14__Scooters and Bonfires

This weekend has proved the most fun yet in Seattle. Doesn't hurt that I've had an extra day (this gorgeous 50-degree, football-filled Sunday). There's been an empty-house sendoff party, a new scooter purchase, plenty of woodworking in the shop, friends stopping by to pass an hour, and tonight Nicole is in a play at the Filipino Community Center - highlighting an active and diverse week.

So Wednesday night we said goodbye to Lynette and Chris. They're en route to North Carolina, having sold all their furniture before the party. The opposite of last year's BYO Cup party, this night had the slogan "if you like the plate you're eating on, take it with you!" The yard was surreal.


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You enter a 10-foot hedge fence (I went back to snap a photo of this in daylight) and inside is a terraced lawn and garden - with a fire to gather around.



The next day we decide to simplify our transportation issues. Nicole and I have always been sharing one car. Seattle has a good transit system, but everything we do usually falls within a couple miles of home. These are easy distances, and we've been talking about the advantages of getting a scooter for months.



It's very fun to ride, can park anywhere, and gets 110 miles to the gallon. 100+ mpg!! And filling up is under 3 dollars.



Just the day before, we'd gone to look at a used one at the Capitol Hill dealer. It was going to save a few hundred bucks, and came in a cute yellow that Nicole liked but between the time we reserved it and came back the next day to fill out the paper work and pick it up, the shop closed for business overnight!!



Not even the salesman had any idea it was coming, or he would have been sure to finish the deal that night. It was a little disheartening, but much worse for the staff that lost their jobs. Tough times are certainly among us.



One proud scooter (and the scooter)... ha.

13__Cutest Infestation Ever: Bamboo Housewares

So the new year has brought with it a collection of new furnishings for our home. They're all modified (hacked) products, something that I get great satisfaction out of. It may be something that anyone can find, but once you've made it your own - it's a unique reflection of your taste worth showing off. All three of these items are bamboo, but as Nicole reminds she's asian - so it's alright.

Project 1

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I can't tell you the anticipation I've had piecing together this wall clock. When I found the dish I wasn't thinking: clock! But after being mesmerized by the dense concentric circles, I knew it was the perfect surface to turn into one of the first accessories in my collection.

I found a number of places online to purchase the quartz movements. There's hundreds of options, and better yet very very good volume discounts. When purchasing a case of 100 the price for each hovers around 10% the cost of buying just one.

It's a simple and beautiful piece. Plus it's bright warm color brings a smile every time I see it.

Project 2

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We hate carpet. It's not the texture really that bothers us, but more the drab look that it exudes. The bluish-gray fuzz under your feet with the white walls (textured to prevent us from painting) is enough to make you want to scream.

So when searching for the ideal Christmas gift I found a reasonably priced full room bamboo rug. It's an ideal makeover for the living room. Thanks Mom & Dad! When looking at the thumbnails online, the colors seemed much more rich and radiant than the delivered product. We still loved the look of it, but wondered if we could easily transform it to exactly what we were hoping for. I tested the corner of it with some wood stain, and was shocked to see that it was mostly (if not completely) unfinished - which made for an easy stain and polyurethane job.

Better still we found a new palette of stains available that (similar to their latex cousins) are mixed to order directly in the can. The result is this gorgeous "coastal gray" finish that really accentuates the bamboo look. Check out the before and after combo photo! And this is just during the first coat.

Project 3

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Here is the resurfacing of my plant stand from last spring. It's the same clean line simplicity that I love to work with. It's a very primitive first prototype with the cheapest wood available. I'll find an image of it from our DC home with the beautiful orchids that originally inspired it.

Here there was a place in the room without much sunlight that called for a tall grassy plant who could hide (or be highlighted by) the lights that illuminate the fabric above for our homemade canopy bed. In the search for the right plant, these bamboo stalks stood out. They are virtually impossible to kill (unlike the orchids which barely lasted the month) and came in a variety of heights to achieve a nice layered effect. I still plan on finishing the stand with stain or paint but have been ambivalent since it's been lacking something to display for most of the last year. I do still love that in it's natural state, it looks as if it's been carved out of one tree trunk.

Thanks for listening to my rants. More updates to follow!

12__Grassroots Networking

If there's one advantage to my job, it's that I see most of the customers several times a week. I've grown to know what many of them do, and have met a few great resources for my own design work as it just begins to leave the drawing board. They have a really eclectic skill set between them from interiors to boat building to welding, but each has given time to answer questions that would otherwise linger without some guidance. Here's a little free (yet pretty worthless) press giving some background on their fields... any press is good, right?



