Cincinnati Visit – September 2012

09/19/2012

Besides checking out the Sign Museum, we also had some time to just chill out and hang out with our friends Sean and Renata and their crew. Their house is so cool! It’s like an MCM showroom. It’s fun to share that interest with them.

We also had a very important little dude that we were anxious to meet. Little Jonas and Ali are birthday buddies! They share July 20 and are one year apart.

Renata and her dad with Jonas. (Her mom was there also but not feeling well, so no pics.)

Ali and Olivia are very close in age and this is the first visit where they’ve really been able to play together. “Play” meaning mostly taking toys from each other…we’re working on sharing.

Ben has a special place in my heart. He was one of the first babies born to any of our close friends, right after this dear family moved away from Nashville. He’s a cool kid. My two favorite Ben quotes from the weekend:

1. Sitting around the table eating breakfast: “I have a lot of babies! Baby Olivia, Baby Jonas, Baby Alianna!” Yes, Ben, you have a lot of responsibility!

2. After his dad asked him if he wanted some coffee. “Noooo! I’m a boy! I’m not a man!”

A few more cuddles with our buddies before we left go to IKEA and then home to Nashville.

Good friends are a blessing from the Lord! We love you guys! Thanks for having us!

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Posted by mahlbrandt

American Sign Museum

09/18/2012

A few weeks ago while we were up in Cincinnati visiting friends, we went to the American Sign Museum. There were lots of signs and it was very cool, especially for this graphic designer. That’s about all I need to say about it.

Look The Erie Enameling Company from Erie, PA! That’s where we’re from.

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Slatted Coffee Table and Round Wood Wall Clock … oh and Vintage Guitar Amps!

09/06/2012

It’s no secret around here that Jason and I are estate sale addicts. We love ’em. Last week, my guitarist husband discovered his dream sale… we stumbled upon an estate sale of a guy who collected vintage guitar amplifiers. He and Ali got up early to head out to the sale on the first morning. (I got up early and went to work. I get credit for finding the estate sale listing online.) When he got there, there were still 12 amps available and the guy running the sale was ready to make deals. Jason was in heaven! He said he was walking around with his mouth hanging open, entranced by all the vintage amps, when the guy walked up and handed him a tissue. Jason hadn’t even noticed Ali had snot running out of both nostrils! Hahaha… OK, maybe that’s only hilarious to me but it’s because I could totally picture it when he told me. Anyway, he bought three amps for around half of what they’re worth. The Gibson one is for a friend. I think all three are from the 1950s:

This is Jason’s Instagram picture. I would have angled the shot differently to crop out the trash bin. Haha…

Turns out the estate sale had a few other mid-century goodies, too. He also got this slatted wood coffee table. It almost looks like a bench and we keep going back and forth with how we’ll use it. It’s currently resting at the foot of our bed because we’re out of space, y’all! Our storage unit is packed and we’re gradually taking over more and more of my parents’ house. (New house, can you hurry up and get done, please?)

Yes, we have green carpet in our current room. Isn’t it pretty?

Jason also got this round wood Quartz wall clock for me for a couple bucks. We’re not sure if it’s vintage but it looks right. It’s currently hanging in our bedroom but it may end up in Jason’s studio in our new house because it’s silent. We made the mistake of putting a wall clock that ticks in his last studio. Jason’s a lamp guy but I’m a clock lady. I love to have a clock in every room because I don’t wear a watch.

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New Home Update

09/05/2012

Since my last update on our hew house, we’ve had our windows installed, the ground leveled around the house and our roof has been shingled. All of that excitement packed into one picture-ific post:

The house feels much more grounded, nestled into the property, now that the dirt has been leveled. We’ve got a lot of landscaping to do!

The window in the foreground will be over my desk, looking out into the backyard.

The front door (in the right of this pic) opens into the dining room and kitchen area. The windows next to the door were not yet installed in this picture. We get a ton of light while still having a lot of privacy from the street.

From the front door, we can see straight down the hallway and out the window in one of the kids’ rooms. I love how that worked out.

Also from the front door, I catch a glimpse of the living room with big window and tall concrete block fireplace.

We’re looking forward to cozying up in front of the fire this winter.

I really, really love how much indirect natural light we get in the house through the clerestory windows. Three cheers for thoughtful architects!

The exposed concrete block continues into the den/playroom/spare bedroom. Jason is probably swatting a mosquito in this picture. They’re really bad down by our house. Maybe because all the dirt was stirred up with the leveling?

We have some nice big windows in the master bedroom too.

I love that we get to look out at this beautiful crepe myrtle tree all summer and fall!

Lucy is very happy that we have some low windows and glass doors that she can bird watch through.

The front door on a different day, after the windows were installed. This is from the dining room looking out toward the courtyard entryway.

