Modern Wood Fence — Step 7: Windows

05/16/2011

A month ago I published Step 6: Almost Done… Well, we’re still almost done with the fence. Which means not done yet. I needed to refocus our attention on inside projects to get our house ready for our home study. So we STILL have to finish staining, patch some gaps along the bottom and add gates to our lovely modern wood fence.

I haven’t told you about these “windows” yet, though. We have a beautiful flowering plum tree that was in the way of our fence. We didn’t want to mangle one side of the tree by sawing off branches so we decided to build the fence around the tree. Or is it build the tree into the fence. Or build the … nevermind. See what we did here?

In one section we only used half of a plank, attaching one end to the 4×4 post and the other end the 2×4 support post. In another section, we created a small window, bracing a short plank to the planks above and below it using a scrap piece of plank. Did I say plank enough times for you? And yes, I, too, am curious how this is going to affect the tree and fence in years to come…

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Step 1: Inspiration, Step 2: Planning, Step 3: Posts, Step 4: Progress, Step 5: Transport, Step 6: Almost Done…

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

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

Phone Photo Friday

05/06/2011

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Preparing a Bedroom for Foster Kids: Furniture & Decor

05/05/2011

The Challenge:
Gender neutral: We are choosing to be prepared for a boy or a girl
Age range: We are choosing to be prepared for newborn through age 5
Two?: We may consider taking a sibling set of 2. And/or we might have a child biological in the midst of this foster parenting adventure.

First, acknowledging the obvious: There is no theme. I’m not a fan of themes for ANY room, kids rooms and nurseries included. It is neutral. We’re keeping the colors gender neutral and soothing for reasons I hope are obvious. We’ll add more color depending on specific kids and what works at the time. And of course we’ll also have toys and books adding pops of color all over the room.

Specifics:
I mentioned last week that we’re planning on a SOMNAT crib. It comes in turquoise (love!), green (love!) and pink (cute but not boy-friendly). I ain’t gonna lie—when I first saw the green one on IKEA’s website back in August, I almost went and bought it right then. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE colored cribs. At some point, I started preferring the blue one. I could still do the green if blue is out of stock. We’ll see.

It was at least 2 year ago when I fell in love with the KURA bed. It’s a four poster twin bed. It’s a loft bed. It’s a bunk bed. Oh the versatility! I would have adored this as a kid. My bunk bed was cool but this just begs to be turned into a fort or a house or a secret cave or a cozy hiding place. We’ll keep it as a low bed for now, so it’s toddler friendly. If we’re confident in a kid’s ability to climb the (I’m guessing) 3′ ladder, we’ll flip it around. If we have 2 kiddos that are bigger than crib size, we’ll have to use it as a bunk bed.

Beyond the essential pieces of sleeping furniture, we have our little green 2 drawer dresser and yellow lamp and a full length mirror for the wall (I read somewhere that mirrors promote good self-esteem for kids.) I’m also the proud owner of  the Animal Alphabet poster from Petit Collage. Currently, I have this chair and footstool in the book nook of the kids room, but it’s not real comfortable and I would prefer to have a rocker anyway. I have lovely memories of my parents reading books to me in a rocking chair when I was little. This mid-century rocker from Urban Outfitters fits the bill stylistically but it’s a bit pricey for my taste.

We don’t have a dresser yet. I’d like to find a vintage one like the picture above that’s changing table height, walnut or teak, and not more than 46″ wide. That’s not too much to ask, right? Oh, and less than $100 please. If we can’t find that, we have a white MALM dresser that’s out on loan and I think we can get back.

RIBBA picture ledges work great as shallow book shelves. My plan is to get 4 and create the look of a bookshelf with the depth of 3.5.” Rugs. We have issues with rugs. As long as Jason and I have been married (almost 8 years, that is…) we’ve been pet owners. Getting pet hair out of rugs is a nightmare. Now we’re the proud owners of a beloved cocker spaniel and well, she pees sometimes. Always on something absorbant cuz she’s smart like that. So we don’t do rugs at our house. But, we do have the perfect doormat by our backdoor. It’s got rubber anti-slip backing and it’s machine washable. Hello! It’s so perfect because it secretly is a bathmat. So, I figure I can get 4 of these perfect TOFTBO rugs and put them together to create one perfect, machine-washable, kid-friendly 4’x6′ rug. I’ll let you know how that works out. Other than that, I think I’ll add some art, maybe a mobile above the crib, perhaps commission my mama to knit a pouf like this. I also included some samples of bedding from Target I’m considering.

