Our Ranch-Bungalow

Done

2011-09-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

The shoe-polish restoration is done. What was supposed to take me all winter long and keep me occupied, was finished in about two weekends. I purchased the bike, took it apart, got it running, put it all back together along with some new parts, and then cleaned and re-painted most of it. It is about as clean as a dirt bike should ever be now, and it is a blast to ride. I am now looking for another one, a vintage street bike of some kind...because I need a winter project...

Let's go racing!

2011-09-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

One of the cool things about living in Eastern Oregon is the access to amazing scenic country. We are less than an hour away from amazing mountain terrain, rivers, lakes, and the high desert. One of the best ways to see that country is on a motorcycle.

I love motorcycles, and this year I went to the local AHRMA vintage motorcycle races held in Central Oregon and got to see some great vintage bikes. I have always admired Steve McQueen for his acting, but also for his auto and motorcycle racing abilities. After seeing the races in person, I was hooked. Yesterday I bought this vintage beauty with the intention of having it re-built in time for the races in April. It's a 1975 Yamaha DT 250.

Our movie

2011-08-30T09:54:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in a previous post that my best friend and I have been working on a movie. We ended up getting the funding that we needed to finish it, and now it is done. Our goal is to get it into a major film festival, generate some interest, and hopefully use this project as a stepping stone to our next project.

With a tiny budget, it was difficult, stressful, tormenting, and utterly satisfying in the end. We found out that there are a lot of people in our community that support our crazy ideas and that was amazing. My role in this film was getting people to give us money, and that is all. The artistic vision, writing, directing, and execution was all by Brad Elmore. The main character actor Greg Hill has already moved back to Los Angeles and has gotten television roles, and a movie role, and the video crew have started work on a pilot for an internet television project called Littlefish.

Please take a look at our official finished trailer and share it with as many people as you can. If you want to know more about where to see the film, e-mail me. This trailer and subsequent movie has strong language NSFW:

Me and Buddy Lee (Buddy Lee and I*)

2011-07-22T00:15:00.000-07:00

In case you don't who Buddy Lee is... The Buddy Lee Story

This is what the office looks like now. We got rid of the long dresser (put it in the garage), and put our $10 Knoll chair in the corner with some vintage wool blankets on it. I didn't get a new camera, but I did buy an iPhone, so I can at least take new pictures for the blog. More to come...

Knock it off

2011-07-07T18:50:00.000-07:00

So here it is, my knock off Eames chair. I must say, it turned out nice and this is one of the better reproductions that was made.

I got a few quotes to re upholster the chair, but the cost to do it in vinyl hovered around $400, and in vinyl $700+. Because it's fake, I figured why spend the money so I took a chance and decided to dye it. The chair was already leather, and the light color took the dye quite well.

It took me a couple of hours to take it apart, dye it, and get it back together and the result is a close match, in leather, and a nice vintage "lived in look".

For those that are thinking about doing the same thing to any leather chair, some concerns I had were:

- It would look blotchy.
- The dye will rub off.
- It would cause a huge mess.
- The leather would become hard, and uncomfortable.

In fact:

- If you use a well soaked rag with dye on it, it goes on perfectly even.
- The dye penetrates well, and even without the sealer doesnt appear to come off.
- The mess was well litigated by wearing gloves, and doing it in the garage. I also had the entire chair apart so as not to get dye on the wood shell. The small amount that I did get on my skin washed off with soap and water.
- The dye seems to condition the leather so it is now softer. It also makes the few cracks in the leather look somewhat natural.

Lastly, is cost. The chair itself was $75. I spent $6 on these supplies. I used paper towels to apply the dye and used the dauber to do the edges. After letting it dry, which takes about an hour, I applied the finish.

I need your help!

2011-04-19T08:26:00.000-07:00

This has nothing to do with mid century modern furniture or design, but it is important to me.

My best friend Brad and I met in middle school after being kicked out of a class for mouthing off. We realized that we had the same sense of humor and we have been great friends ever since. After high school, we went to Europe together and traveled all over. Of all of our friends and people we went to school with, Brad was the only one who ended up doing exactly what he always dreamed of doing which was to make movies. He moved to Los Angeles, started writing, and networking, and now he is making movies.

Anyone who has ever attempted to live out your dream knows how difficult it is, and certainly the movie industry is no exception. For his first feature film, which is being submitted to Sundance, he moved back home to Bend, Oregon and began filming Wolfman's Hammer. I cannot explain the overwhelming feeling of excitement that I had when I watched the first edited footage. I had chills, and I was so happy to see someone actually taking their passion and turning it into art. So, I called Brad and I said that I would help him finish it, help produce it by getting funding together. He set up a Kickstarter page for the film and we have $3500 pledged so far by generous people who believe in the project. And now I want you to check out what we have done so far, because it is exciting.

Kickstarter works like this: A person with a project sets up a profile and explains his/her project to the world. People who feel strongly about the project pledge money to help fund the film, but the money is only distributed if the project's total goal is met. In our case, we have a goal of $5000 which will go towards the final scene in the film and some equipment and editing that will be required to make the final scene work. We are currently at $3500, with 6 days left to get up to $5000. If on the 6th day we don't have that goal met, we start all over from $0.

Please take a moment to take a look at the trailer and see if it looks like something you would want to see finished. And remember, this whole thing was done with our own money and money from friends, and family. It was shot locally using our own equipment, and all of the actors worked for free in the hopes to be seen on the screens at Sundance. The epitome of Independent.

Watch the Trailer here.

New Button

2011-03-04T12:46:00.000-08:00

Whenever I find a cool blog, I like to start at the VERY first entry, and move forward to get all caught up. It helps to get the full context of the blog itself. To make this easier on this blog, I added a big 'START' button. Just click there, it will take you to the very first entry and you can read on from there.

The Steelers' Hypocycloids

2011-02-04T09:46:00.000-08:00

People ask me, who are you rooting for? I say, "well I am hoping Mubarak steps down".... No, football.
I say,"I don't know who is playing?"
The Steelers, and the Packers.
"Ah, well the Steelers have a bitchin logo"....silence/confusion

I am not a huge football fan, and certainly not of the NFL. When I do watch, it is college and I really don't pay much attention until the end, especially this year when our own Oregon ducks took it all the way before choking hard.

But yes, the Steelers DO have a totally bitchin logo that you all can appreciate for it's iconic mid century design. The following is from the Steelers website (here).

The Steelers logo is based on the Steelmark logo belonging to the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI). Created by U.S. Steel Corp. (now known as USX Corp.), the logo contains three hypocycloids (diamond shapes).

In the 1950s, when helmet logos became popular, the Steelers added players' numbers to either side of their gold helmets. Later that decade, the numbers were removed and in 1962, Cleveland's Republic Steel suggested to the Steelers that they use the Steelmark as a helmet logo.

When the Steelmark logo was created, U.S. Steel attached the following meaning to it: Steel lightens your work, brightens your leisure and widens your world. The logo was used as part of a major marketing campaign to educate consumers about how important steel is in our daily lives. The Steelmark logo was used in print, radio and television ads as well as on labels for all steel products, from steel tanks to tricycles to filing cabinets.

In the 1960s, U.S. Steel turned over the Steelmark program to the AISI, where it came to represent the steel industry as a whole. During the 1970s, the logo's meaning was extended to include the three materials used to produce steel: yellow for coal, orange for ore and blue for steel scrap. In the late 1980s, when the AISI founded the Steel Recycling Institute (SRI), the logo took on a new life reminiscent of its 1950s meaning.

The Steelers had to petition the AISI in order to change the word "Steel" inside the Steelmark to "Steelers" before the logo was complete.

The Steelers are the only NFL team that sports their logo on only one side of the helmet. At first, this was a temporary measure because the Steelers weren't sure they would like the look of the logo on an all-gold helmet. They wanted to test them before going all-out.

Equipment manager Jack Hart was instructed to put the logo only on one side of the helmet - the right side. The 1962 Steelers finished 9-5 and became the winningest team in franchise history to date. The team finished second in the Eastern Conference and qualified for the Playoff Bowl. They wanted to do something special for their first postseason game, so they changed the color of their helmets from gold to black, which helped to highlight the new logo.