A couple of weekends ago, Jason and I did a bunch of yard work. We removed about 60 feet of chain link fence and posts, cut back/down some trees, weed and shrubs and hauled all the debris to either the dumpster or the curb for brush pick-up. It was hard work on humid days but it felt so good—the physical exercision and the fact that we were working on our new property. This photo is taken from the back corner of our lot, the highest point on the property.

In the above pictures, our roof is covered in tar paper but not shingles. I’m not sure if you can tell by looking at them. But, in the pictures below, we have shingles! Yay! We selected “weathered gray” and it’s just what we were hoping for. We didn’t want to go too dark to attract the sun and we didn’t want to go too light that it looked the same shade as concrete. We didn’t want to go too brown since we have gray concrete block but we also didn’t want to go too gray because we’ll have cedar wood siding. Needlesstosay, we’re pleased with our choice.

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Help Us Pick a Paint Color – Follow Up

08/29/2012

Remember, the Help Us Pick a Paint Color for this Brick Ranch post? Well, Jeremy didn’t exactly go with the top pick on the poll, but I think it did help to influence his decision. The result is really nice. The house is the lovely Ellie Gray from Sherwin Williams. (Coincidentally the same color we had in the kids room at our last house.) The windows are dark gray with white trim. The foundation is dark gray. The front door is a lovely yellow-green from Sherwin Williams. I thought you might like to see how it’s coming together:

It looks bluer in the above photo than it really is. Here’s a close up of the colors (and the silver- and bronze-medalists for front door colors, to the left and right):

 

 

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The Reupholstered Sectional Sofa

08/27/2012

Jason and I reupholstered a sofa! A whole, big, 3-piece sectional sofa! It was a massive project. We worked our butts off and we learned so much. A few things:

• First of all, I have no intentions of writing a DIY tutorial on furniture upholstery. It’s hard work, requires a lot of tools and knowledge. This was definitely not a beginner project. We didn’t take a lot of pictures during the process of reupholstering the sofa, just pictures of the deconstruction for our own reference and progress shots to make ourselves feel better after some long nights of work. If you want a DIY, check out this chair reupholstery blog post that I saw on a friend’s Pinterest page. There are also lots of videos on YouTube and many more tutorials out there. We started out watching videos, getting 4 books from the library, ordering tools, and studying other pieces of furniture. For my birthday back in June, I got a staple gun from my dear husband and The Complete Guide to Upholstery from my mom, both of which have been used a lot. I also found this Great Neck tack puller to be invaluable for removing staples during the deconstruction.

• Sewing skills are crucial, especially for making cushions and doing piping. Thankfully, I have been sewing since middle school and I have my Granny’s old trusty Singer. I sewed approximately 600″ of piping!

• Reupholster with a buddy. I cannot imagine doing this solo. Working with Jason made it so much easier to move the pieces of the sectional around from room to room, inside to outside, flipped over and back up. Usually I was stretching and positioning fabric while he was stapling. Or I was sewing while he was cutting the pieces out of the upholstery. Plus, it’s nice to have someone else to problem-solve with.

• Shop online. We found all the materials we needed and the best prices online. We ordered from Amazon.com, DIYupholsterysupply.com and OnlineFabricStore.net

• Experience is the best teacher. Jason and I reupholstered four chairs before we decided to tackle this sectional. Chair 1. Chair 2. Chairs 3 & 4. Each project we’ve done has gotten progressively better. If we were to do this same sofa over again, I’m sure it would be much better the second time around.

• A few people have asked me how hard it is to upholster a sofa. Difficulty is relative. We didn’t find it difficult. In fact, my [obnoxiously optimistic] husband said on our first night of working on the sectional, as we were deconstructing each piece and figuring out how it was constructed: “Honey! This is going to be easy!” I just laughed because that could not be more opposite of what was going through my mind. But I clung to that statement, hours, days, weeks into this project. It really wasn’t hard. It was time consuming. No joke, I’m pretty sure this took between 40-50 hours of labor with two people… that’s about 90 hours of work. I’m sure we could do another sectional just like this in 60 hours next time, or maybe less. But I did try to keep track of time for our own reference. We spent an average of 4.5 hours per night working on this, and approximately 10-12 nights over 3 weeks.

• Upholstery work is painful! I have more mystery bruises on my legs than I care to count. I have a gouge in one of my legs, two scraped knuckles and tender finger tips from accidental pin stabs. Jason, my professional guitarist, über careful (I call him “Safety Dad”) husband stapled into one of his fingertips. It was bloody and gross but thankfully a picking finger and it healed pretty quickly. My back and arms got quite a workout, too. I think my arms are the strongest they’ve ever been right now. It’s good exercise. See, I can be optimistic, too!

OK, enough about disclaimers and what we learned. It was worth it! We have a brand new couch. Sort of. Actually, it’s a 1960 Harmony House for Sears, Roebuck & Co. But it’s like new with brand new foam cushions and new upholstery. I can’t wait to see this piece in our new living room.

Before:

(more before pictures in my sneak peek post a couple weeks ago.)

