The Silver Bullet

05/11/2011

Yes, that’s right: not only have we become minivan people but I insisted that we pose in front of the Silver Bullet for a picture. We used the auto-timer and my gorillapod so no innocent bystander was affect by our dorkiness. Don’t mind Jason’s work clothes; I caught him between projects.

I’d like to take a few moments to brag on my husband’s awesome negotiating skills. The dealership was asking $7900 for this van, about $1000 more than the KBB value. Our maximum budget was $5000. And really, Jason was aiming for $4000. He decided to lay his cards out on the table right from the start because in this case, there really was no room to meet in the middle. If he had offered $3000, they may have been insulted. His old car was worth between $1000-2000. We tried to sell it on craigslist but it was unappealing to most buyers because it needed some serious repair to the under-carriage. So Jason’s initial offer was that we’d pay $5000 for the van and they’d give us $1000 for our trade-in. Their first counter-offer was $6200. Jason says they went back and forth several times and his offer never changed. $4000 for the van with our trade-in. Firm. Finally, they said the best they could do was $5200. Jason said thanks and left. As he was walking to his car, he faintly heard over the garbled intercomm, “Call customer back.” One of the sales guys tried to wave him back in but he ignored him and drove off of the lot. Before he reached the main road, his phone was ringing. The sales manager was on the other end (the guy that sits in the little booth and sends the counter offers) begging him to come back. He said they could do $4000 plus taxes and fees (coming out to a little less than $4600), insisting that he’d be making no money on this van. My reaction: Yeah right. Then why did he call back? I am so proud of my husband! I think three major factors that allowed him to get such a good deal in case any of you out there are looking for some car buying tips. 1.) Jason had cash and was prepared to pay that day. 2.) He knew what he wanted to pay and stayed calm and confident. 3.) He was truly willing to walk away.

Why did we want a minivan? Jason has always liked driving vans, while I’m more of a small car fan. There were several motivators that convinced me to hop on board the minivan train:
• room for more people (obviously)
• better gas milage than an SUV
• room for transporting furniture home from estate sales and thrift stores (yay!)
• space for transporting lumber and supplies for home projects (did you see this craziness?!)
• Jason’s sedan was slowly falling apart
• enough space for two kids plus Jason’s music gear

Because of our desire to be able to transport lots of stuff in the van, we’re super excited about the stow-n-go feature in this Dodge Grand Caravan. In less than 30 seconds, the back row of seats can be folded down and disappear into the floor of the van. The two bucket seats in the middle do the same thing, although we haven’t tried them yet. Basically it can become a cargo van in a matter of minutes without us having to remove and store heavy, bulky seats. I love smart design! We’re not “car people” and we generally don’t care much about what kind of car we’re driving. As long as it’s paid for, it gets us around reliably and it serves our transport needs; we’re happy.

Now I need to practice parking this big ol’ bullet.

7 Comments | Art, Art: modern design, Family, Family: Jason | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

CBB 3.0 – Update (Walls, Floors, Paint, Cabinets)

05/04/2011

I’ve had a very busy week. My husband is home on a break from traveling so we’ve been in full-force project mode at home. That means I have blog material but no time to blog. 🙂 So this is an update on our friend’s post-flood reconstruction house with photos and lazy captions. Click here to watch a video update from one of our local news channels that aired on the 1 year anniversary of the 2010 Nashville Flood. It recaps Jeremy and Leila’s freshly renovated house being flooded, their rental house getting robbed, the demolition of their flooded house and where they’re at with the construction of their new house. Here are my pictures from a couple weeks ago…

From the dining room, facing the kitchen:

Jason and Jeremy in the living room:

Living room with high sloped ceilings since it’s at the back of the house and paper covering up the finished wood floors:

Hallway from the living room. Master bedroom is at the end to the right. Full bath on the right. Guest room, laundry room and nursery on the left, which is toward the front of the house:

Guest room:

Nursery:

Master bedroom:

Deck off the dining room:

Maggie Moo, the cow-dog:

Bonus room (office):

Bonus room looking toward the kitchen. Lucy inhaled construction dust to the point of vomiting. Fun times:

Kitchen:

Dining room shot from the kitchen. (Leila, Jeremy, Jason):

OK, all of those were my pictures. The rest of them are Jeremy’s pictures that I snagged off facebook.

