Babies Can't Stop Bald Hands From Making!

Long ago, I built a changing table for our daughter.  It was in her room, and built on top of the window sill, due to the lack of space in the room (and every room).  When the addition was made, the wall with said window/changing table was smashed to bits, but not before I unscrewed the guy.  I added a jumbo storage drawer underneath, slapped on some legs, and now the newly configured monster lives in baby Nate's room!



The murphy bed also got some new neighbors. Two storage bros, and a reading lamp.

Bottom bro is tricked out with a slide out nightstand! 



Lastly, in ye olde shoppe, it's the return of the Longboard Pendant lamp in Bamboo...  My bamboo source dried up on me, so I had to find a new well.  I should have a couple made soon if I can squeeze them out admist all of this pesky child rearing.

Filing Cabinet Planter... Part Last!

Grace Bonney hit me up two years ago about putting this filing cabinet planter in the book she was making.  After sending her a couple crummy pictures of it, and taking additional semi-better pictures, she put it in...  and it came out yesterday!  Page 346 of the Design Sponge at Home book. 

I picked up the book, as well as our friend Divya's awesome children's book, Little Owl's Night.  Book parties for both books happening on October 15th.  Grace is super nice, and I'm not sure how that is, as I'm assuming dealing with so many ding dongs like myself is far from enjoyable.  400 pages of ding dongs' creations.  It'll be cool to meet her, shake her hand, and pick up my gigantic check (both physically and monetarily).  I'm assuming she's coming by bus, since that check ain't fittin under the seat in front of you.

Oak Park Father's Day? In August? BELIEVE.

For Father's Day, Julie upped the ante with this wild idea of taking me to Oak Park (ritzy Chicago) for a Frank Lloyd Wright tour. We went on the cheap, which meant barely eeking out the last two seats on a 5:45AM flight, and going standby at that. The upside is that we made it to Wicker Park in time to eat a banana and heath bar pancake covered in warm toffeecream. Chicagoans can sometimes be on the hefty side, so it was necessary to bulk up/fit in. (no offense. I'm the one eating candy bars for breakfast, so...)



Since we had extra time in Chicago that we assumed we'd be spending in the DFW airport, we went to the Chicago Institute of Art, to explore as much as we could before heading outta downtown. We took in this massive log, which some dood saw in California, had a mold made of it, shipped said mold to Japan to have woodworkers recreate the fallen tree, had it shipped back, and now is in the museum. Who said artists were the poor and starving type?



ARTY. There's a cute wife behind. them gold balls.

One of my favorite Wright homes in Oak Park was the Arthur B. Heurtley house. There was a hundred year oldish man who lived in the place, and he ruled, and was really proud of this beauty. I'd be proud too, because I'll be residing in a pine box at his age, not this place.

The vast majority of Wright homes one has to admire from the outside, as the current residences of the homes prefer privacy to hanging out with cool people like us. However, we did get to walk around inside Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio, and it was great. No pictures allowed on the inside though. Whatever.

We headed downtown to check out the inside of the Rookery building. When we go inside buildings in downtown Austin, we get a receptionist desk, a security guard, and an ATM machine.

This building was not like that. Long live the Rookery!!

The Robie house was another one that we got to walk around inside. It really made me want to live in 1910, be rich, have servants and be named Frederick C. Robie. There was this old victorian home built next door that looked a trillion years old, and it was built 5 years after this house. Wild. Again no pictures allowed inside. Apartment Therapy has a nice interior shot of the giant living room. Guess they must have a Robie on the staff.

Take that Jeff Tweedy. We took the Architecture River Crooze too, brah.

After said cruise, we stopped into this place that seemed a tad douchey to me on the outside, but turned out to be pretty nice. They did have this awesome beer flight for purchase, including the super potent Delirium Tremens. It was delicious, but to name your beer after the DTs is like naming your cigarettes the Coughing Blood Ultraslims.

Saw these lamps hanging in this Wine and Cheese shop near our motel. Don't get me all riled up again! Buy 'Merican people! LZF Lamps makes great stuff... and their model is basically three of mine put together and is wider, but they use only 2 pieces of veneer. I use 3. Would you rather live in a straw house or one of brick? I USE THREE. BRICK HOUSE!

We rounded out the trip with a drive to Plano, IL to visit the Farnsworth House. You know your house is a dope crib when it's been made into legos. We had a few setbacks getting there, and ended up 10 minutes late, much to the chagrin of all the others on the tour. They were also not chagrinning when it started pouring after we took two steps towards the house from the parking lot.

The upside was that we got to hang out in the house and sit around in the living room for a long time, listening to the tour guide... It was a great house. Thinking about putting a bid in on it. Not sure it's for sale, but they rent it out for $20,000 a night, so I'm pretty sure my offer will be heavily considered (I mean, it's on a flood plain yo!). We rounded out the Chicago trip with a delicious meal (thanks to friend Steve Roberts) and a rock and roll bar... Perfect end to a perfect trip! I have 9 months to come up with something big for Mother's Day, and is an equal alternative to some sorta musicals marathon. There MUST be an alternative!

Filing Cabinet Planter Revisited!

