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.

10__I made chocolate chip belgian waffles

They were delicious. Thank you goodwill for the 2.99 waffle iron. The perfect place to get all the random kitchen gadgets you wouldn't otherwise buy for the cost of 1.

This ridiculously fugly cookie jar agrees, if you've got 3 dollars to spend - the possibilities are endless. He's holding Nicole's christmas gifts, but she doesn't know it yet. We're exchanging them later today. Can't wait to see the look on her face when she sees this guy. It's huge too! Like over a foot tall. Clearly the best hiding place ever.



There's a food blog post coming shortly. Consider this one your appetizer.

09__A green development open house

Working for Windermere real estate, Jesse brought up an open house in my neighborhood that perked my interest. It's a green townhouse development - 8 homes sharing a site that typically would house 3 single family detached homes. Already there's expectations of a densely packed condo feel that I'm expecting to dread. No one wants to live in a condo, they do because it's what they can afford to buy or they love the amenities or some such yuppy reason. The biggest drawback to a set of condos - especially those in a charming neighborhood in the city - is that it removes you from any street level interaction reducing your feelings of belonging to your community. It's no longer your home, it's your building, where I live with 50 of my closest strangers.

When I sublet from the apartment tower near Thomas Circle last year, it was shocking how removed the residents were from one another. It was like a business relationship - you don't live on my floor, I don't know you and I don't care to. You see the same people in the elevator or walking down the halls, but there's an overwhelming sense of anonymity to this labyrinth of hallways & rooms. These people just want to left alone.

Thankfully this development was different. It's 8 townhomes each have a separate entrance from the street level. The design accommodates this by winding a pathway of reclaimed bricks (the "urban canyon" as they call it) through the center like a narrow courtyard. All 8 of the entrances pull off this path, rather than some on the street side and others in the center. This reunites the separate units by giving them their own quiet neighborhood block just steps away from the busy streets of capitol hill.



As for the interiors they feature open floorplans, the latest eco-friendly appliances and heating and cooling systems, greywater recycling, radiant heated floors, and even compressed paper and cashew resin countertops! CASHEW RESIN?





The staging was impressive, they used modern furniture often created through another eco-friendly process, like tabletops made from reclaimed beams of demolition sites. And I was very intrigued by the bathroom vanity:



It's all plywood and cherry veneer! It's not even edge-banded. Not too different from the amateur work I'm actively doing. It is striking & I love that the handles are incorporated into the doors, but I couldn't help thinking how inexpensive the materials were in respect to the enormous pricetag these homes are asking. Then later when I read up on the paper & nut resin countertops in the eco-construction book my sister gave me, I learned that it's the cheapest method available, rivaling that of traditional laminate counters.



So while I was impressed with the overall experience, I was disheartened by the feeling that although the technology is becoming more widely accessible and affordable, developers are finding ways to profit in even bigger ways off eco-friendly construction due to its novelty.

As I would love to live in a home like this, a $660K pricetag (200K more than a comparably sized home in the area) will keep me on this side of the fence for now. On the outside, looking in.

08__The hours that don't count

When trying something new, there's bound to be setbacks. These moments challenge you to stop, rethink, and modify your approach - simultaneously rejecting your (now) incorrect assumptions while adapting to get the end result.

I like problem solving. When you get there, it's worth it. But it's the hours of uncertainty (when it just might fail) that get overlooked.

Today this happened twice.

Problem 1
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A scanner purchased for $3.99 (and you thought this was important! HA!) from Goodwill turns on but jams as it scans. I admit that I know not one thing about how one of these works, but it's the transparency of the surface that lured me in. "What do you mean it's stuck, you can see the parts turning!"



Notice the handyman's trusted assistant, Mr. Blue Ribbon.



So inside there's motors and plastic gears and rubber bands and circuitry. Many times I paused, thinking you don't have a clue what these are, why are you doing this? Maybe it was that I just paid for a broken scanner and was determined to redeem said questionable judgment, or maybe that I saw tiny screws all over the place and thought that you know how those work - give it a shot. So carefully, I removed one piece at a time, testing after each, and 9 out of 10 times it failed. An hour later, thinking then that it was even more busted than when I started, I had removed and replaced all the moving parts - and who knows why - but it works.

I got so giddy, I scanned my mousepad.



Thank you, Goodwill for the chance to test my total lack of electronical knowledge and succeed where I should have failed. And now for the irony...

Problem 2
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A recently purchased circular saw $49.99 (significantly more substantial) was supposed to save me time in the dresser project I have in construction. I read the manual, it shows me a pitifully vague diagram that says loosen the lever to adjust the depth of cut. Keep in mind that now we're in my area of expertise. I deal with these parts all the time, should take seconds, right?

But the lever is stuck. There's a bolt with threading that I think I have to adjust. It's entrenched in a crevice of the machine. I try for two hours to loosen a piece I can't reach. Somehow it's the one size wrench I don't have. This is beyond frustrating. I use clamps to try and just jam the lever down.

I get so fed up and annoyed at this new purchase that I decide it's not worth it and it's going back. That's when I realize the lever goes up. It goes up. I spent hours jamming this thing down, and it goes up. The scanner made me feel smart and the saw made me feel stupid.

I should join the Geek Squad. I'll need thicker glasses... with tape.

07__When something you thought was finished surprises you...

Just this week two projects that I had wrapped up on my end months ago have surprised me with how well they're turning out.

In architecture news, we've just submitted a revision set for the roof deck of my old neighbor's house in DC. When this project is completed in the coming months it will be the strongest testimonial I have to date towards my own design aesthetic. The Deckers were ideal clients, allowing me to approach the project with a blank slate, developing ideas together, and respecting my knowledge in the trade. Six months later the construction will soon begin. Check out a preliminary design rendering!



My last week in DC I spent many many hours building a set of bookshelves to wrap around the ceiling of John's room. It was really challenging to form fit them to walls that weren't so square (they were too hip to be square) but the finished product looked pretty good. Here's a photo of when I was done with them:



I just saw the photos of them painted, and wow - I'm impressed. John put a geometric pattern that is quirky and yet totally fitting for a room already featuring a Dr. Seuss pole. Check out these images, it came a long way.







Updates to follow soon with photos of the workshop I've recently finished setting up in the basement - plus the most involved project I've built to date (as far as the joints go) should be finished this week. Our apartment will have furniture soon!