Because of the interest generated by having the logo on only one side of their helmets and because of their team's new success, the Steelers decided to leave it that way permanently.

Today's helmet reflects the way the logo was originally applied and it has never been changed. - (Steelers website)

Processing Pictures

2011-01-25T10:11:00.000-08:00

I am NOT a photographer. I have never taken a class on it, I have never sold an image, and I have never owned multiple lenses for one camera.

That being said, I am tired of people claiming to be photographers. Have you noticed this phenomenon? Perhaps you have noticed your out-of-work friends on facebook suddenly posting their overly-processed photos and then getting some positive comments and then deciding to start a photography business. Well, I am using my blog to complain about it.

With the advent of digital photography, we have all been given the ability to go out and shoot pictures for very little cost. Like most things, cheaper is not usually better, so we are all bearing witness to this bastardization of a true art. Recently, the digital photographers have gotten their hands on digital processing software that allows you take your photo and sharpen it, airbrush it, colorize it, and worst of all HDR-it. The High Dynamic Range software in basic terms allows you take two pictures, one with a long exposure, and one with a short exposure and then lay them over top of each other to get all of the bright spots, and all of the dark spots in one photo. This is pretty cool, but in fact it is nothing new. Julius Shulman used the analog version of this technique when he created the famous photo of Case Study house #22 (seen here), by taking a picture of the house in the daytime and then taking a photo at night to get the bright lights of the city. He then overlayed them to create the amazing photo that made that house a legend. Shulman had to wait all day to capture that photo, and I am sure it took hours to actually develop and create the final product. With a digital camera and some software, one can now create that photo in a few minutes.

I am certainly not against using technology, I love digital cameras, I even used software to make pictures look better, but please stop over processing pictures!

For example. Here I am using an unedited picture of yours truly:

Now see what happens when I process the shit out of it:

Suddenly I have a black eye, and it looks I am standing on another planet.

I have, and I am not kidding, seen pictures like that in people's wedding albums on facebook. That means that there are photographers who charge people money to make them look like they are from Mars. I have been seeing more and more of this use of digital processing though, with pinup pictures, real estate, weddings, print ads. Maybe I am the only one who thinks this looks terrible...

Creepy

2010-12-17T11:40:00.000-08:00

These photos mysteriously appeared on our camera, seems the Christmas pixies get up at night and mess around with our stuff. Amber loves her vintage Christmas decorations, and I do too, mainly because they are so creepy.

Thank You

2010-12-07T10:17:00.000-08:00

I have noticed several new followers in the last few weeks which is exciting, and I just wanted to thank everyone who regularly reads this blog. In addition to the regular followers, each day I am amazed at how many people visit, and it is fun to see the different countries that they visit from. I am not as diligent about posting as some, but it is certainly nice to have a place to put things down when I feel like it and know that people read it. So again, thank you.

I also wanted to share our Christmas present to ourselves this year...and yes, it was a craigslist find.

It is a Hans Olsen dining room chair and table set, in MINT condition. The set is perfect for our small dining room because the chairs become part of the table when pushed in. Behind the chair you can also see our danish fold away table that extends to seat 6 people, so we can entertain large groups as well. Hopefully you all have a safe and wonderful Holiday season!

Eames Lounge Chair

2010-11-29T15:34:00.000-08:00

The chair that, in my opinion, best defines the forward thinking of mid century design is the Eames lounge chair. Basically, whenever you sit in a comfortable chair nowadays, you can thank Ray and Charles Eames and the work they did to develop the 670 Lounge, and 671 Ottoman.

I have always, and still, want one but my pocket book doesn't allow for it quite yet so for the last couple years I have used my Plycraft knock off to watch tv in, listen to records, sleep, etc. I am not a supporter of knock offs as a replacement to the original but they do have their place. For example, the Plycraft chair was a re-designed version which had features not found on an original like the reclining/rocking base. It was also much less expensive, and although its price is reflected in it's overall construction quality, the fact that it is put together with screws rather than heat bonded rubber shock mounts makes repairing it much less expensive than a real Herman Miller chair. There are people who say that the Plycraft chair is more comfortable than the real one, but I am not willing to facilitate that debate.

Our chair looks like E.T.

One day while searching craigslist, I came upon an add that featured two "retro bentwood chairs" among other things at a garage sale. In the photo was a Plycraft chair, and what appeared to be a real lounge chair in a light tan color. I went to the sale, offered $75 for it, and brought it home. Although it is not real, it is much closer in appearence to the real one and will make a nice replacement to the Plycraft chair. This one has metal hardware made by Middleton Mfg. Co., and the wood shells are made by Davis Wood Products. I am still researching to find out the age, and company who sold these because as you can see it is very close in proportion to a real one.

Last night I began the process of cleaning it all up. I will post photos of that process, but I have taken all of wood shells off, stripped, sanded, and stained them and they look much better. The seats are real leather, so I am actually going to dye them black with a process used for dying auto upholstery and if I screw it up I will just have them re-upholstered by a professional. Stay tuned...

Why I like old stuff.

2010-11-03T12:28:00.000-07:00

I figured it out, and I didn't even have to pay for a counseling session to do it.

The short answer, and the one I give most people is that things were made with a much higher standard of quality, and that many of the things that i gravitate towards were even hand made, giving them an energy that new things lack. But there is a much deeper reason, one that goes all the way back to my childhood, and that may even be true for the lovely people who read this blog.

I was having lunch with friends when the topic of antiques came up. It was everyone else's opinion that people who collect things are simply holding onto junk that should have been thrown away long ago. Except my house of course, and added that my stuff is different because it is cool. Anyways, after a little more conversation I realized that they don't like old things because they grew up around antiques that they weren't allowed to touch, and that much of it was junk and not functional. The whole moderne movement came from this very problem of too much fuss, not enough function.

When I was a kid, I watched a lot of tv. I was also pretty close to my parents and the things that they did or said had a lot of influence on me. My dad in particular grew up watching television while, I presume, his parents went out on the town and to parties. Subsequently as a kid I found myself watching tv with him a lot, and with cable tv and specifically "Nick at Nite", I watched most of the shows that he watched as a kid; The Brady Bunch, The Munsters, Leave it to Beaver, and Gilligans Island were among my favorites. Added to this interesting mix of shows that came in different shades of gray, were the commercials. Before showing real commercials, they would often show a commercial from the era of whatever show you were watching to add to the atmosphere I suppose.

I was also influenced by print media from a whole other era, I inherited national geographic magazines from a neighbor once and I would spend my time in my room reading them and because they were a current events type publication, what i read would be in a non-historic context. I learned a lot about specific eras in a non-kitschy way and at a young age so to me it was perfectly normal to grow up liking those things. I would also spend a lot of time at my great grandmothers house (which you can read about here ) immersed in a 1950s world.

In 7th grade I did a book report on One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and did a hanging mobile (influenced by Calder I suppose) about communism to go along with it. My teacher acted impressed but probably thought my parents dropped me as a baby. I got an A.

A lot of my friends find it strange that I am so drawn to the mid century era, and specifically the 1960s, so much so that perhaps I border on insane to them. Well, maybe but when you consider that I grew up doing and seeing a lot of the same things that my dad did having actually grown up in the 60s it makes sense. I like other things too, from other eras, I love many many old things but the mid century era makes me feel at home and comfortable. Having a house that is period correct feels right, and allows it to function better. My wife and I live a perhaps slower life than other 25 year olds, but we enjoy it.

It's always something....

2010-11-01T12:38:00.000-07:00

I mentioned a creative project that I am starting, and that I would 'reveal' it on here. Well, the project had just begun and relied heavily on the use of a camera and my camera was recently stolen.

We were getting ready to leave the house on Saturday morning, only find that the back window of our car had been broken and I immediately knew why. For the prior week, I had been using my camera frequently and I had left it in my car. Fearing it being stolen but too lazy to bring it inside, I had placed it under the driver seat. Apparently at some point, it slid out from under the seat where it could be seen (so no, I am not one of those people who just left it sitting on the seat). It wasn't a terribly expensive camera or anything, just a Nikon L100, but I had gotten it setup the way I like it and I was used to shooting with it and now I have to start over. The moral of the story is, don't leave valuables in your car.

