rainbow

fore!

it's not that i have been forgetting to blog...

i've just been too busy doing the following.



seeing my swing for the first time in a long time - i see A LOT i need to work on. namely, that bendy left arm of mine.



anywhere within 100 yards is where my game suffers most. there is much room to improve here. looks like this ball might have gone 2 feet in the air.



(thanks, philipp, for the pics and video.)

porno for puppies

last week, friday received the most thoughtful gift - a "doggy sitter" dvd that features animals and nature scenes for pups only.

at first, i was skeptical that it would be of any interest to her, so i decided to pop it into the machine and see what would happen.

i followed the directions, sat with her for a bit while we watched it together.


a few minutes later, she didn't need me around to tell her, "that's a squirrel! look, a birdie!"



she watched like this for a solid fifteen minutes while dabney and i giggled in the background. that's a very long time in doggydom and practically a lifetime in puppyhood.

MJ

in the paper

an article ran in yesterday's st. louis post dispatch featuring us and our house.

the photographer ordered us to look "designer-y" for the picture above.  we're still not sure what that means...

rock the high seas with rick

i'd like to personally thank JB* who passed this gem along...

the rick springfield & friends cruise!!

i have to start saving up!




* there might be a few of you out there who might remember our beatnik/spoken word tribute to rick. if i remember correctly, we argued over who got the line, "she's got the love monkey riding on her back."

we can relate.

this recent article in the new york times entitled "the unfortunate location" pretty much sums up our real estate experience.

new pencil box

behold, the latest mogo creation!



the "art school" pencil box...

soon to be available at mogogoods.

the golf, i tell you

this weekend, i played golf TWICE. i can't even think of the last time i had the opportunity to play more than once within a month even.  i am hoping that i will be able to continue to take advantage of the multitude of affordable golf courses in the area (and that my stinky triple digit average score will reduce to double digit awesomeness).

if only i can figure out a way to survive this heat and humidity...

entry way

that tile i mentioned last week? it finally got done just in time for the party, along with the paint.

now the entry way is complete.

golden brick party

dabney and i work well with deadlines and the golden brick awards ceremony was just the impetus we needed to pull the place together.

it was all worth it, too.  we had a ball meeting our neighbors and fellow winners.

this year's crop of awardees were varied and interesting.  besides us, there were two properties who won for landscaping, a new sushi restaurant, a condo development, a charter school construction, and two home renovations.  


two proud winners


mingling


here i am checking to see if they spelled our names right.  (they did, btw.)


the spread


another winner and his sleepy son


listening in on the presentations

brick house

our little old hardware store was recently chosen to receive a "golden brick" award from our local community housing association. golden bricks are given to individuals, organizations, and businesses for projects that beautify and preserve the neighborhood. we're so honored to receive one and even more honored to be hosting the ceremony this week - as in the day after tomorrow.

unpacking goes into hyperdrive over the next 48 hours.

in preparation for the soiree, i assembled a slideshow of some before/after photos.  who doesn't love good before & after pics?!

here are some highlights:

playing dead

speaking of home conversions

if anyone ever thinks that our choice to live in an old hardware store is weird, i'll just point them here.

meet miss destructo.

friday had a banner day yesterday. her new nickname = miss destructo.


first, she got sick of her multiple chew toys and decided that this piece of trimwork looked delicious.


then, she knocked over this framed print. it's hard to tell in the picture, but the glass is shattered.


to top it all off, she decided to run her ear through some wet paint. luckily, a little olive oil took care this little mess. now, one ear is especially shiny and supple.

now, we have no choice but to unpack

dabney and i now have a backup plan - when we leave the lucrative world of crafting, we'll become carpet layers.


thanks to easy peasy carpet tiles, we were able to turn our closet from this...