There's Jenn, the owner of Gather - a gem of an art gallery in Columbia City. Exhibitions have featured everything from neon sign artists to a grandma who sewed a 100 dresses for her (then) toddler of a granddaughter. Hmm, not much foresight in making them all the same size. This is art where least expected, which makes it that much more striking to view. Jenn and I spoke about possibly helping her build some casework for her exhibits, as they change monthly. An exciting thought at the very least.



Pete, an independent craftsman specializing in boat building and interior remodeling, seems much like a mentor for my work. I've been able to ask him countless questions about how to use/approach this or that, and he's taken the time to sit down with me in his shop and show me proper techniques first hand. Check out his personal collection of boats. Incredible detail!



Just about my favorite regulars are Jack and Barbara, they're among the first I see most mornings - and always help make that slow first half-hour breeze by. Barbara works on commercial interiors for DesignTex, a large company based out of New York. Jack was kind enough to offer that Nicole and I join them for Christmas dinner when the airport was in havok and there was legitimate uncertainy as to whether we'd actually leave the city before the holiday. It wasn't an empty gesture either, we exchanged numbers just in case.

Finally, Colin - who is our neighbor - works as a hobbiest welder. A part owner of Haulin' Colin, he welds bicycle frames and trailers. There's photos of people moving their furniture via bike - check out the link! His steady job at the Bikery (love this name) supports the hobby workshop space that he has in Georgetown. In mid-December we went to an open house at the shop. It's an incredible collection of 40 independent studios who share a warehouse. The was everything from fine furniture to blacksmiths to guitar crafting to painters. Quite a utopia, with the type of shared space to aspire to join in the coming years. Plus, the possibility of welding a frame or legs to a piece opens an exciting new realm for future design work.



There's much more exciting news to get to! I'm backlogged with about a half-dozen posts I want to share. Another update very soon I promise.

11__Winter Wonderland

When the snow fell and fell each day during the last weeks of December, it turned out to be among most challenging conditions this area has ever seen. With terms like snowpocalypse and snowmageddon being tossed around, this was clearly a landmark event in a place whose winter lows hover around 40 degrees. When that figure dropped (and stayed in) the 20s - the snow continued to fall and refused to melt. Take a look at our front yard on day 1.



This paralyzed the city's public transit, 75% of the bus lines were either cloed or re-routed. With snow plows nowhere to be seen (rumor says the city owns only 4) the neighborhood roads were piled high, and even the major thoroughfares were only partially cleared by the tracks of stubborn cars & trucks who could manage to move. Hills were littered with cars stuck in the snow. For many this came as a call to skip all remaining days of work before the holiday. Christmas vacations started for the kids in school a week early (with an early bonus day due to faulty forecasting for what Seattlest called "a much deserved cloud day"). But when the snow arrived it sure did make life hell.



Here's an image of the streets courtesy of Seattlest's flickr site.

What's funny about the whole mess is that the city had a strict no-salt policy in efforts to protect the environment (over the safety of the people in that environment). There is a clear rank of priorities in this town, and nature is bigger than you. If we had this mentality all the time, the world would clearly be a better place, but for those from anywhere else in the country - used to certain responses which keep the pace moving despite the snow - this was the opposite. Elsewhere we joke about panic-induced drivers, here life really does come to a halt. You are limited to however far you are willing to walk. And walk, walk, walk we did.



Day 5 of the snow. One of the busiest roads in the neighborhood (still empty) with the Sound in the background, just before sunset.


Regardless of the conditions, I still had to get to work. Snow days for others meant some of our busiest at the bakery. So with shifts starting at 6:15, my days began around 4. Nearly four hours before the sunrise, I began the walk to work. I didn't have to walk the whole 3 miles, just about halfway - where there was a reliable bus line that could take me the rest of the way to Columbia City. The first day, this was awful. I hadn't yet accepted that this was just how it had to be, and was mostly still bitter that my car was stuck & the buses weren't running. The next time and subsequently the rest of the week, these walks became some of the most pleasant walks I've ever taken. They provided an hour a day of solitude and reflection (no one is walking around in the snow at 5 am). Seattle looked like a snowy winter wonderland, with it's rolling hills and covered rooftops, christmas lights abundant. Check out my favorite house:



So despite the hassles that seemed overwhelming at first, I couldn't have appreciated those mornings more. The final walk in the snow came the evening of Christmas Eve as I headed to catch the bus to the airport. As I was only hours away from seeing family, I knew to soak in the moments that were a white christmas in Seattle. This headache was a once in a lifetime moment for this city, where there was a real sense of disconnect from the greater city structure. By public safety standards the atrocious response to the snow would be considered a minor disaster. Not to me though, these days proved that for once your neighborhood was your boundary - you walked 10 blocks to get a handful of groceries, went sledding down the closed-off street, and basked in a calmer way of life.