In other news, we recently took a trip to McMinville to visit the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in Oregon which was really fun. You pay $10 for a guided tour, and then you can wander around the home afterwards, which we did. It was designed in 1957, but wasn't built until 1963 due to cost. It was a very interesting tour and it sparked an interest in Frank Lloyd Wright as being a bit of a playboy and quite controversial, as opposed to my view before which was of a quiet frail old man. Oh and the best part, I was able to borrow a camera for the trip so at least I got a few pictures.

Here Amber shows off the doors that close at a 90 degree angle. This picture also shows how low the ceilings are. Mr. Wright was short, and said that anything above 6 feet was wasted space.

I love the gallery hallway. This is taken from an upstairs bedroom looking down the hallway to the opposite bedroom. Mr. Wright did not like hallways, but when required he made use of it as a gallery and offered a lot of storage.

We also went to the Evergreen Air Museum and had a good time, although their tactics for making money are a little annoying. You pay $20 per person to get into the museum which is a marvel in size, as it houses the Spruce Goose, and then you wander around and look at the planes. You can walk right up to many of them, but if you want to look inside of a B-29 bomber, you have to pay $10. You can step inside of the Spruce Goose and marvel at it's interior, but if you want see the cockpit you have to pay $50 per person for the chance. I just found it a little tacky that they don't just charge you for all of the extras at the front.

I was able to snap a picture of this MiG 17 for free! That grey thing in the background that looks like a wall is actually a portion of the side of the Spruce Goose. It effing huge.

This a Soviet satellite, with styling cues from 60s era Disneyland?

And a missle!

Urban Outfitters

2010-09-24T12:05:00.000-07:00

I posted about the whole "going green" movement a while back (Click for that post) but I have to just mention something again that is bugging me.

Once again, I would like to point out that going to thrift stores and buying things that a lot of people consider junk is wonderful. There are many reasons for that, but here are a few that Amber and I use to rationalize our borderline hoarder behavior.

1) You are recycling. There is no manufacturing process involved in furnishing your home with old things, because it was already done years ago.

2) You help your local economy. If it is a second hand store or pawn shop, you are helping keep that place in business which allows them, in some cases, to compete with the box stores.

3) You are helping charity, when you shop at Goodwill or a similar store and you are employing folks that are overlooked by a lot of employers because of their unique situation.

4) If you re-sell furniture, you can make money! Eventually you run out of room, but can't stop buying so you can start selling the stuff to someone else.

With these things in mind, what the hell is up with Urban Outfitters? It used to be that Urban Outfitters sold cheap trendy clothes but now they have gotten into the business of completely 'outfitting' your hipster lifestyle. They sell cheap furniture, cheap toys, cheap bicycles, cheap art, and yes they do still sell cheap clothing. I encourage you to visit their website and look around if you haven't in a while, because it is ridiculous.

I am fairly conservative in many of my values, especially when it comes to business and believe that any company has a right and an obligation to make as much money as it possibly can. I also believe that you should do it responsibly and with as little negative impact as possible. In this case, they are offering a place where a person can buy cheap 'mid century' furniture, simply because the real stuff is too hard to find. It will all end up in a landfill too when the thrifty hipster changes his/her medication and is all of a sudden not into mid century anymore.

Always support local first, shop at local thrift stores, but at the very least if you need that special piece that truly is hard to find, shop online at one of the many stores specializing in mid century designs.

The end of summer.

2010-09-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

I am guilty this year, yet again, of not finishing the projects that I set out to tackle. Although, I suppose that failure is offset by the fact that I accomplished other tasks that I had not intentionally set out to finish. But I did take a few photos to mark the end of summer. These are from Smith Rock state park which is about 12 miles from our house.

With our careers running on all cylinders, Amber and I spent very little time at home this summer, we basically slept there. At 25 I think this is what you are supposed to do, especially when you don't have kids, but next summer we will be in a much position to spend money on the house and be there to enjoy it. We took a few trips around Oregon, which is a great state to just take a day trip in as there is so much to see and so many different environments, and we had a lot of fun.

The winter is supposed to be long, so I will be in the garage again working on furniture which I am excited about and we can get interior projects done.

I will be launching a new project soon on this blog, so watch for that. I have always wanted to have a creative outlet that ties into the aesthetic of mid century modern design and i finally created one so I hope that you will enjoy what I have come up with.

Mad Men kinda sucks...

2010-08-27T10:04:00.000-07:00

I told myself that I wouldn't become one of those annoying Mad Men fans that analyzes every scene for mistakes, and I have been pretty good about not being like that, but this season is really disappointing.

With regard to production design, the first season was extremely cautious about not having an office that looked like a 1960 magazine ad for office furniture. Because of this attention to detail, many elements of the first office seemed a bit old fashioned. This is the way most offices are though, even nice new ones are not opened and furnished with all the latest in design and fashion. The exception to this rule in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s were huge companies that commissioned companies to dress their entire office. Knoll, Herman Miller, Steelcase, they all made their way in the world by designing furniture especially for a particular company which is even where you get some of the names for the pieces (like the Herman Miller Time Life chair that Don used in season 1).

So imagine my excitement/dismay when season 4 opens with a tour of the new office. The walk through is anything but subtle, and you get to see all of the wonderful colors of 1963 in vivid detail. The front waiting area is furnished by Knoll and it is all brand new, the lovely secretaries all sit in brand new Herman Miller task chairs, the walls are white and colored glass with modern draperies throughout. The conference room is nice, but DOESN'T HAVE A CONFERENCE TABLE. Kind of funny and ironic, but this is an ad agency and most of season 1 took place in the board room and showed the teams impeccable attention to detail. So they branched out on their own, with very little capital, a few accounts, and were able to put themselves up in an office that is even more modern then their old one? Please.

Then, we get to see Roger's new office. I could actually hear the collective furniture-gasm experienced by many watching that first episode, and I thought they were pretty cool digs myself but it does not fit. Roger Sterling is old fashioned enough that he still calls them Nips, and Japs, so why would he opt for a pop art office? Furthermore, he doesn't exactly love the Brits, yet he has a Bridget Riley painting adorning his walls. The lack of a desk is ridiculous, for him, and the Nesso lamp sitting on his desk wasn't even marketed until 1965, even though it was designed in 1964. Perhaps Roger has a special deal with Artimide.

Having just made an office transition/merger of my own I can tell you that it doesn't go this way. I was very excited at the prospect of watching these guys make that difficult transition and then pull out of it with grace, I was excited to be inspired by it. Instead I feel worse about my own situation, that perhaps the key to my own success would have been to buy nicer furniture....

In addition, the season is not as edge-of-your-seat interesting as it was in years past. I have found the cadence slower, and not as interesting. All of the characters seem less interesting, we have no idea what they are going to do next, and the use of constant one liners is horrible, oh and I hate Peggy. I really really hope that they figure it out and make it better because I would love nothing more than to see Mad Men show the evolution of characters through the leisure suit 70s all the way until the 80s when Don is a washed up old man living in Florida in a mobile home.

The Model B3 Chair

2010-08-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

If you have ever been to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, then you have most likely seen this chair. If you are like me, then you probably saw this chair and thought to yourself, "this is an ugly chair, and it looks uncomfortable, but I can appreciate it for its forward thinking design." or something like that.

It was indeed forward thinking. The design came from Marcel Breuer who, along with many of the designers to come out of the Bauhaus in Germany, sought to design furniture that could be easily produced in large quantity, be broken down easily for shipping, and that was simple yet striking. At the time (the turn of the century through the 1930s) furniture, especially in Europe, was gawdy and bulky and as people began to move around they found it difficult to take with them. Aside from that, the furniture was pretentious and Bauhaus designers wanted to change that so that even the common man could have a chair that was comfortable, and elegant, that he could take with him wherever he goes.

Marcel Breuer in his chair -c. 1927

Enter, the model B3 or Wassily Chair (Pronounced: Va-silly). Breuer had admired the process of bending tubing for the construction of bicycles, specifically their handlebars, and wanted to use that technique to construct a chair. When you sit in an overstuffed club chair, it is comfortable, but hideous. It's lumpy bulges certainly do not lend themselves to much more than watching television, but if you take that form and strip it down to it's bare bones you can start to see this chair emerge. The name Wassily was given to the chair much later because Breuer apparently gave one of these chairs to his colleague at the Bauhaus, Wassily Kandinsky the famous painter.