Tile, countertop and vanity consideration for master bathroom:

Wood flooring installation:

Finished wood floors. Solid white oak with a stain mix of 50% jacobean and 50% dark walnut. Semi-gloss oil poly on top:

Full overlay style cabinets in the kitchen, oak with espresso stain:

Granite choice for kitchen countertops, “white sands”:

Radiant heat for concrete bathroom floors:

Master bath vanity in cherry wood with espresso stain, with finished “permacrete” concrete floors:

Same in the hall full bath:

Master bedroom accent wall in a brownish, copper color. (I’m not sure what is going on with the color in this photo. The foreground walls are either white or light gray…not blue. I didn’t take this photo but I think the orange is pretty accurate.):

That’s it for now. As you can tell, it’s very close to completion. Hopefully just another week or two and they’ll be moving in! Which should be pretty easy considering they lost 80-90% of their belongings in the flood… They have a mattress, clothes, dishes and kitchen items that could be salvaged, a few boxes of personal items, and some electronics that either weren’t in the house during the flood, have been recently purchased or survived. (Can you believe their LCD TV was submerged half way in floodwater and still works?!)

1 Comment | Art, Art: CBB 3.0, Art: interior design, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design, Family, Family: Extended Family and Friends | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

CBB 3.0 — Update (exterior)

04/26/2011

Sorry it’s been a whole month since I’ve last updated you on the progress of CBB 3.0 – the reconstruction of our friends’ fully remodeled house that was destroyed in the Nashville flood of May 2010. The siding was put up, inspired by the design of Shelby Bottoms Nature Center.

Garage is below the house with a double door at the back.

Deck off the back of the house.

Front left corner of the house.

Triple window is in the dining room with a door that leads out to the deck. The next room over to the left is the living room.

Choosing paint colors. They wanted a light gray. The one they chose is Sherwin Williams First Star.

In daylight… it just looks like white. There will be decking leading up to the front door. Right now it looks kind of funny with the front door (set back) just hanging out up there.

I LOVE how the back of the house looks!

LOTS of people have been slowing down on their way past and lots of nosey neighbors has been showing themselves around the property. (Seriously, who does that?!) One fella even stopped and asked, “What kind of house is that?” Jeremy was a little offended. A house that people live in. A family house? Jason answered, “A modern house.” To which the guy replied, “I like it!”

1 Comment | Art, Art: CBB 3.0, Art: interior design, Art: modern design | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Painting Furniture – Nightstand Before & After

04/19/2011

We bought this little nightstand dresser 2 years ago at a yard sale. At the time we didn’t know where to put it. We can’t fit a nightstand like this in our bedroom and we already had end tables in our living room. It moved into the spare room to sit in waiting for our future kids. Over a year ago, Glidden was giving away free quarts of paint. I ordered Granny Apple green with this night stand in mind. Then, 2 weekends ago I FINALLY got around to standing and painting it. (It felt SO GOOD to get that of my to-do list after being on there for months.)

The top had a bunch of knicks and dings in it but look at the cute flowered contact paper inside the drawers! That stays.

The first order of business was to take off these hideous handles. Have you ever seen anything like this? It looks like it was hand-crafted by drunk termites.

After I got those suckers off, I filled the screw holes with wood filler. Here’s the part where I begin to just wing it. Jason usually does this kind of stuff and I just supervise. I followed the direction the tube and waiting for it to dry a bit, then sanded it. I started sanding the dresser top and the drawer fronts too. That got old really quick.

Thankfully, paint covers and fills most minor scratches. I did give the whole thing a rough sand so the paint would stick better and then wiped it clean with a damp cloth. The first coat of paint didn’t cover very well. I did my best not to have a bunch of drips (again, Jason usually does this kind of project. I am NOT a perfectionist!) I wasn’t concerned about our old patio table because it’s sagging and it’s going to be replaced this summer when we build a new one. I waited a few hours for the first coat to dry (while I went on to paint the chalkboard door). The second coat covered much better.

I let the nightstand rest and cure for a full week before I put anything on it. Even after that, I put a semi-heavy boom box on it and the next day it was stuck. Thankfully it didn’t leave a mark when I pulled it off. I wonder how much longer it needs to cure. Anyone? Or maybe it needs a clear coat?

I was going to buy new knobs but Jason reminded me that we had some in the tool box from IKEA years ago. (I can’t even remember what we used these for originally.) We had 4 so I decided to do 2 on each drawer. I’m very happy with how it turned out and pretty darn proud of myself for doing this all on my own. (Color is more accurate above… the flash here makes it look more yellowish than it is.)

