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!

Get Ready Freddy

Julie and I went away for our 13th weddin anniversary. Headed west to Fredericksburg. Mostly full o shops and the like, but still has lots of cool old buildings around, like this here Keidel Memorial Hospital down the street from where we stayed.



We enjoyed us a required two nite's stay at the Roadrunner Inn... It was perched atop a couple cool shops on Main Street. (above: Julie checks baby status from cellular)



Twas full of swanky mid century modern type artifacts, as well as this flat screen tv, which was in direct eyesight of the super cozy bed, and could play The Soup like nobody's business.



We ate a tasty meal at what was known as the Cotton Gin, now not-as-cool sounding Cabernet Grill. Romantic topics of discussion ranged from attic renovation, to baby schooling, to property tax protesting. Upside to the meal, other than its taste: I didn't pull a dead fly out of my mouth as I had the night prior at a different fancy restaurant, which shall remain nameless.



Trendy cool shop, Red, was directly across the street from where we stayed.



Sad how many cardboard animals are killed each season.



Austinite woodworker cool brah, Brian David Johnson, gets around! Spotted his wood vases right away. Someday, when I have more time than my daily allotted babynaptime, I'll get on the ball and make stuff, get stuff into stores, and sell the stuff. Til then, I'll blog about others that do it. BRING IT YEAR 13! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY JULIE!

Schoolhouse RAWK

My friend John mentioned this here school is for sale out in Smithville Texas. Maybe we'll move in!



It was built in 1905, and takes up an entire city block... My only fear is that come 3am, all the ghostly schoolchildren would come out to play. I have no doubt about nightly kid laughter/fingernails on the chalkboards/paddling/wailing, etc.



Not only does the place come with an apartment ready for livin in, it also comes with a stage to rock. That would make Julie's annual lip sync party a superrad hit... nicer to watch John and his sister on an auditorium stage than in our backyard, like below...

Merry Christmas. Have a toilet.

Julie and I are giving each other a new bathroom for Christmas. The master bathroom is a disaster. Well, it's so small, it's hard to qualify as a disaster. We've been looking for some inspiration, and I always remembered this bathroom from some Apartment Therapy Color Contest way back when. Small, rad and woody. Right up my alley. Now to find super fancy, high end stuff for super cheap. Already sold my locks of hair, so the cash is gonna have to come from somewhere else. Stay tuned. Get ready for dumpy bathroom pics in the near future.

Bookin It

These days are gloomy and dreary, but Claire, Chester and I still get out for a walk here and there. We try walking between the raindrops, but it only works so well...



I've also been checking out a buncha library books, because doing so is free. Most books are about making the most outta small houses, in case Claire ever gets a sibling/it starts raining money. I was flipping through this book, Natural Remodeling for the Not-So-Green House, and I says to myself I says, "Self- Claire, Chester and I walk by this house ALL THE TIME!" They bumped out their attic space with a couple cool dormers. Today we double checked that it's the same joint.



And it is!!! Maybe we can become friends, and they can fix up our attic for us. I've also been reading Making It Lovely, and checking out the bitchin job they did on their attic nursery. I'm hoping, when we do make over our attic, that the door into the new space is magical... Like crossing into a Narnia-sized world that holds an office, new bedroom, new bathroom, new winterwonderland filled with mystical creatures, etc.

Sheds in my Head

Though I'm currently unemployed (take it back- my employer is a 9 month old, but the pay is lousy) I can't stop thinking about how awesome it'd be to have a boatload o cash dropped off at the front door so we could add on to our house... or at least replace a falling apart garage with a cool shed for storing stuff/office/place for peep to stay (maybe I need 3 sheds). I'm obsessed with looking at em these days. The MD100 above I read about in Readymade magazine, and seems like not TOO much work to put together, and looks great done. I read somewhere the cost would be about 1500- 2000 smakkas.



The Modern Shed I've read about for a long time, and might have first gotten me on the kick. Quite a bit mo pricey, and still get shipped flat, so I'll order my extra back muscles at the same time.



The Craftsman Shed is run by a local Austin dood, so putting it together happens by him as I sip a martini and complain about the heat. It only takes him a week or two to put up, and I like that he has a real good breakdown of pricing options/add ons.



I saw this shed by Joseph Sandy whilst boppin around Door Sixteen's flickr account. It's made of recycled redwood fencing, and sounds like he's gonna start selling em sometime later this month. Could I make something like that? Prolly... not. Maybe in some years from now? Who is offering a "Learn to Make Yer Own Kewl Shed" class? I need to graduate with a Master's minimum.

Cuttin, Coolin, and Sweatin

This is a wicked mish mash of a post... Soundtrack as I type is the constant growling of a 7 month old who would rather sound possessed than take a snooze. Anyhoo, here's a pic of cutting board in action, so it worked at least once.