Picture taken by Bauhaus alumni Erich Consemüller c.1926

The original chairs that were made before World War II used canvas straps and seats. During the war, production on many things ceased and the B3 was no exception. After the war, the new consumer economy took over and there became a need for easily mass produced furniture so the design for the B3 was purchased by Gavina in Italy who began mass producing the chair. Those Gavina chairs were distributed all over the world by Stendig, an international import/export company from the 1940s until 1968 when the design for the chair was purchased by Knoll. The myth currently is that the only true original B3 chairs are made by Knoll, but that is because since 1968 they have been able to tell people that they are originals. In actuality, if you have a B3 marked Stendig, or Gavina you have a "more original, original". Furthermore, the chair that is in the permanant collection at MoMA is indeed a Stendig by Gavina.

Anyways, here is my Stendig B3. Picked it up at a thrift store for $20, and while it is in mint condition and properly marked, it is a mass produced chair and meant to be used. It is extremely comfortable to sit in and while it is the most copied chair design in history, having an 'original' makes me appreciate the design a whole lot more.

yeah...and tell your neighbors too!

2010-07-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

Please stop referring to modern design as "Mad Men style". Thank You.

A weekend of treasures

2010-07-21T12:23:00.000-07:00

We recently picked up a few cool items that I thought were worth sharing. I am still trying to figure out how to photograph artwork that is behind glass, so the pictures aren't great.

This picture was in a little antique downtown and we really liked it because it reminded us of our dog Jupiter. The price was something like $200 so we held off on it, and quite honestly I had forgotten about it. I saw it again this weekend in a thrift store, marked $5. It is signed, numbered, and professionally framed and now hangs above Jupiter's bed.

This one was $3, but has an interesting story. Apparently from the little story typed on the back, this image was created by a Hewlett Packard computer using a plotter attachment sometime in the late 1960s or early 70s. The person who made it input two birth dates, one in red and one in black, and the computer then generated this image....somehow. I don't know, it is cool.

I do not play guitar, I am learning very slowly but I think guitars are so cool looking that I have a couple. This one was sitting behind the counter at the Goodwill and was being held for someone. It was $29.99 but it looked vintage to me and was in pretty good shape so I asked if I could buy it. After much deliberation by the employees, I learned that you cannot hold something at Goodwill for more than an hour, so it was mine. It is a Stella guitar and was made in 1966. These guitars were mass produced and despite being well made, they were people learning to play. Because it is smaller, they were often traveled with or given to children and damaged over the years. I had it cleaned up and re-strung and it 'plays' very nicely, at least when the guy in the music store played it. He had a couple of them in his store but none of them had that cool trapeze tail piece, they sell for about $300.

The praying Polynesian kids.... I like the pink color with the blue upholstery in the living room. I don't know anything about them, probably just another mass produced set from the 60s tiki craze.

This was a $12 Lane Acclaim table, that had been fugly-fied. I love acclaim stuff, and I have had good luck with restoring it.

Looks better now.

Does anyone still read this blog?

2010-07-13T09:06:00.000-07:00

If they do, they can read this!

I made a quick trip to Portland for a big antique show recently and met some great people, saw some cool stuff, and didn't buy anything! It actually wasn't too hard because the show consisted of either junk, or really nice stuff that could be thrifted with patience, besides we really don't need anything right now.

On my way up I usually go through The Dalles to check on the house there and because it is, in my opinion, a nicer drive. I took some photos there though in the early morning hours and I think they turned out pretty good. The Dalles has not changed much in it's history but in the 50s they built some pretty cool buildings. The nice thing about being there early was that there weren't any cars in the way.

We have not really been working on the house too much, just furniture projects which I will post photos of soon. Cheers!

New Kitchen Table

2010-05-02T12:32:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, a friend from out of town contacted me about a cool tulip table knock off that was for sale in our area for a great price, and asked if I would pick it up for him. He lives 3 hours away, so I was happy to help. The really awesome part was that we had just sold our cheap 60s american modern table and chairs so we were table-less. The ultra modern look of the tulip table was a bit much for our house as almost everything here is danish, and wood. We had sold our old table to make room for a Paul McCobb Planner Group table that Amber has wanted for a long time.

Early in our relationship, while flipping through auction catalogs, she pointed one out and described it as the perfect table as it mixes traditional with modern. These usually go for no less than $400, and the chairs often go for $200+. We got this table for a good price, but it was without chairs.

I found these Northwest Chair Company chairs for $50 and thought they were enough in the Paul McCobb style to suffice.

The design genius of the Planner Group is that they are made to look very delicate, but are very heavy. The optical illusion is the beveled edge on the table top that makes it look very thin.

Pufferfish toothpick holder approves.

Excuses

2010-04-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

I have been working on a new blog/radio podcast, unrelated to this one, and have been lazy around the house. I will be updating this one soon, and now that the weather is good I am looking forward to getting some projects done. On my list for the next few months:

- Replace trim on the front of the house.
- Paint the home office.
- Cut down the dead tree in the front yard and plant a new one.
- Hang solid wood paneling in the den.
- Landscape the back yard and install grass.

There, now I have it documented as setting out to accomplish those tasks...

Here is a cool picture:

Summer Mantra:

2010-03-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

Now that the sun is out and it has been in the 60 degrees, rather than the 10 degrees, we have thrifting and garage sales on the brain. This is our summer mantra, let it be yours too!

New Photos

2010-03-01T16:56:00.000-08:00

The living room that people describe as "cozy". The Lane 'Acclaim' swivel table hold cocktail drinks when friends visit.

This is a view of the den from our dining room. I had the wall unit in storage when we lived in an apartment and never thought Iwould be able to use it, but it works well in this room and holds all of our records.

The office through a green filter, I just thought it would look cool. This room needs to be de-cluttered but it is functional as an office and will most likely be a baby room one day.

Another view of the office with our $4 Herman Miller swivel chair.

The hallway leading from the front door, to the guest bedroom and bathroom.

The den seating. Selig "eames" chair, Simmons hide-a-bed and more Lane 'Acclaim'. Soon: luan paneled walls, and more artwork.

Our first piece of mid century furniture, a 50s Siemens console turned bar. This picture is in black and white...

Our dining area, complete with retractable light, and polynesian spoon and fork.

The Swingin's Mutual!

2010-02-28T19:41:00.000-08:00

An obvious choice for a fan of mid century modern furniture, but this also happens to be a great musical album. Of the many 50s-60s jazz albums, I listen to George Shearing the most. One of the things that makes his music so much fun is that he often got together with popular female vocalists of the time to sing on the record.

In this case, Nancy Wilson sings standards with him on a few tracks while he tickles the ivory on others. What makes this record unique is the visual appeal of the chairs by Herman Miller (which are credited on the bottom of the cover). If you like to dance with someone, put this record on and dance. If you like mid century furniture, frame it and hang it in your media room.

The Dalles

2010-02-11T11:57:00.000-08:00

I will continue the music posts, I promise, but my turntable stopped turning on so I need to replace the switch or something. In the meantime, let me share with you the house that my great grandmother left to our family when she died.

The house was built in 1955 and a lot of the furniture was purchased around that time, namely the RCA television that sits in the rec room in the basement. We have left the house basically unchanged as it is comforting to know exactly what to expect every time we go up. Since we live about 3 hours from the house, it is a nice place to escape to and it is only an hour from Portland where we can go to vintage stores or soak up some culture.

The house has three bedrooms, two kitchens, two bathrooms, a workshop, a single car garage, and a rec room. My grandma and grandpa both lived there for short times while my grandmother was pregnant with my dad, and my parents lived there for a short time while my mother was pregnant with me. So needless to say, we have a lot of family memories there since 1955.

This is the kitchen where many holiday meals have been prepared.

Looking from the kitchen to the living room, the original drapes and furniture that has been accumulated over the years but is basically my dad remembers it from his childhood.

This guestbook has everyone that came to the house from 1955 to 1979, and then beyond until 2008 it is a bit more sparadic. My great grandfather died in 1979 so he must have been the dilligent one about signatures.

Typical pink bathroom of the 1950s complete with spage-age aluminum tiles around the tub. As you can see, the tub was rarely ever used. The closet style shower was used daily however, and the tiles were replaced a couple years ago.