After:

Not many detail shots because we were in the parking lot of our storage unit trying to be quick. The light was harsh, mid-day full sun and we were trying to hurry back home before Ali woke up from her afternoon nap. That’s my excuse. It has nothing to do with the imperfections that I’m so critical of… But in just a few months it’ll be comfortable sitting in our new living room, getting well used by a family, and those minor imperfections will be even less noticeable. Says Mr. “This Will Be Easy!”

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Mid-Century Modern Treasures

08/23/2012

Jason and I went to our first auction last weekend. It was so fun! We watch Storage Wars every Tuesday night and it was our chance to get in on the bidding competition. The house and contents were in our neighborhood, right down the street from our old house. We scoped out a few things we wanted. Some we were out-bid on and a couple we won!

This armchair caught our eye from the beginning. Actually this is the picture our friend texted to us and made us come down to the auction. We got it for… FREE. It was auctioned with another chair and the winner only wanted the other one. Can’t beat that! It has a few rips in the vinyl so it’ll be getting brand new upholstery in the coming weeks.

This dresser we won for a friend. It’s perfect height to use as a changing table in a nursery but sadly, it didn’t end up working in their small room. So, we’re reselling it. (Nashville folks, if you’re interested, it’s on Craigslist.)

We also won this table and chairs that we really don’t need and have no place to store. But we couldn’t resist! Bidding is just so fun! Especially when you win. So, we’re reselling it also. (Nashville folks… Craigslist.) If it doesn’t sell, we may consider reupholstering the 4 chairs. They’re super cool and it’s a bummer they’ve each got a rip in the seat.

And because we just can’t get enough of moving heavy furniture around, we decided to hit up a couple of thrift stores after the auction. We found this unit and decided we had to have it. It’s a bit unusual. I’m calling it a storage cabinet. After a little research, based on the stamp “DECLARATION BY DREXEL” on the back, I learned it’s part of a series called Leisure Center.

It’ll be handy for storing dishes and table linens in our dining room. Behind the three cane wicker doors there are adjustable shelves.

This is what it’s supposed to look like as two parts (source):

Can you believe that some guy came in the day before, paid for both pieces and only took the bottom credenza half of the hutch?! What a booger! Our Silver Bullet finally met it’s match with this one. We had to have our friend drive out with his flat bed trailer to pick it up for us. Time for the Silver Bullet to get a hitch, maybe?

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Lights, Hairpins and Little Kicks

08/15/2012

Jason and I did a little casual pickin’ this weekend. We stopped at a couple of yard sales on Saturday and at one of them scored a deal on a pair of vintage lamps and a small square footstool with hairpin legs. Jason may or may not have an addiction to buying mid-century lamps…

Sunday after church we swung by the Goodwill for a quick look. Nothing MCM but I did snag a pair of navy blue sneaks for the kid for 2 bills. She’s quite close to walking which means crawling all over the place and pulling up/cruising along anything. Which means very dirty feet if we’re out in the public. I know they’ll only fit for a couple of months so I’m happy to pay $1.99.

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Otis the Lamp

08/09/2012

I’m naming furnishings again. This is Otis because of all the O’s all over him. Jason, the lamp-lover, spotted this lovely specimen while we were out casually pickin’ the other day. It needs a little TLC. We like the green but it’s chipped in several places so a fresh coat of paint is in its future, as well as straightening the base and rewiring with a new polarized cord set.

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Sectional Reupholstery Sneak Peek

08/06/2012

Remember this sectional sofa that Jason and I got back in March? (What?! You don’t remember?!) Well, it’s been living in our storage unit most of the spring and summer while we collected tools, books and researched how to reupholster furniture. We were pretty jazzed with how our pair of dining chairs—Douglas and Davy— turned out so we decided we were ready to tackle the sectional. We shopped around locally for upholstery but ultimately decided to order samples through a website and ended up getting all the fabric, foam and most supplies from online suppliers.

The past few weeks we’ve been working our butts off on this thing. Several nights a week, after we put Precious to bed at 8:00 pm, we work on the sectional until 11, or 12, or 1:30 that one time…and then next day it felt like the sectional had tackled me. (Pics below were taken for our reference right before we tore them apart.)

We found some interesting tags inside the couch and learned that it was manufactured in 1960 by Sears, Roebuck & Co.

Our hard work is paying off and we’re really happy with how it’s coming together. I’d say we’re about half way through right now. We have all three sections disassembled…dismantled? dissected? Taken apart with the old materials stripped off. One arm rest is done and the corner piece of the sectional is mostly done. It’s still waiting for buttons on the back, the back panel (not pictured) to be stapled/stitched on and the dust cover to be added underneath.

We should have the other two pieces done within the next two weeks. They should be a bit easier than the curved corner section. I can’t wait to see the finished sofa all together!

3 Comments | Art, Art: furnishing restoration, Art: interior design, Art: mcm thrift store find, Art: mid-century design | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

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