This weekend is the Cool House Tour here in A-Town. We'll be attending. We're hoping two things. Thing One: Get some wicked rad ideas on how to best add on to our house. Ideas that are energy efficient, look cool, and add room to the joint in case there's another growler in the future. Thing Two: Several thousand free dollars end up in our savings account to complete said pie in the sky. I've been reading the "My Remodel" section over at Inspired Austin, and it's well... inspiring.



Also going to a rock show this weekend. Thank God. Long stints without rock shows make a bald man lame and blahhhhed out. Sweatbox Studio is turning 16, and is having a couple good shows. The vast majority of Licorice Tree Records stuff was recorded there, and Mike Vasquez is a wickedly nice guy. Anyone who is ready to rock, lettuce go to Emo's! I'm going to the Sat nite show, so if you don't want to see me, go on Friday nite.

OLD/NEW Door Part Two

So this vulture flew directly at me then landed on our house the morning I decided to take off the front door, and put some fresh windows in it. My superstition made me quiver at first, but by the end of the day, my rad door and I were eating his dead carcass instead of the other way around.



This is the interior side of our door. Check out that wicked 3D waviness... Almost tempting one to dive into its pool of swirling gold. Also a reason I didn't really want to get a brand new door.



In Door School 101, you learn that the exterior side of the door is actually smaller than the interior side... helps with that smooth swinging action. (I've resisted making a dumb "swinger" joke here).



ANYHOO! After our supernice hippie professor neighbor helped me lug this monster to the backyard, I went to town. David Erwin over at Crestview Doors wrote these great instructions on how to cut big holes in your door without freaking out... they also include perfectly drawn out, scientifically formulated window placement options that are based on the type of window shape you get. I chose the Ledgestone layout, which seems to go best with our mail slotted door that we can't really remove.

Basically, after tracing the trim onto the door, you whip out a drill with a fat bit, drill a couple holes, then stick a jig saw down into said holes, and cut out the rectangle. Again, there's this diagram on the instructions that lists a cut sequence to make a pretty fine rectangular hole.

After gittin jiggy, I did have to do a little fine tuning to get each of the kit pieces in... better that problem than realizing I've cut me some oversized holes that vultures can easily fly through to eat the corpse my preggo wife turned me into when she found out I've ruined our front door. Catastrophe diverted!

It got dark upon my bald head, and I wasn't done- dadgum Central Standard Time. Final steps are like this here. Put the trim on the exterior side of the holes, then flip your big boy door over... squeeze a bit of silicone in the trim, and put the glass in it. Grab the other side of the trim, and screw it into its exterior counterpart. I found that putting a flat surface under the door provided some needed pressure so that ole screw won't just push the trim out on the other side of the door. The predrilled screw holes are counterbored, so once they are screwed together, you can cut off a piece of dowel rod, stick it in the bored hole, and sand er down so you don't have to look at that ugly screw head.



Julie and I found this stain that matches our door color pretty well. We purchased 13 ketchup packet samples of the stuff and that was plenty. Then our good friends the Taylors came over to help us rehang the big sucka. SO NOW...



BRAND NEW/OLD DOOR! It's Miller Time!

Movie Watchin/Band Rockin

Yous know there's a rad documentary playing at the Austin Film Festival tomorrow nite called Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman? The fantastic geezer who photographed all the modern homes since the beginning of modern homes- such as this here Case Study House 22 pic he took. DOUBLE CHECK THIS OUT! Julius Shulman is gonna be there in person at the ripe old age of 98, and baldman's friend's dad, Bill Merriman (space city architect) is gonna do a Q & A! Check that link above fer show times/locations and the like... but the Q & A is going to be on 10/16 at the Rollins Theater... 7pm- see you there!



And for those about to rock... The Bloody Tears are playing a show at the Scoot Inn on friday with another great band called Ripe. Get a double dose of bald if you're nasty.

A Siding Tale

So back in May, we had us a litte hail storm. It made our house look like this.



After State Farm screwed us out of several thousand dollars, we decided to just bite the siding bullet, and yank down (read "have skilled pros yank down") our old crummy vinyl siding that was put up lord knows when... 70s some think? Who knows. Anyway, since the siding was nailed directly into the original 1937 wood siding, and it had quite a few spots of rot, we are going hardie plank style on the sucka.



Upside to having an old house is the abundance of solid wood used. One could pick any spot on any wall of our house, and hang a Caddy Escalade by a thumbtack without fear of it falling to the ground.



The other day, this cute young girl was going by the house, and I saw her look straight at our house and say OUT LOUD to herself, "OH MY GOD." Guess the pad ain't really raking in the chicks.



Other upside is we now have insulation up in da crib. Our next door neighbor told me he was thinking about getting this similar look for his house, but I told the brah... we already have the pink fuzzy thing, and everyone will know who the original PF was. Bring it university professor. Real men live in cotton candy abodes.