The small basement kitchen was used by my great great grandmother for the short time that she lived in the house in the 1960s. The stove was probably used three times and is in mint condition. The fridge is used currently but is also in great condition.

The basement rec room has a full size pooltable from 1889 that was found in a barn and purchsed in 1960 for $300, and it is quite the pool table indeed. The home's original tv can be seen here, and although it doesnt work it was so expensive in 1955 that my grandmother could never throw it away. For as long as I could remember growing up, that chair was always under a cover so it too is brand new.

As a way to cut cost in building the home, my great grandfather built most of the cabinets and built-ins himself using plans that are still in drawers in the house. When I was a kid, I used the workbench to make wooden swords.

Right now the house belongs to my grandmother. There is a potential that the house could be sold in the near future and will become a devastating victim of the current financial crisis. Another option is to "renovate" the home so that my grandparents can live there full time but I cannot see the metal edge counter tops and pink bathroom surviving. Despite the fact that everyone in the family appreciates the home's history and sentimental value, my grandfather sees it as "an old house that has a lot of issues".

Amber and I have discussed purchasing the home along with my parents as we use it the most out of our entire family. We also committed to paying to store the furniture should they decide to move there full time, but it is just sad. In the meantime, keeping the house has been a great way to remember my great grandparents and their hard work over the years and hopefully it stays that way.

Music!

2010-01-24T11:41:00.000-08:00

A lot of blogs that I read have a recurring feature that ensures that when you visit, there is something to look at or read. I like this because I stop going to blogs if they don't update very often (like ours). I was trying to think of something that I could write about weekly and the best idea I had was to blog about music that I am listening to. I will try my best to suggest a record every week, because there is a lot of music out there that should be listened to and if you go in to a thrift store and see something that you don't recognize, you may never get to enjoy it. Amber and I buy most of our records at thrift stores and garage sales. I am very particular about it and I stay away from the Hall and Oates, Linda Rondstat, etc that are at most garage sales. Instead, I will usually find a box at an estate sale that is full of 50s and 60s jazz or rock for $5, take it all home and sort through it, and keep what I like. Most of the fun for me is in the fact that you cannot find alot of this stuff anymore. If you have a record album, especially jazz, there is a lot of stuff that goes on the record that does not make it to the digital copy because record companies deem it "fluff". Anyways, for any audiophiles who might read this, we play all of this music on a Marantz 6300 turntable which is one of my favorite things that I own.

he amplifier is a Sansui AU-317 and is probably from about 1977. Ask most audiophiles and they will tell you, 70s was the golden age of stereo and it blow most new systems out of the water. Finally, we have all of this hooked up to two Stephens Trusonic speakers from the late 50s. Now, these speakers were found at a little thrift shop in Hood River and we got them for $40.

I knew nothing about audio equipment really, but once we hooked them up, they are amazing. After some research I found that TruSonic was a major player in the 50s and Charles Eames even designed a cabinet for a setup very similar to ours:

My first album suggestion to everyone is Wave by Antonio Carlos Jobim. I assure you, this is not going to be a snobby jazz review every week. I have a lot of music and it ranges from 20s country western to heavy metal, it just so happens that I have been listening to this record a lot lately. The United States was introduced to Bossa Nova (Brasillian Jazz) by Stan Getz who was a hugely successful sax player in the US, when he and Charlie Byrd teamed up to record an all Bossa Nova album in 1962. There were Bossa Nova albums prior to that, but this was the first huge success. That album featured music by Antonio Carlos Jobim, who I would liken to the Duke Ellington of Bossa Nova. He was a composer, musician, and on occasion a singer. In 1969, he released Wave which is just a cool record to have playing around the house. There are a few slower classical guitar songs, but most tracks like Captain Bicardi, are fast tempo songs that make you feel like you are a handsome double agent sipping a drink on a beach in Rio hoping that the the spy you are tracking doesnt blow your cover (sounds weird I know, just listen to it and you will know what I am talking about).

New Year

2010-01-03T10:39:00.000-08:00

Amber and I had a lot of fun in Portland for New Years. We risked our lives to drive for almost 6 hours to get there (it usually takes 3 hours, but due to snow and ice it took some extra time), and were forced to head back early fearing that the drive back would be worse. We did stay downtown and got to see Satan's Pilgrims put on a great show. They are a surf rock band, not death metal.

On the way home we stopped at a thrift store in Madras, Oregon and as we were leaving I spotted familiar legs peeking out from under an ugly tablecloth ( I am a leg man ). Sure enough, it was a totally original George Nelson designed, Herman Miller pedestal table that is often referred to as swag leg (which is incorrect). It was $3.00 but we only had $2.35 so she took it and we headed home. It just goes to show, the coolest stuff can be found in the most unlikely of places.

Now it is finally time to get back to real life. I had a great holiday, but I am ready to start working again.

NEW COUCH!

2009-12-23T13:55:00.000-08:00

We have been waiting a long time for the perfect couch to fall into our lives via Craigslist, Goodwill, a garare sale....something. So about a month and a half ago, I was searching cragislist as I often do and I came across this photo:

Judging by the picture, it looked kinda cool but I really wasnt sure it was what we wanted and since we have a garage filling up with furniture, an attic full, and several projects laying around that may never get done, I ignored it and decided I didnt even want to go look at it.

Fast forward and I finally broke down and showed Amber as she has been wanting a couch to replace the Lafer set. She looked and decided that since it is only $75 that we should at least go look at it. When we showed up the entry way to this lady's early 90's home was lit by a George Nelson bubble lamp, that was yellowed and appeared to be original. She showed us the couch and it was WAAAAAAYYY cooler in person so we bought it. It was also much bigger than she had described. Apparently it came from the same house where the, as she called them, "funky hanging lights" came from referring to the bubble light that she would not part with. Anyhow, we called on my brother to come help move it as it is a hide a bed and extremely heavy. We got it home and had to take it around the house and through the sliding glass door as it was only door wide enough to get it through.

We spent the rest of the evening staring at it:

As you can see, it is tufted and in near mint condition with the exception of a small tear in one cushion and small but fixable wear on the corners of the arms. Aside from that, it is immaculate and is by far the coolest hide a bed I have seen. It is a woven nubby type fabric and is green/gold/yellow. The Craigslist gods have been very good to us. Merry Christmas!

Percival Lafer

2009-12-05T10:19:00.000-08:00

About a year ago whilst cruising craigslist, I came across a furniture set that I had seen somewhere before. It was leather, and it was $60, and it looked cool. I was remembering seeing one of the chairs in an auction catalog and it had gone for $1500 or something crazy. These came from Brasil which is why they are so rare, they are hand made and they only imported them by catalog to a few vendors in the US. If you had a set it was because you had a lot of money and were forward thinking which, to me, makes theses even more interesting. I wonder who thought to purchase them back in 1975? So we reserved a uhaul truck and drove two hours one way to get it. We were super excited after loading it up and then holding in our joy until we could drive down the road a ways to get out and really lok it over. The beauty of craigslist is that everyone wins, the seller is happy to get rid of it, and we can celebrate finding something super cool. Well we have been using it as our furniture in the den area where we listen to music and entertain (there is no tv). Recently we have decided that we want something that is more cohesive with the rest of the house so it is for sale. I honestly thought it would sell rather quickly but it has been kind of slow going, probably because of condition issues. The other interesting part is that they didnt use any glue or nails, it is held together by a couple of screws, but mostly by straps and dowels. The leather part comes out and is rubber covered by glove leather. I wanted to post simply to show them off, but if you want them let me know.

New Fan...and other stuff

2009-11-06T09:14:00.000-08:00

It has been far too long since our last post. A lot has been going on, especially with our careers, but we have not tackled any major house projects. Recently I finally took down the ugly old fan in the den and replaced with a fan that we got for $59 at Lowes. We had really been wanting an industrial fan as this room is eventually going to have concrete floors and be more modern than the rest of the house, however it is really hard to find flush mount fans that are cool looking.

Although there were a lot of cool things to some out of the 1980s, like Amber and I, this fan is not cool.

The new fan is modern, and sleek, and was easy to install. We had considered not puting another fan in, but they are so nice to have during the summer months.