12 Comments | Art, Art: before & after, Art: interior design, Art: kids room, Art: mcm thrift store find, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Chalkboard Door: Before & After

04/12/2011

Our house originally had lovely wood doors but when it was renovated (before we purchased it) everything was painted a fresh, clean white. At one point Jason thought he’d like to strip all the doors back to their original wood. These closet doors we were able to just flip around. After Jason started stripping the back of this door, in our spare bedroom, we quickly realized it was going to be more work than it was worth. Since this room belongs to our future kids, I thought it would be a fun solution to repaint the door with Rustoleum chalkboard paint. (Inspiration came from these closet doors.)

I suppose this not a true after because I haven’t actually tried the chalkboard yet. It’s supposed to cure for a couple days before chalk is applied to the whole surface. So really, it just looks like I painted the door black. But I had to blog about something, right?

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UPDATE:

After 5 days, the surface is supposed to be cured by rubbing a piece of chalk all over the surface of the door. Bye-bye crisp black door. This required an entire stick of chalk and made a huge dust mess!

The instructions say not to use water on the door yet and I don’t have an eraser so I wiped the whole surface with a dry rag. And tested it out. And then wiped it again.

When a full week has passed, it’s ok to use a damp cloth on the door. It didn’t return to the original black. I think it’s because of the rough texture of the paint. Also, I probably should have rinsed the rag and rewashed it several times but, eh.

I wrote my new favorite verse and manta of foster parenting on the back of the door. Writing on the door produced quite a bit of chalk dust on the door. I’m not happy about that. Maybe it’s the quality of the chalk? Or just the nature of the rough chalkboard? In general, though, I like this project and I don’t have any regrets.

6 Comments | Art, Art: before & after, Art: interior design, Art: kids room, Art: modern design | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Modern Wood Fence – Step 6: Almost Done…

04/11/2011

When Jason and I had a rare Saturday together with nothing scheduled, we took advantage of the time to work like crazy trying to finish the fence. We got up early (a feat in itself) and worked up until evening when we had friends coming over for a dinner party. We were working so quickly and efficiently that I couldn’t stop and take pictures along the way. But I can tell you what we did. A lot more nailing planks, cutting planks, nailing planks and cutting planks. We just have one area left, near the deck:

When I came home from work one day last week I found Jason staining the fence with deck sealer. He was able to finish the inside but hasn’t had a chance to stain the outside yet.

This section (the one on the right) is especially dear to me. Why? Because I nailed it all by myself. After absorbing the shock of 5,000ish shots from the nail gun, Jason’s shoulder needed a break. While we waited for the ibuprofen to kick in so we could keep up our pace, I took over nailing a section. Clearly, I’m quite proud of myself.

Jason is definitely faster at though, and it’s hard work, especially above elbow height so I was happy to hand the gun back over to the boss. Here are some pictures of the rest of the fence which is mostly finished from the inside.

The last post against the house is a 2×4 that is not sunk into the ground. Eventually we’ll get around to anchoring it into the mortar of our brick house. For now, it’s wedged tightly enough that it’s holding the fence up straight.

Side note: this dogwood tree looks amazing this spring!

Side note: the bottom of the birdhouse is falling off. Thankfully no birds live there. Actually, that’s probably why no bird live there.

We’re really please with how it turned out. We still have some areas along the bottom that need closed up, in addition to more staining, finishing the area around the deck and adding 2 gates.

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Step 1: Inspiration, Step 2: Planning, Step 3: Posts, Step 4: Progress, Step 5: Transport

 

10 Comments | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation, Art: modern design, Art: modern wood fence | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Bed Post

04/06/2011

I’m writing this blog post from bed. Normally, I wouldn’t mention something like that but this happens to be a brand new mattress. After putting it off way too long, we decided to finally bite the bullet and buy a new mattress. A $50 Groupon for $200 off at Mattress Firm helped us narrow down where to do our shopping. We were pleasantly surprised by the not pushy salesman. The first mattress we tried ended up being our favorite even though we tried probably 6 others. And the salesman gave us a good deal; or at least made us feel like we were getting a good deal. We paid around $550 for a queen size Sealy Posturepedic Pillow Top. Feel free to let me know if we got ripped off but we’re feeling pretty good about it.

Oh, and it feels pretty good, too. It’s wonderfully comfortable for back sleeping. We both tend to be side sleepers and the extra padding of a pillow top (memory foam in this case) is better for side sleepers. Our one concern though—and it could be a deal breaker—it’s really hot. Does anyone else out there have experience with a pillow top or a memory foam mattress? It seems to really insulate body heat. We took our 3-in-1 down comforter to just the thinnest layer and we’re still waking up hot several times a night. Not cool. Literally. Please send advice! Will we get used to it?

