Saarinen

Saw this at the good ol' Walker, saw some fine Eero Saarinen drawings. This little plan is an executive office for the executive types at American Auto maker during their hey-day.
Here's the fun part: note the gun closet. Cars, modern architecture & guns--who'ld've thought they were so intricately connected.

C'est fini!

Well, well, well, we did the swap from treehouse to the nether apartment. I took some pics today of the treehouse, in its finished state. It looks pretty good. Especially noteworthy are the new treehouser's furnishings: it looks good stark. I have too much crap for the treehouse to ever have looked this good with me up there.

First the images with decent exposure:

And then the image I should have taken the time to correct in photoshop:

I would say the only thing lacking is some really colorful art work on the walls.

...Continued

Plugged hole.

More Treehouse Fun (MTF)

Dedication

This entry is dedicated to Bengeance, who I believe is the sole subscriber to this blog.

It's been awhile

So the big news is that we are leaving the treehouse, which has meant that after a long hiatus, we need to return our attention to the last few unfinished items. 

Enter: Operation Cool It.

We did a little exploratory drilling in the kitchen wall, which conveniently has a bit of exterior wall that is not roof—a north-facing gable end that is visible from exactly nowhere. The gable end is in the middle of the house, facing to the rear, you can't see it from the street, the yard, or even the roof of the garage. 

After toying with the idea of inserting a little window and then using the attic space to install a mini-split A/C unit, we decided on a new approach: "quick, "easy" and "cheap." A thru-the-wall A/C unit (much cheaper than mini-splits or central air) would be tucked into the wall space, all we needed was to find a small unit, right? The plans seemed simple enough, and as an added benefit, so I thought, a thru-the-wall unit would be cheap, as cooling season has left our northern regions.

Of course this is life, and nothing works the way it should. I called around for the cheap, off-the-shelf A/C unit and discovered that they are off the shelves: none in stock at the big boys (Home Despot, M'nards, Sears) or the little local guys. I spent a long time calling around until finally I got a number from a guy, whose number I got off a random website, and hooray they had one! The only problem is it was in the distant suburbs ("Guam"), and that my husband's car conveniently died the day before, so I had to drive him to work in Minneapolis (gnarly traffic), then loop around the interstate outer ring (gnarlier traffic), and then get utterly hopelessly lost in the gridlessness of suburbia. But I did eventually find the appliance shack, purchase the only thru-the-wall A/C unit in the whole of the metro area, and was only 2-1/2 hours late to work. So then the demo happens...

And the unit is too big...

So more demo happens...

To be continued...

Spring Eye Candy

The asparagus emerge! Oh wait, I mean hosta.
April 30, 2008

Same plant, May 15.
Stepping over apple blossom pedals to get to the office.
The smell was downright intoxicating. Alas, it only lasts a week.
May 21
May 24
Crabapply blossoms.

Alas, no images

Slow Spring, fast Spring. The winter has been loathe to let go of us here in the northland. On the radio the other day, they said we were only a degree or two below normal, but I don’t believe it can only be two degrees. The same radio talkers reported that thousands of song birds have starved to death after April snows killed off all their insect food supply. It snowed on Easter, and again the weekend of Cliff-Dwellers’ wedding. Mother’s Day, always a warm sunny day, this year had lovely but weak sunshine and a breeze that made one’s skin pucker. So the weather has been slow to give Spring to the land, while in perceptible time, the months we call Spring, have seemingly flown past posthaste.

There was the Cliff-Dwellers’ wedding in mid April, which was a flurry of out-of-town guests (we even had a brave soul stay in the wreckage at the Treehouse—he was a very good sport and a lot of fun), birthday parties for little humans, two new humans born into this world (another kind of birthday party), and now we are in the middle of trying to plan the party-to-end-all-parties, a task which I am utterly unqualified for. So, pretty pictures, they will come… and some not pretty ones, too, perhaps. But for now, just words, words, words.

More treehousin'

Things are moving along, and it is just a question of which will happen first: I run out of patience, I run out of money, or this actually gets finished. Place your bets.

But there is good news--bamboo is laid, bathroom keeps getting more white, appliances are getting hooked up instead of getting ripped out, and, most exciting of all--I now have water pressure the likes of which fire fighters would marvel over (at least on the third floor of a 120+ year old house they would.)

I'm floored.

Now we're cooking... well, almost. Now we're washing dishes in a standing position.

The bathroom pic I think says it all. No kitty for the KPR yet, but as the rest of the place gets to be kitten-ready, it's getting near to be kitty-shoppin' time.

And tonight, I will cook dinner on a stove. I hope I remember how.

Biziest Weekend Ever Blog, Take 2

So here come some pics of the fun

The Belly!

M&G arrived in the afternoon on Friday. We met up and went to M's sister's place to meet her darling kitty. M-sis has a cute apartment and an even cuter kitty. The kitty has some name I can't spell, so I won't even try.

The kitty!

After some greeting and some eating, we did some errands and then got all dolled up for Party #1. Party #1 was hosted by the lovely E, and featured delicious cocktails and scrumptious food.

Saturday was the DBP, which featured mimosas and gingerosas, Famous Family Pork Dish made by M-sis, and loads of cuteness.
More DBP party fun times. If you look carefully, you will see that we had several out-of-towners who made it to the fete, as well as scads of in-towners. Note that Mr.G got a zamboni booklet, or rather the kidlet got a zamboni booklet (that little kidlet will have to pry out of daddy's hands). If all who came had even half as much fun as I did, then I would call DBP a success.

Biziest Weekend Ever

Well, things did not get ready enough for M&G to stay Chez Disaster, but we got our party-selves on, nonetheless.

It might well have been the biziest weekend ever. It began with the memorial service for a dear friend's mother. The service was powerful, a deep digging to make one stop and take measure of one's life: where one is at, where one wants to be. And one of the things I resolved was to better keep in touch with those that I care for. And, exchanging seriousness for levity, this last weekend was all about keeping better in touch.

Invasion of the preggers:

Trying to get ready for M&G

Here's more on the bathroom front


I see I left that labeled kitchen saga-ga, well, it's all mixed together. Maybe I will fix it later. Here's the real kitchen mccoy, with some living room mixed in.

Kitchin' Right Along

Two days, lots to see.


It's a blizzard, white out conditions! Wow, looky how the new design makes the space so much biGGer. Oh, wait, that's distortion.

ReKitch

This is the current plan for what it will look like--can you see it?