Eames Storage Unit

Exciting news on the Record Storage I built for Rod Parks the owner of Retro Inferno, its in a small pic in this month's issue of Spaces magazine. Barrett has some pictures of the storage unit and as soon as I get them from him I will post some pics of it in action. The last part of my furniture trade with Rod involved a large Eames Storage Unit. I can't say that I would have been able to stomach paying for one of these as they are really really expensive, but it was a lot easier to justify when I was trading some of my sweet equity and not actual cash. The unit is awesome and looking back it is one of the best pieces in the house. It looks cool and is extremely functional and well built.

I finally got the house numbers installed on the house. I put them on a scrap of Teak I had and simply hung them on the brick.
I finally got around to painting out the doors on the closets. I struggled with the idea of painting these for almost two years, I should have just followed my gut from the beginning. Since our house has so much Birch Paneling I always thought adding a strong punch of color would really set off the closets. I went with two colors to tie the house together. The brown is actually the exterior color of the house. The blue picks up the blue of the tile and the blue of the Angela Adams Rug. I really like how the blue pulls together all three levels of the house now, its subtle and I'm probably the only person who will ever notice but I'm really happy we did it.

Before and After photos of the Home Remodel

Well I had a request for some side by side comparison photos of the remodel. Here are some of the exterior, I think it clearly shows how we impacted the exterior of the house in a year and a half. If anyone wants more photos of a specific area or has any questions just ask. I'm still working on some comparisons for the interior its even more of a drastic change I think. I've been working on the record storage units and will try and get a few pictures up in the next few days. They are turning out really nice and should be really cool.

Mirror is completed.

Well I finished the mirror last weekend as well as many other little things that were on the list to be completed by our wedding reception. This first picture shows you all how I hung the mirror on the brick. I used what is known as a french cleat to attach it on the wall. Don't ask me why its known as a french cleat, its kind of like french toast or french fries. They really aren't French but they get stuck with the name anyway. It works on a really simple principal, you simply attach the piece that is sitting on the right to the wall then the one on the left to your mirror or cabinet and you simply hang the mirror on the wall. The corresponding miters on the two pieces lock to gether to be a very strong and stable conection.

A picture after I drilled and screwed the cleat on the brick wall.

A shot of the completed mirror. It ended up costing me about $6 worth of walnut, $20 for the mirror at Home Depot, The scrap of MDF was left over from other jobs and the finish only cost me a few beers for Doug. So I would say it turned out pretty well for a project under $50. It really improves that lower bathroom.

I had a large list of things to complete before the wedding reception in two weeks. I got the transition strips fabricated, finished, and installed in all the areas that go from tile to cork etc. I finally got the frosted glass in the bathroom stopped in place. I finished painting the lower stairs and the garage has been cleaned. I actually have them all completed already, so this weekend I'm going to work on getting the house numbers my brother made put on the house. I'll take pictures and post them in a couple of weeks.

We leave on Monday to go to Califonia to get married. So if you could wish Jessica good luck, and wish me some patience everything will go great. We will see many of you at our open house/reception on Sept. 8th.

Making a Mirror for the Bathroom

Here is the steps I took to make a mirror for the downstairs bathoom. First I cut out a rectangle of mdf the size of the mirror. Then I selected a piece of rough walnut. I used the jointer to get one edge flat then ripped them for width on the table saw. Then I used the jointer to make on of the faces perpendicular to the edge. Then with a couple of passes through the planer to clean everything up. Then I used a little glue and the brad nailer to nail everything up. Doug sprayed the whole assembly with Lacquer for me. This weekend I hope to get it hung. I'll post more pictures next week.

Current Pictures

Well as promised here are the pictures of how the house looks as of last weekend. The grass is in good shape in the front yard, and as you can see the second Japanese Maple is doing very well. I'm curious where you all think I should mount my house numbers. That's probably a whole other post in itself, but if you have tips let me know.

Here is a couple of shots looking at the backyard. I don't have a fancy wide angle lens, so you guys will have to live with me photoshoping them together. The stuff that resembles grass in the backyard is a fine mixture of %10 grass, %90 weeds. I'm working on fixing that but this isn't exactly the right time of year to try to get grass to grow. You can see some of the landscaping we have put in, the bamboo didn't come in very tall this year but it looks very healthy and I'm expecting some major growth next year. If you see any plants you want to know the name of just ask.