Brothers and Sisters... I've started this blog entry no less than 4 times in the last month. Today I'll get past uploading this picture. This double baby party is no joke! ANYWAY. Many moons ago, I made this filing cabinet into a planter instead of buying one for 600 bucks at ye local plant store. A moon or two after that, I was asked to take some pictures of it for a book that Design Sponge was gonna put out. Fast forward two more years, and said book is coming out Sept 6th! It can be preordered here for half off til friday! The planter has seen some rough times in the past couple of years, mostly due to contractors adding on to the house where the planter was located, and contractors' lack of caring about physical items, especially one like this. I also have an uncanny ability to kill off cacti fairly easily... However, the planter has been moved, and given an overhaul in case our house gets mobbed after the release of this book. There's going to be a release party here in Austin on October 15th. Our friend Divya wrote this great children's book, Little Owl's Night, and she is having a reading on October 15th. All hail October 15th, Day of BookWorms!

Chomp!

Time ain't always on my side. Two babies tell me what to do and when to do it. I have 6 lamps I need to make for a dood in Australia. He's being patient, and by that I mean, he didn't reply to my last email that said, "I don't know man... another 4 weeks? 5 weeks?" My mominlaw needs pegboards put up in garage. Nate needs his butt wiped and Claire needs to go to gymboree. And the two cute gymboree nannies that actually talk to me are gonna stop nannying, and leave me with the old grumps. And there are about 12 trees that need to be cut down in the backyard, and hauled out to the street in two days, for "large brush pickup day". In steps my new best friend, the alligator lopper.



My brah Lopper and I did a number on the backyard. A serious serious number. That back fence was mostly invisible, but now very visible after Lopper's chainsaw mouth did its stuff. Sadly, the lopper is not a magic lopper that would make each limb turn to fairy dust as it hit the ground, so he left it up to me to haul to the front yard. Planning on doing this on a Thursday evening, then watching loud rock music that will start at midnight. It's a bad mix, and I know this going in, but after the double nanny dis, an old man needs something to look forward to. And for this old man, it's The Damn Times.

Gittin Horizontal. Gittin Vertical.

Due to our maxed out growing family, our 1300 square foot house, and heavy influx of visitors (mainly of the grandparent variety), we had to add on to our home, and make every square inch work hard. Sometimes pull some double duty. So pa and I built a murphy bed!



AND when it was done, it worked! It goes up. It goes down. It can be slept on. It can be high fived over.



Here's a shot from a post overnight stay.



When guests are away, the desk comes back to life, and the bedroom turns into an office.



Someday there will be a little storage area next to ole Murphy's bed, but only Murphy knows when that will be. He also created this law that deemed Nate shall wake up twice during the night since I'm illin'. You've got a funny way, Murph.

Gettin Bigger and Balder

This was pretty cool yesterday... The kids section of Apartment Therapy, called Ohdeedoh, wrote a little thing on the kitchen I made for Claire. I've been reading that goofy ole blog for years and years, so you know. It's at least pretty cool to me! They said lots of nice things, which is music to my ears, as these days I hear a lot of baby crying and two year old yelling, which is quickly becoming white noise to my ears.

In other "Made for Claire" news, I made this table rather quickly, out of a piece of plywood and an old herman miller swivel chair base I bought at a garage sale about a year ago. I tried really hard make the swivel part not swivel (as the table ends up not level as it spins), but with two year old tyrants, that didn't last. I'm assuming Claire and her hoodlum toddler clan will be throwing this table through her new window soon.

Play Kitchen... REVEALED!

Can you even believe it? I cannot. Baldy is blogging. Don't even know where to begin with the goingson since the last entry one million years ago. Here's the heavily abbreviated version. Christmas came. I made a toy box for my nephew. January came, and we had our second baby- sweet baby Nate. We made room in our house by adding a new bedroom for Claire (see above). I made her a little table, and a kitchenette which I guess is going to get some love here today. Goes like this:

My mom-in-law had these leftover white shelves and molding from an Ikea entertainment center that she gave me. Pa and I just got done building a murphy bed (did I mention I've been busy making murphy beds too?), so we had a bunch of deck screws left over. There was a bit of leftover 1/2 inch plywood from the toy box, so I threw all that into the kitchenette stew.

Some neighbors down the street were throwing out some stuff, and I snagged this corkboard off their driveway, and tacked it to the back of the kitchen. I also had this leftover radiator grill material that I used to make a table lamp, and it magically transformed into the oven door pretty well.

Besides a couple leftover handles and an old towel rack we had lying around, the hinges, spigot knobs, plumbing parts and the oven burner cover/sink all were purchased from the hardware store down the street.

My mom-in-law lives down the street from an Ikea, so I swung by there to pick up the little pots and pans, as well as 4 mouse pads/burners that I saw someone else use when they made their own play kitchen. Claire's pretty into it. Not really in the traditional way I guess, but more in the "Let's-rip-off-the-sink-and-drop-food-down-the-hole-and-retrieve-it-from-the-cabinet" sort of way. Sometimes she puts her fancy lady attire in the kitchen. I'd like she'll still be doing the same thing in about 25 years.

What, am I NOT going to put a picture of this new addition in this post? I'm NOT gonna NOT! More posts to come??? We shall see!