We have also been working on nagging projects that have nothing to do with the house, like my recent obsession with old bikes. Here is a 1955 Hawthorne that I bought from a guy who used it for his paper route in Beaverton when he was a kid. I took it all apart, stripped it, painted it, and bought a new seat and grips. It took me about 8 hours to do, so I bought a couple more and havent gotten to them yet...

I also got a 1959 Schwinn Hollywood cruiser for Amber, and a 1951 Hawthorne fat tire with a tank, lights, etc. I will post pictures as I get those done. We have two Heywood Wakefield projects going on now, a square table and a small gametable. The coffee table was $20 at an antique store that we frequent. We figured it was a fluke that they didnt know what Heywood was, but a few weeks later we went back in and they had a very very rare Heywood Wakefield
game table that needs to be restored, but is awesome. Heywood purists would perhaps say that we are crazy for refinishing this stuff, but we use it daily and we dont buy it to sell for profit. We have 5 Heywood pieces and we have spent a total of $235 for all of it, not too bad I would say.

Heywood Wakefield M-307 table.

The gametable...I have never seen on of these before...

I saw this at a garage sale, it was $20 but I got it for $14. It is signed B. Rollins, anybody ever heard of him/her?

We will try to post more often, but in case we don't I made this one nice and long.

The Extra Bedroom

2009-07-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

I realized today that we havent posted much about our induvidual rooms in the house so here it goes. We have three bedrooms, one fairly large one in the front of the house, a smaller office, and "cozy" room in the back of the house. When we first moved in, we decided that the small room in the back would be a great guest bedroom because it is by itself and it is right next to the main bathroom which makes it easy for guests to use when they wake up in the middle of the night after one of our infamous parties.

The room has a very cool archway that leads into the room, making it the most unique in the house. Originally, in the 1950s, the room was pink and then for a time blue before the previous owner painted it an awful bright red. For a long time after we moved in, we used the room for storage, but recently we got everything that we don't use up into the attic where it belongs including lots of mid century furniture that nobody is buying right now.

Well, yesterday we decided to finally finish the room and make it a nice bedroom. In the winter time, we started sleeping in this room because it is much smaller and easier to heat, plus we can open the windows and not have our neighbors looking in to see what we're up to. But, if you ever come visit, we will make it comfortable for you.

We started by getting all of the furniture out of the room, we dusted, vacuumed, and then painted any spots we had missed before. I polished the floors, and then we took the light fixture down to strip it. Apparently anything cool in this house that needed to be cleaned at one time, the previous owners just painted.

In other news, July 9th was my 24th birthday and I had a lot of fun. Amber got me a 2nd edition furniture building book from 1957 which am very excited about. I have really been wanting to start building furniture as a hobby and this is certainly inspiring.

I also got something very cool from local pinstriper, John Harmon. He and I had met for the first time on my birthday and after meeting we had some people over to our home and he brought me this! I love it, and he is very talented.

2009-06-15T19:45:00.000-07:00

It has come to my attention that in the last few years, there has been a lot of interest generated on the subject of “being green”. Everyone has jumped on this hybrid powered bandwagon and the millions of dollars that were once spent on telling us how much we can save on products, is now all about our contribution to the environment that somehow comes from purchasing more stuff. In the creative world of modernism, the green building techniques are worshiped but do these techniques really help at all? Does a wall of windows with no curtains on a solar powered home really reduce a carbon footprint?

My wife and I have been fans of modernism since we started dating, and we love the clean lines of modern homes and their accessories. One huge advantage to collecting modern furniture, for instance is that we are recycling. Almost all of the vintage modern furniture that we have collected over the years has been sold at an estate sale, a thrift store, or by an out-of-touch relative of a grandparent with impeccable modern taste, or even destined for a landfill. The fun that we have finding things, the sometimes zero cost versus new, and the added character of a scratch or patina all contribute to making recycling a fun endeavor. Conversely, one could spend an afternoon online and by the end have a fully appointed house ready for a magazine shoot.

Following the aforementioned fad of green building are the leading industry magazines, which need not be named, just insert whichever your favorite is. The editorials are very similar every week, and point out how the magazine is too big and wasteful, or that they have far too many insert cards. This elitist approach to a complex problem reminds me of the squabbles that go on between political parties, there is a lot finger pointing about something that both sides partake in. In this case, the reader that is outraged by such use of paper, has obviously purchased the magazine in the first place and may even have gone so far as to continue a subscription. Shouldn’t they be working on their compost pile instead of reading a magazine?

Within the pages of these magazines the reader gets to enjoy wonderful pictures of beautiful homes, furniture, art, and advertisements about products that are green, eco-friendly, energy efficient, solar, renewable, organic, natural, blah blah blah. This is all great, but the paradox comes from the idea that buying more stuff is somehow better. What’s more is that we, the modernist artsy type reader, is somehow better than the suburbia mom who lives in a “McMansion”. At first, I believed this and I drank the kool-aid. I honestly thought that it was ok to look down on those wasteful buggers, until I wondered how they heat those glass houses in the Midwest, or how they keep the Palm Springs homes cool. They must cost a fortune to heat and/or cool.

The cost of electricity and gas has undoubtedly gone up since my home was built in the 1950s, but the idea of passive solar energy being used in a home of that vintage is nothing new. In fact, the only thing that has changed in most cases is that they call it passive solar now. Our home sits in the high desert of Central Oregon so we do have four seasons and they can be quite extreme one way or the other. In the summertime, we average 78 degrees, with highs that get into the 110s. In the winter, we average 23 degrees with lows last winter getting to –9 degrees. Our home was indeed quite cold because of the lack of proper insulation under the home, as a result we spent a lot heating it. However, in the summertime our home stays very comfortable even without the aid of air conditioning. Even on those extremely hot days, everyone who enters our home asks if we have A/C or comments on the comfort. This is due to several factors, but one very important one that is found on all of the mid century homes in this area is that the homes are situated to only have direct sunlight during the cooler parts of the day. The other is that our older neighborhood has fully matured trees that shade the area during those hot days. These are simple, inexpensive, and rudimentary ways to help but they certainly do not employ the use of fancy technology to lower costs. The photos here show awnings which were a very low cost and popular way to keep sun out of the house. They were simply a way for homebuilders to add value to the home by keeping costs down, and following WWII this was extremely important to families who were use to rationing supplies and resources.

Although our home does not include any advanced solar technologies, they did exist when our home was built. In 1947, Simon and Schuster published a book that explored these technologies called Your Solar House. The book showcased some of the available technologies as they were used by some of the era’s great architects including Louis Kahn and Pietro Belluschi (from right here in Oregon via Italy) and even included simple plans for the homes. Included in those designs were homes that, even in the Midwest, could maintain temperatures of 70 degrees or more while outside was below freezing.

The point is, there were solar homes being built a long time ago and that this trend of going green (it is a trend, not a revolution as many will tell you) should probably be examined and exploited with a little more finesse. I love the look of an all glass home with the lights on and nothing but empty space inside, it is clean and orderly and nice, but I just see dollar signs flowing out those windows. I am all for conservation of our natural resources, which is one reason why I buy as much old furniture as I can and keep it so it doesn’t end up in the landfill. I also think that buying old homes and renovating them to be even more eco-friendly is much more appealing than having one built in the country far from schools, shopping, etc requiring longer drive times and wasted fuel. So if one of those magazines comes to your house to take pictures, will you draw the blinds in at least one picture?

Little projects are never little.

2009-06-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

When I worked in a restaurant in high school, we were required to clean the grease hoods every week. This was a law in Oregon and still is to avoid the potential fire hazzard that grease build up can be, and to be clean. Well, the law does not apply to houses and our home has had the same exhaust fan for over 50 years. Amber really wanted to tackle the project of pulling the old fan down, cleaning it, and then stripping it to it's original awesomeness. We were both thinking that this would be a simple hour or so project. She pulled everything down and started cleaning them first. It really was 50 years or so of grease on there and I have no idea what our prior owners cooked, but I am convinced that they deep fried everything! The fan grill had been painted several times so once it was clean, Amber Jasco'd it and got all of the paint off. Then I took steel wool and aluminum polish and polished it for about an hour. We also sprayed oven cleaner into the housing and cleaned most of it. The end result is a very cool industrial looking post war fan. Now that it was all clean and perfect looking, I wanted to try it out. I flipped the switch while Amber wasnt looking and it sparked and blew a fuse at the same time Amber screamed and cursed. So hopefully all was not lost and after a week when it dries out I will try it again.

