's chosen to decorate with medium-dark wood shelves to store her possessions. Above the fireplace sits a massive TV (which may or may not show reruns of "House Hunters"), and plants punctuate the wall with pops of green amidst her books.
Standing in front of her shelves is Dunker's "little musical area," with a gorgeous piano sitting next to a guitar and a sizeable speaker. In the video, Dunker took a moment to play a few chords on the piano — "See? I'm really good!" — before she pulled out a few of her homemade quilts, adding some color to the space. Elsewhere in the living room, Dunker has a '50s-looking record player with her record collection sitting next to a unique candleholder, an octopus sculpture that Dunker named the "Walktopus" created by her friend Scott Musgrove.
Her bedroom boasts a mix of influences and styles
It's important to keep the bedroom a calm and peaceful place, and Andromeda Dunker clearly understands this. Despite this, she hasn't compromised on her unique style, blending a mix of influences and design inspirations in her own bedroom, as seen on her Instagram. The white, high-ceilinged walls are offset by light wooden floors, and at the end of the room, a separate "meditation space" is delineated with dark blue paint and calming soft furnishings. A potted plant, a calming framed picture, and what appears to be a Himalayan Salt Lamp add to the feeling of zen.
But the bed is where Dunker's tastes really come alive. Sitting opposite full-length mirrored wardrobes, the bed is adorned with a snazzy quilt (not one of Dunker's own creations, but from Cosmic Quilting) and a triptych of differently designed pillows, on which one of her pups nestled in the Instagram snaps. The bed is framed by Moroccan-style hanging lamps on either side instead of classic bedside lamps, a unique touch; and it's finished off with a striking matching headboard.
The kitchen of Andromeda Dunker's home is full of color and charm
Kitchens can often conform to pretty standard styles, but not Andromeda Dunker's. One glance of her kitchen will show you how determined she is to make it a space unlike any other, as seen in her YouTube home tour. Describing it as her "dream kitchen," the light wood cupboards and floors are lifted by striking, retro turquoise cabinets, making it a space that feels utterly original. The cabinets are a testament to Dunker's love of eye-catching color, as well as her love of vintage designs. "I want everything to be colors like it was back in the '50s. I don't know what happened!" she exclaimed.
This "mix of modern and vintage," as Dunker called it, continues with her appliances. Across from the deep-basined double sink is a vintage 1943 gas-stove oven. Elsewhere, more up-to-date touches still fit into Dunker's classic aesthetic, such as a KitchenAid in lime green that corresponds with the plentiful turquoise. Under-cupboard bulbs offer tasteful low-level lighting and give Dunker enough light to read the recipe books tucked away throughout the kitchen.
In typical LA fashion, Dunker's backyard is a star feature — with a pool
It wouldn't be a Los Angeles home without some seriously impressive backyard space — something Dunker understands well. "It's California, so we have indoor-outdoor living. It's a must!" she said as she led cameras into her huge outdoor area in her YouTube home tour. Framed around an enormous pool with an accompanying turquoise diving board and enclosed by palm trees (which are all lit up at night, as seen in an Instagram post with her husband, Joshua), casually placed deck furniture pieces are brightened by colorful printed cushions. There's also a bench made by none other than Sven-Ole Thorson, Denmark's strongest man.
Connected to her home is what Dunker dubs "Bar David," which has access to her kitchen through a window, allowing her guests to be served drinks straight from the interior. Next to the pool is a seemingly simple patio table that, at night, becomes a gas firepit. The garden is completed by a lemon tree that came with the property, which Dunker clearly adores, stating that she drinks a glass of lemon juice from the fresh lemons every morning.
In her craft room, Andromeda Dunker found her sanctuary
It's no surprise that with the nearly endless seasons of "House Hunters" and its spin-offs that Andromeda Dunker is kept busy. So when she wants to unwind, she steps into her craft room. It's her "favorite room in the house ... it's where I come after a long day of voicing 'House Hunters,' and I don't want to talk to anybody, and I can close my mouth and start doing something with my hands," as she said in her YouTube home tour.
The room is, predictably, full of color, from the quilts hanging on the walls to the deep pink sofa and geometric cushions. The wooden floors, which run throughout Dunker's home, help to keep all of this color balanced, and a simple craft table and vintage-looking chair sit in the corner, presumably where Dunker makes her creations. Interestingly, the video tour here shows Dunker recording a "House Hunters" voiceover in her very own home. All the more reason for her to have a chill-out space!
Andromeda Dunker's powder room has a toilet like no other
It wouldn't be Andromeda Dunker's house without a unique fixture in every room, and the powder room is no exception. As Dunker took us into the room in her YouTube home tour, she perched on the vintage-style jade-green toilet and told us that the toilet and sink used to belong to ... wait for it ... Frank Sinatra! Dunker "got it at an architectural salvage place," she proclaimed, clearly overjoyed at the pieces of Hollywood history sitting in her home.
Elsewhere, Dunker hasn't skimped on design, saying, "You have to go crazy in the powder-room. It's like a little jewel box. It's a surprise, and it's tiny! You can do whatever you want in there." And she's certainly turned it up to the max, with a vintage Japanese wallpaper adding eye-catching color and working with the small square tiles in muted jade tones that frame the shower and bath, toilet, and sink. It's the ultimate blend of statement design, calm, and function.
Andromeda Dunker is a big fan of textiles, and this is reflected in her decor
Spend more than a few seconds looking at Andromeda Dunker's home, and you'll see that she's a huge fan of textiles. From the living room to the backyard, to the craft room where she makes a lot of her trademark quilts, textiles are everywhere in the house. It's clear that Dunker's hugely skilled at making them, describing herself as a "colorful quilter" in her Instagram bio. And many of her chosen prints work in line with her vintage aesthetic. For example, one self-created pillow cover was shown in on Instagram post, and was made with leftover scraps of fabric, incorporating an array of retro printed patterns to make a truly unique soft furnishing.
Dunker's textiles were made on — what else? — a Hello Kitty sewing machine, as seen in another Instagram post. It appears from the snap and caption, however, that she's recently upgraded to a German-made Pfaff sewing machine, and by the looks of her social media posts, it's been keeping her busy around the home. She even took to making her own masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, shown via Instagram.
Dunker shares her home with her two dogs, Chloe and Sadie
Aside from sharing her house with her husband, Joshua (and a truckload of vintage objects), Andromeda Dunker's also got a few furry friends — her dogs, Chloe and Sadie. The dogs, which appear to be a Chihuahua and a Chiweenie, can be seen soaking up the sun in her backyard on her Instagram, as well as making themselves at home at various points on her YouTube home tour.
Chloe and Sadie clearly have the run of the roost and seem to share Dunker's love of soft furnishings, pictured on Instagram reclining on her sofa. Interestingly, from this Instagram post, we can see yet another different side of Dunker's home aesthetic. While she clearly adores bright splashes of color, the dogs have found themselves a spot to sleep on an almost Tortilla-brown suede sofa, with subtle print pillows and sitting across from an ornate coffee table. There's still a touch of Dunker, though, in the leopard-print blanket nestled between the dogs.