... to this in an hour and a half.

the only bad thing is now we have to deal with this...


and this.

just when you thought we were done talking about tile

even though i've grown accustomed to the plywood that welcomes me at our front door, i knew there would be a day when it would have to go.



here is the tile that will replace it. honestly, dabney and i really wanted the entry to have "A & D" tiled into it, but we knew that the hysterical society would have something to say about that little customization. alas, the tile above is true to the store's 1909 hey day.

completion pictures soon...

nice blog mention

thanks to the nice ladies of good bones, great pieces for choosing to feature us in their recent blog post on renegade.



more here.

breaking in the workroom

it isn't that i have lost the urge to blog now that we're officially in the house. let's just say that discussing bath mats and temporary window coverings isn't all that interesting.

while i'd like to say we've been busy decorating, truth be told, we've been so busy prepping for this weekend's renegade craft fair that unpacking has been slow going lately.

even in the emergency state that our workroom is in (i.e. everything hastily thrown about for easy access), i have to say it is a great space in which to work.  the natural light and high ceilings is a welcome change from our makeshift basement studio in boston.



painting the floor white may not have been the most practical choice, but it sure does add to the airiness of the space.



you can see, the new workroom even comes with a new assistant, but friday is more like an audience - an audience that doesn't quite understand the complex relationship between the pedal and the sewing machine.

ah, june

don't you just love it when the weather heats up and the bottles turn rainbow?

vote for friday

purina selected a random picture of our little pup for its photo contest. click here to vote for her, will you?

we thanked the village

dabney and i threw a small shindig yesterday afternoon to thank our contractor, architects, crew, and subcontractors yesterday afternoon.


not everyone could make it, but this photo captures a good majority of the hands that built this house.

it was fun to have a chance to hang out with everyone for fun for a change and gave me and dabney a chance to thank each person individually. according to everyone from the electricians to the flooring guys to the architects, it was a rare opportunity for them to see their work completed.





and just when we thought we were doing all the thanking, the crew surprised US with a gift.


a bottle of champagne (complete with masking tape bow) and a beautiful handmade cutting board.



our architect, phil, brought his famous pup tallulah along. she and friday got along splendidly and wrestled around on the floor. luckily, tim, the flooring dude, had departed long before the mayhem.

home sweet home

we've just spent our first week in our new digs.

between opening boxes, we've spent much of our time tossing a ball to friday who now suddenly has much more room to chase balls. understandably, she is feeling a little out of sorts here in her new home.  the only place she has known so far is my parents' suburban spread, complete with plentiful backyard and lots of squirrels and birds at which to bark. now, she has to learn city life and all its perils: crosswalks, cars cruising by with thumping bass, garbage trucks...  however, she seems to love the additional living space as she seems to be increasing in size by leaps and bounds.



as for us, we are settling in just fine.  the piles of boxes are beginning to dwindle.  it has been a year since we've seen our stuff, so to say that the reunion with our belongings has been joyous is an understatement.  even the sight of my favorite coffee mug made my eyes misty.

we're learning the trade-offs to our new surroundings.  we've left the very fancy south end of boston, for a neighborhood that is far from fancy.  the lower light bulbs in our exterior lights have already been swiped.  (we're just letting those go for a while and not replacing them.)  we still can't get over the fact that when we leave the house we have to set an alarm and even set it again before we go to bed at night.

the kids in our neighborhood, of which there are many, have made the front stoop of our cornerstore a hangout for years.  our sudden appearance is an adjustment to them to say the least - just a lot of doorbell ringing and subsequent disappearing.  we just keep saying to ourselves, "they've owned this place longer than we have."  i take comfort in knowing that soon we'll be old news.

now, that we have a garage you'd think our parking woes would be over.  instead, we've discovered it requires an expert ability at a 10-point turn to get in and out.  we're perfecting our technique with every trip to grocery store.

the pluses are BIG though.  we love the prolonged daylight we receive in the living and work areas.



we barely use lights, it's so bright in the evening.  drumming up meals in the brand-new kitchen is simply fantastic.  there is so much storage i don't even store stuff in the oven anymore.  we have a laundry room, complete with a drying line.  no more draping on chairs or dealing with rickety racks.  the shower is so big, i don't just sing in the shower, i can dance, too. (you should be happy there are no pictures or video of that.)

moving in

sorry to leave you hanging for so long...

the truth is we've been busy making our house a home. but here's what it looked like the day we took over...


there was still paper on the windows and a few more surfaces in need of paint, but it was clean and empty and ready for our stuff.

a few hours later...


and that paper? it had to come down. it made the place feel dark and unfinished.


instead, we figured out a temporary (and cheap) alternative to window film for all the storefront windows... coroplast cut to our windows dimensions works great.  we just tacked 'em in to keep them from falling.

looks nice, no?  this room is the exact opposite of our old boston digs: lots of windows, high ceilings, and plenty of light. or as carrrrrrmen put it, "It's like the bizarro version of your S. End apt."