Budget Breakdown:
KURA twin bed (4-poster, bunk or loft) – $199
SULTAN HARESTUA twin mattress – $100
SOMNAT crib – $99
VYSSA SLOA crib mattress – $50
RIBBA picture ledges 21″ x 4 – $40
TOFTBO bathmat 2’x3′ x 4 – $40
Chair + footstool – using what we currently own for now
Dresser found on craigslist for $50 (details coming soon) – $50
ANIMAL ALPHABET poster – won in a giveaway
ELLIE GRAY 1 gallon of Sherwin Williams Cashmere paint – $27 (purchased on sale)
Full-length wall mirror – free (from my parent’s house)
Paint for green nightstand and blue mirror – already owned

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TOTAL: $605

5 Comments | Art, Art: Bedoom for Foster Kids, Art: interior design, Art: kids room, Family, Family: Foster Parenting | Tagged: , , | 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

Frosting a Cake

05/03/2011

I am a cake connoisseur. I am not, however, a cake decorator. In face, I made my first ever layer cake the other day for my mom’s birthday. Frosting it was no piece of cake. Later that day, I came across this video from The Kitchn: The Easiest Way to Frost a Cake. I think part of my problem is that the tops of the cakes were a bit sticky. Maybe I should have left them uncovered overnight rather than covered. I wish I had thought to flip the cakes over. That’s just plain old smart.

Oh, and icing the cake? I need a tutorial on that! I have some ancient (I mean “vintage”) cake decorating tools. I bought a new tube of red icing from the grocery store. I envisioned some lovely red tulips (mom’s favorite flower) with green stems. The red icing + the born-before-my-mother tools worked OK. I had a tube of leftover green icing that was too thick. I tried to water it down and well… not a great idea. The top of the “B” almost ran right off the top of the cake. Help me, Rhonda.

Next time I think I’ll make my own icing so I can get the consistency and color however I like. Do you have any suggestions for cake decorating? A favorite icing recipe?

3 Comments | Art, Art: Cooking, Family | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Phone Photo Friday

04/29/2011

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Preparing a Bedroom for Foster Kids: Floor Plan

04/28/2011

The Challenge:
Gender neutral: We are choosing to be prepared for a boy or a girl
Age range: We are choosing to be prepared for newborn through age 5
Two?: We may consider taking a sibling set of 2. And/or we might have a child biological in the midst of this foster parenting adventure.

The Space:
Our kids room is only 10’x11′. But… I love living in a smallish house and the design challenges that require creative solutions. (See cloffice.) Knowing that we want to fit a crib and a big kid bed in the same room, I’m planning on getting a SOMNAT crib (2.5’x4.5″) and a KURA twin bed (3.5’x6.5′) that can be flipped over into a loft/bunk bed, both from IKEA. We already have a sturdy vintage 2 drawer nightstand and a vintage yellow table lamp. We plan to add a 4×6 rug, a chair for reading books, shelves and a changing table height dresser (maybe IKEA MALM if we can’t find a vintage option).

The Configuration:
Key: gray box is the 4×6 rug; green circle is a footstool, KURA is the twin bed, blue box SOMNAT is the crib, the white box with yellow circle and blue/gray oval is the painted nightstand with the yellow lamp and CD player, RIBBA are picture ledges from IKEA that we’ll use as book shelves, light blue box is a floor-length mirror, MALM is a short dresser from IKEA or better yet—a mid-century walnut or teak one. The left side, bottom is where the double, sliding-door closet is located.

Idea 1: My original solution. I taped out the beds on the floor, placed a chair and the little nightstand and it feels like there is very little floor space.

Idea 2: I like this but I have a feeling putting the twin bed and crib up against each other won’t work if we have 2 kids sharing this space. (I’m thinking older kid dropping things on the baby.) But… could be great if we just have 1 at a time.

Idea 3: I like how this opens up some floor space but the dresser backed up against the end of the crib makes me a little nervous. Plus the drawers would open right into the doorway. I’d have to see this one in person to be convinced.

Idea 4: Dresser, bookshelves and rocking chair are too crowded.

Idea 5: Put a changing table height dresser in the closet. This might work but we’ll lose a lot of closet space. Currently this closet is 1/2 space for kid stuff and 1/2 adult stuff (file cabinet, coats, box of winter accessories and games.)

Idea 6: Almost there with this one but I feel like the dresser would crowd the crib into the corner too much and make the reading nook feel closed off.

Idea 7: I think this is the winner! My only concern with this was having the twin bed in front of the window but we decided this should be fine. It’s at the foot end of the bed anyway. This floor plan allows for the biggest open area of play space on the floor. Yay!

3 Comments | Art, Art: Bedoom for Foster Kids, Art: interior design, Art: kids room, Family, Family: Foster Parenting | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Phone Home Home Phone

04/27/2011

When I first found out that we have to have a land line home phone available for our foster children to use, I was excited to go out and find a retro one like this. It’s $40, looks like it’s mid-century but it’s all new digital technology:

Then I remembered these really cool clear trimline phones from the early 90s that light up when they ring. My big brother used to have one but I searched my parents house and it’s no where to be found. I read here that Urban Outfitters was selling them last year for $28 but they’re not available anymore. Boo.

Then, we talked about it in class with an experience resource parent and realized that we should get one with a speaker phone. And while we’re at it, you can get a pretty fancy digital cordless phone for less than $20. So much for retro-cool.

Anyone have any suggestions for land line phone service? It costs $25 a month to add phone service to our AT&T Uverse internet service. Not a huge chunk of change but it still seems like a waste of money to me. Requirements are requirements, though.

Help me out here, readers. Do you still have a home phone? If you have a cell phone, why? How much do you pay a month for service?

4 Comments | Art, Art: mid-century design, Family, Family: Foster Parenting, Other | 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

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