Any suggestions for a light fixture? We are going to install a halogen light fixture that we have had for a while and see if it looks good. The post war homes typically had the round glass lights but they arent very bright and our kitchen is already dark.

Screen Door Installation - Step by Step

2009-06-08T11:08:00.000-07:00

The front of our house is starting to look less and less as it did when we bought it, which is a good thing. The three windows across the front used to have faux window panes that were in between the wooden windows, and the storm window. We took those out the day we moved in. The house numbers are terrible, a piece of particle board with some 50 cent numbers nailed on. The mailbox is OK, but it needs to be painted and eventually replaced with something cool. The screen door was a 1980s Sears storm door that I have always hated. So this weekend, I decided (while Amber was gone) that I would replace all of these things and make the entry way much more presentable. It is after all, the first thing people see when they drive by.

Step one should have been to investigate and plan and strategize, but instead it was to remove the screen door. I pulled the trim off, removed nails, and found that the old door was just kind of screwed on to a few blocks of wood underneath that appeared to be left over trim scraps.

Step two, go buy a door. I did not want anything fancy, I just wanted an old fashioned wooden screen door that thwaps when it closes and Lowes happens to sell them for $45.

Step three, stop working on the door before that project is done and start a new project. I am notorious for doing this and today was no exception so I took the old house numbers off only to reveal a surprise! The previous owner had foiled my plan by painting the house numbers underneath which means that in order to put new numbers up, I have to paint the house which means I have to match the color.......etc. I was very excited about the new numbers too, they are the modern Neutra style numbers that we got from Sears online for $56, total!

Step four was to go back to the door situation and stain the door which turned out ok, I will probably paint it instead though unless we get a lot of compliments. I got new lumber to piece in the jamb and did it right so that everything is level and hung the door. I personally think it looks good and it is much nicer to have then the old door which only let a little bit of air in the house. It looks old, and although with the stain it looks more 30s than 50s, it goes with the feel of the neighborhood. With this project I decided that owning an old home is way fun and it gets you thinking creativley about projects, but reality sets in when you spend the majority of your time fixing other people's mistakes. I will post again once I figure out a solution to the numbers.

So this is a possible solution to the numbers problem. They are mounted on a piece of cardboard that has been painted. If this idea grows on us, we will cut a piece of wood to fit and mount the numbers on it. The door also needs to be trimmed, and the concrete steps will be painted soon as well. Oh, and the ugly metal rail will soon be replaced by something else.

A close up, showing the corrugated details and custom mounting hanger.

MCM Politics

2009-05-14T13:49:00.000-07:00

Politics and MCM

So I read quite a few blogs everyday, and I get a kick out of the humor that comes with most of them. The majority of blogs I read are related to design, furniture, technology, etc, and then sometimes I will read a political blog just to see what they have to say about current events. Before I moved to Central Oregon, I worked in the Oregon State Legislature for a representative. My advice to anyone who has any desire to make a career out of politics, just know that all of the stereotypes are true about the back room dealings, with shady power hungry politicians which is why I moved and changed careers to be in the private sector. Having gotten out of that world, it is hard to ignore the politics that are around each day, at work, on tv, on the radio, and now even in my favorite blogs which is why I am writing today.

Now with the recent election of president Obama, I have noticed that of the blogs that did decide to post something regarding the election, they ALL supported Mr. Obama which is wonderful, but if that were reversed what would happen? If every blog that you went to in your daily or weekly blogroll was a totally cool, hip, MCM paradise and was suddenly an advertisement for John McCain or Ron Paul, would you be turned off?

A friend of mine here in Oregon owns an antique store that specializes in Mid Century Modern, and the very first time I went in there, he had allowed campaigners to put huge Bush-Cheney ’04 signs on the side of his building which is close to a major road. I asked him why he would allow those to be put up, to which he replied something like, “Because I support Bush”. He then proceeded to tell me about the horrible things that people say to him when they come in because of the signs, people who are coming in to shop for furniture! They are expecting to see a square-glasses wearing hipster I suppose, but are shocked that someone would actually have a differing viewpoint then them. I suppose this isn’t too interesting because that would happen anywhere nowadays, but my problem with it is that people who love good design and share this common interest in beautiful furniture, somehow think that you have to be liberal to appreciate it. I know that I absolutely hate going into stuffy modern specialty stores where a plastic stool costs more than a car, and I think that the bloggers that I subscribe to do as well. If that is the case, then isnt the condescension of politics is just as bad? I really don’t think that it is OK to ostracize so many cool people because of their political preference.

I think that everyone who reads this blog is unique, and some us way out there which is what makes us interesting. If not to anyone else, we are unique enough for ourselves. Those of you who are either conservative or liberal have your own opinions and your love of good design has little to do with it, that being the case it should have little to do with others as well. If you would please, let me know how you feel. Regardless of your personal political position, do you think that there as an element of elitism when it comes to the world of design, and do you think it matters?

The "Yes We Can" rug. Subtle, but clearly for a specific market.

New TV!

2009-05-10T10:14:00.000-07:00

Amber and I don't watch tv much, and we havent had cable in a year or so it rots your brain. When we did have it, we werent nearly as productive as we are now. So despite our friends always making fun of our tiny 17inch tv, we never went back. I found a 1965 Zenith Space Command tv on craigslist and had to get it. I have always loved vintage electronics because they always represent the forward thinking of the time, in this case space travel. I went and got it in Salem and whilst I was there, I went to an antique shop and among all of their extremely overpriced treasures, I found a mint condition small Mobler chair for $15. We dont have a child yet, but I love furniture for small people because you can have more of it as it takes up less room! The TV does work and now you can sit in our living room and not know that it is 2009, we are freaks.

A small Mobler chair built for a child. This is one of the icons of Danish design and apparently icons go for $15 in this economy.

As promised, another photo of the finished Lane Acclaim swivel. I am happy with how it turned out.

The table looks very shiny.

Still Refinishing

2009-05-04T19:13:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this has turned out to be a fun project. I was very intimidated by the prospect of ruining a piece, but I figured that since I dont like Heywood Wakefield all that much ( in know that is totally sacreligious ) that I would test my abilities and not care if it didnt turn out perfectly. However, having grown up working on cars and learning the art of tideous perfection, coupled with the fact that I am German, I found myself fixating on the minor details. In short, I think that this hutch is turning out pretty nice. I have yet to add glass sliding doors and shelves but I have clients ( from my insurance practice ) that can provide both and will allow me to contribute to the local economy. With this turning out alright, I have moved onto other projects including our Lane Acclaim swivel coffee table. As you can see, someone tryed very hard to lose the dovetail detail but they were no match for Jasco, steel wool, and elbow grease. I don't think I will sell my insurance agency and start refinishing furniture, but it is fun and very rewarding. As for the cost; $50 for the hutch, $26 for Jasco, $3 for '0000' steel wool, $2 for scrapers, $12 for minwax finish, $93 total. Not too bad!

Lane Acclaim, Before.

Lane, After

Refinishing furniture

2009-04-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

So I have heard of people refinishing furniture, but I have always been intimidated by the process. Many times over, we have come across furniture that was in need of refinishing but we passed it up. The other day, Amber and I were walking through a local rebuild center when I spotted the backside of a Heywood Wakefield server. I was excited and we dug it out from under some bags of concrete where it appeared to have sat all winter, exposed to the elements outside. The store owner wanted $35 for it, but I didnt know how to restore it and I have never been a huge fan of Heywood Wakefield so I passed and figured someone who loved it would find it. A week went by and Amber and I sold some chairs which meant we had enough to go buy it and at least use it as a way to learn refinishing, if we messed it up it would be ok. As we dug it out again, I saw another piece that appeared to match, and it was also Heywood wakefield. We purchased both pieces for $55 and crammed it into out little car. We had the front seats all the way forward and we looked ridiculous as we drove home. On our way, we stopped by a local antique store where our friend and fellow collector (who is a Heywood expert) told us about the pieces and how to go about restoring it. We rushed home, got supplies at Lowes, and started our project. Here are some photos, we are two day in now and they are actually looking good.