so far, we set up our living area/kitchen and put together our bed - places to sit, eat, and sleep. that's about it.  over the next few weeks, we'll be chipping away at all our boxes still sitting in the basement.

you'd think that all this moving and settling might stop us from entertaining? nope. our first event is this thursday, as in the day after tomorrow. we're throwing a thank you party for our architect, contractor, crew, and subcontractors. we can't wait!

more soon...

do fence me in

now, that the interior is finished, the focus shifting from the inside to outside.

beginning with a fence in the frontyard...







what's going to go within that fence? still to be determined...

peonies from rebecca's garden

the perfect dinner party favor

tick tock

frankly, it's an understatement to say that we are anxious to move in. 

the place is pretty much ready, and it's killing us. but we've been given the green light to move in on THURSDAY!!

the short delay feels incredibly long to us. in order to complete our historical tax credit application, the completed project has be photographed meticulously. and unfortunately for us, those pics have to be shot before any of dabney's thirty-five chairs can move in.

it's like waking up christmas morning, seeing a big giant present under the tree with your name on it, BUT your parents aren't awake yet!

the wait is excruciating.

sigh...

details details

we're down to the little things and that means... the finish line is in sight!


that door hardware cleaned up great. we were able to salvage enough of the original pieces that we didn't have to buy one new interior doorknob.  plus, they just don't make them this pretty anymore.


we didn't recognize this at first. it's one of the two original handrails in the house, and they were among the first things to be removed before demolition. like many of the other original features, it, too, was covered in multiple layers of paint. the last we saw it - it was battleship gray. it looks much better naked.



when we first laid eyes on the balusters and handrail, they were covered with paint and dingy, dingy, dingy. i even doubted if they were original, they looked so awful. as a result, we hemmed and hawed a bit when it came to saving them and thought maybe another coat of paint would do. instead, they came back from the refinishers looking brand-new and so amazing.  it made all that work on the newels worth it.



this is the back of the garage -  a little old, a little new.

casual friday

a watched pot never boils.

friday meets the microwave.

the kitchen

the kitchen came out better than we could have ever imagined, thanks to the gorgeous cabinets a la steve.


we went way modern in this space. the stainless steel backsplash and countertops (still under wraps) seem to emphasize this fact.


the biggest feature (literally) is the 10' long island that runs down the middle. it's topped by that marble we found a few weeks ago.


at first, i wasn't sure about the big blob, but now, i love the winding gray vein.


ever the bargain hunter, dabney spent weeks looking online for deals on faucets and sinks. she found this sleek faucet on sale and a single basin sink big enough to bathe in (my one request) - all on closeout.  she does good work, no?

it seems that my first cup of coffee in our new kitchen could be as soon as next week.  more soon...

barn door

one of the coolest features of the new place is that there is a barn door that divides the living space from the work space. it is inspired by rooms like this and this.

it is not an original feature, but its addition that didn't seem to bother the historical commission much to our surprise.

we've gone back and forth on what it should look like.



traditional?



unexpected?  we saw this one recently in a huge empty warehouse on one of our fruitless craigslist adventures. it even has "st. louis fire door co." imprinted on it.


instead, we went a different direction.

the three glass panels were included, not only to let in light from the south-facing luminous box , but to mimic the store front windows. 

i think they also manage to look a lot like our doors.




i don't know how we ended up with cream-colored hardware but that's what the track and both handles look like. we're going to spray paint the handles black and paint the track white to make it disappear.

luminous box

we've been debating whether or not to paint the workroom floor.  but honestly, the medium density fiberboard that we had laid down as a cheap flooring solution looks like cardboard up close.

so paint, we did.




first, we had to go through and hand-brush the crevices, which really didn't take so long.



then, we rolled on the primer.  piece o' cake.



looking better already with just a coat of primer.  (the trim is just primed, too.  that'll be next along with the dingy column and door.)



there'll be plenty of color once furniture and art are added, but here it is in all is glossy glory!  it'll be like working in a luminous box - complete with pawprints, of course.

professional strippers, that's us.

i didn't think there were any surfaces left in the house that the former owner hadn't painted, but i was wrong.


the newels had to be stripped.  so once again, dabney and i donned our rubber gloves and went at 'em with our scrapers and wire brushes.




the little hole in the middle? that's where the previous owner had decided to install a LIGHT SWITCH of all things!?  we'll conceal it somehow.

fortunately for us, the balusters and the handrail are getting professionally-done.