Random side note: the delivery guys gave us a mint with our receipt. A little white package with the Mattress Firm logo on it. How dumb, I thought. Why a mint? When I finally tore it open after dinner last night, I realized it’s a pillow mint. Brilliant!

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Modern Wood Fence – Step 4: Progress

03/31/2011

I don’t have a concise title for this post. I was going to call it staining posts, spacing and nailing planks and troubleshooting but that seemed to long. Also, the next step is going to be more of the same.

I failed to take any pictures while we worked on this first side of the fence so here it is. You’ll notice that about half-way between each 4×4 post (that’s either anchored to the concrete with an EZ Post bracket or concreted into the yard) Jason added another vertical 2×4. Each plank is nailed to this 2×4 to keep the planks from warping or bowing out between the 4×4 posts, which are a little less than 8′ apart.

This is where we left off when we had to go buy more wood. We just have a sedan so it takes a lot of trips to the hardware store to get all this wood.

Our handy EZ Post brackets cause a minor predicament because the planks couldn’t be nailed into the post for the bottom 6″ or so. That is enough room for pesky disgusting cats to get into our garden. Not acceptable.

Jason came up with this solution to add 2x4s along the sides of the posts at the bottom so he’d have something to nail the planks into.

That works.

Here’s a look from the other side. Lucy approves.

We’re using this scrap of wood as a spacer to make all the planks equal distance apart. When we’re working together (and I’m not taking pictures) it moves a lot faster because I get the next plank ready and place the spacer while Jason does the nailing. (Oooooh… I love those sexy arms!)

Proper fence etiquete is to put the outside, finished side of the fence facing your neighbors and to put the backside facing your own yard. Because this fence is not going around the perimeter of our yard—and we may some day add a perimeter privacy fence–we opted to put the finished side facing in. That created another slight problem when it came to the first corner. Jason came up with a clever solution using a 2×4.

Here’s an illustrated top view of the corner solution:

Nice and clean looking on the inside corner.

We’re using 8′ long planks and we purposely put the fence posts less than 8′ apart so we could trim off the excess and get all the ends clean and square at every post. Jason set his circular saw to the depth of the planks (they’re 1×3’s so approx 0.75″) and trimmed off the ends of the planks at the center point of the post.

It’s fun to watch.

Here’s what the other side of the post looks like. The planks are cut at the halfway point of the post so that Jason has room to nail the planks for the next section of fence.

We may or may not have learned this lesson the hard way on the first post: make sure you put all the horizontal plank nails only into one side of the post.

Because in the next step, you’ll be adding more planks to the other half of the post.

Excess post is cut off with the circular saw. (We got one 10′ post for this corner because of the height variance from the patio down to the yard. Not necessary, obviously.)

So here is where we left off. Out of wood. Out of time. And it got cold out.

We’re hopeful we can get it done in the next couple of weeks. Notice where Jason started testing out the stain/sealer.

The finished fence should end up looking just like this architectural trellis on the face of our house:

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Step 1: Inspiration, Step 2: Planning, Step 3: Posts

27 Comments | Art, Art: gardening, Art: modern design, Art: modern wood fence | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Butter Dish

03/30/2011

We need a butter dish. I saw this super cute one from West Elm via Making It Lovely. I like owls. $16 seems a little steep but I’m not ruling it out.

Dear blog readers, do you have any suggestions? Have you seen any beautiful mid-century modern butter dishes out in the interwebs?

 

3 Comments | Art, Art: Cooking, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

CBB 3.0 – Update (Framed, Roofed & Closed)

03/29/2011

Our friends’ home building project is moving right along. (I’m way behind on updates, sorry!) Since the last time I updated, the walls have been framed, the metal roof added, and the exterior walls have been closed up:

Nice high, sloped ceilings. 9′ in the front half of the house, up to 12′ here in the back of the house.

I love how the house looks from the back. That beautiful deck looks out over Shelby Park where we can sit to watch the tides roll in next time we have a flood. Just kidding. But we will definitely be spending a lot of time under that sloped roof. I heard a rumor that Leila and J might even be installing an outdoor TV and surround sound stereo system out there…

The front of the house looks… well…  I think it’ll look great once the stairs and landscaping are added.

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Click CBB 3.0 under the “FILE UNDER” menu on the right to see all the updates on this house.

1 Comment | Art, Art: CBB 3.0, Art: interior design, Art: modern design, Family, Family: Extended Family and Friends | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

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