Very nice color choices.

Any Heywood fans out there? Tell us what you think, we kind of like it now. I cannot beleive what these people did to it, they used a very red stain on the hutch part which has been hard to strip.

New Year Resolutions

2009-01-24T11:15:00.000-08:00

This year we have big plans for the house. With the economy in shambles, it is a great time to go spend money and help local buisness (i.e. Craiglisters). On our agenda:

- Plant more trees / shrubs

- Re-do the bonus room with paneling and a concrete, heated floor.

- New bathroom complete with matching green sink and cool tiles.

- HOPEFULLY, a new kitchen.

All of these are tentative, but we are very hopeful. And here is a photo of our dog doing what he is not supposed to do, sit on the furniture.

A long awaited update!

2008-12-29T12:20:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since we have posted on our blog and I believe this is my very first post.

The only recent update that we have made on the house is in our kitchen by replacing cabinet knobs. The replacements were from Lowe's and work quite well considering they were 1 dollar a piece.

Before:

After:

A personnal update: a few months ago we lost our lovely kitty Samantha.

After 17 years I must say the she was the happiest at our house and I was happy that we were able to bury her under our plum tree. It was very sad to have her leave us and we missed her presence in the house and after a while broke down and rescued Jupiter a Scottish Deerhound. He is something else and we just love him to bits and pieces. He is also a fan of Mid Century Modern furniture; when we first brought him home the first thing he did was climb into our Selig.

In other news we had a great Chrismas. The house was cozy and warm and the best presents we received were Lowe's and Home Depot gift cards that we are going to put towards restoring our bathroom this summer. I can't wait to learn how to tile!

The Bonus Room

2008-10-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

So Amber and I are getting ready to re-do the bonus room or "den". We have had several ideas but we keep coming back to the idea of an Eichler style room, wood paneling and clean hard surface floors. We are looking at VCT tile (armstrong), polished concrete, and a topical sealer which would have the look of marmolium. Lowes can order the wood paneling and at $16 for a 4 x 8 sheet, it is very inexpensive. Anyways, we are still at work on the house and look forward to posting pictures of a finished room.

This is the look that we want.

This is a bit too "Tuscan", but it is concrete.

Also concrete, but I have been told that polished concrete stains.

VCT tiles cost about 70 cents a square foot (versus 5-7 dollars per sq ft. for concrete sealers) and look great.

The room as it looks now, I think it has a lot of potential.

Yes we are still alive.

2008-08-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

So it has been a while since we updated our blog, but we have been busy. Most recently, Amber and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary with a trip to Portland to see Chris Isaak. We also brought some great new things back including......a green sink with chrome legs!

Amber also got this totally awesome hair dryer that actually works. And that white thing is a reading light by the way.
What can you get for $125? Well on craigslist I found this Selig Lounge, and it is in mint condition. I do, of course, want a real one, but oddly enough the Selig and Plycraft ones are more comfortable because they recline. We need two though so we dont have to fight over who gets to sit in it.
I realised the other day that we had never posted any photos of the back yard so here is the back of the house. The yard was dead when we moved in but its filling in nicely. We have a lot of plans for landscaping.
That whole corner will be raised and covered in small trees and shrubs. The tiki torches will stay, for a jungle feel. The fence is going to be covered by a row of tall shrubs all the way around fo rmore privacy, although it is already very private.
The patio has seen better days and we havent settled on anything yet but we have been talking about pouring a solid slab here and color it gray.
Our new front porch light courtesy of Hippo Hardware in Portland.
Another Hippo find.
If you have been to Portland and have never been to Hippo Hardware then shame on you. Now I assume that if you are reading our blog then you have some kind of interest in restoration projects, but even if you don't you can have a lot of fun just looking at all of the stuff they have there all while being entertained (or harassed) by the more then friendly staff. I liken it to going to a really cool record store, only with windows, doors, bathtubs, toilets, and lights instead of records. Check it out.

Meet the Petersens

2008-06-26T08:13:00.000-07:00

I realized that part of blogging, in some cases, is getting to know someone that you would otherwise have no contact with (kind of creepy), so we decided to post a little about us. Amber will write her's soon.

Loren is a 22 year old small business owner. Born and raised in Oregon, he is a pretty nerdy individual. Despite the picture, Loren does not like to read but does like collecting and studying all things nostalgic.

The Bathroom

2008-06-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

So most of the trivial stuff is done with the house. We have put up some light fixtures and painted and fixed holes, but now we are thinking bigger. Our house has a main bathroom and a small 1/2 bathroom. The main, pictured below, has original green bathroom fixtures and now we are ready to start remodeling. First, we need the matching green sink and since the green color was common amongst several manufacturers, we are pretty excited about the Crane Drexel and Diana lines. I have written to a few people on craigslist who have them but they dont seem willing to ship (for good reason). If you have any leads let me know!

The bathroom is going to be tiled and probably in a white/green motif, and then we purchased a few little details to help add to its functionality and coolness like a little built in mirror that flips around to reveal a toothbrush holder and soap dish.

The room is very small, but it will be awesome.

We also are getting a matching toilet seat.

The tub is cool and in perfect condition.

This is a late 40s Crane sink, which is cool, but I kind of want one with chrome legs.

This is what I really want.

We have been working hard!

2008-06-05T09:11:00.000-07:00

So Amber and I moved into our home over memorial day weekend and it was great. In one weekend we got everything moved, walls painted, and the front and backyard cleaned up. We have so manny projects planned but we have been cautioned to only take on one at a time so right now I have taken on the front and backyard project of getting the lawn back to life.

While Amber was away on business, I put together our wall unit and it looks great. It was a craigslist find that we have had in storage because it wouldnt fit in our tiny apartment. Anyways, here are some updated photos of some of our progress.

We love the long driveway and the shrubs, although they need to be trimmed.

Our living room. We plan on just using the carpet for a while until we get the underside of the house insulated, but there are gorgeous hardwood floors underneath.

This is our office

Our bar was the first piece of furniture that we brought over, haha.

We replaced the purple wall with off white, and a starburst clock.

We have had these lights in our storage unit for about 2 years and we finally got to use them. Amber got them at Lowes for about $5 a piece since nobody around here seems to be into mid century they couldnt sell them!

I could not have imagined that the wall unit would have fit so well in this room. We bought it from a guy who said it was in his house when he moved in and he didnt want it anymore so for 150 bucks I bought it. It is extremely strong and our records dont seem to be too heavy. Eventually we will put a tv in there, but we have really been enjoying not having tv at all, we get a ton of stuff done.

Our Rambler

2008-05-30T12:13:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned before, I have always been into cars as well and while my current whip isnt finished yet, i figured I could at least post some photos. It's a 1975 AMC Matador and I enjoy it, plus it is reliable, low maintainence, and very fast. It has a 304 V8 automatic and I have lowered it 4 inches. This summer it will have full airbag suspension and hopefully some new metal flake on the roof. Enjoy.

Our First Blog

2008-05-28T17:25:00.000-07:00

So my wife and I have always been into mid century, atomic, tiki, classic cars, old music, records, advertising, etc. I started with cars and progressed into furniture which we both took up collecting. Once we ran out of room in our tiny apartment, we bought a storage unit for our furniture. Once that filled up, we decided we ought to buy a home. What great timing we had too, the market in our area was the most expensive in all of Oregon when we started looking for a home and as soon as our income made the homes affordable, it bottomed out and we were able to find the perfect home for the perfect price. Enter, our 1952 ranch-bungalow.

We created this site to copy many who have come before us. Our favorites have always been an inspiration and we hope that some of the things we do can inspire someone else but as everyone has different taste, we encourage you to check out the other sites which I will link as soon as I figure out how.

Here are some photos of the home as it looked when we made an offer. As we progress we will update the blog with pictures of our work. Thanks for looking!

I will get a better front shot.

Dig those mosaics (it was one of the first things to go)

You will see, the previous owners loved this color.

Typical tiny bathroom, but it does have a green tub and toilet. Anybody got a lead on a matching sink?

The view from the den to the living area.

View from the dining area to the den.

Our awesome door, we love the diamond. You can also see our coved ceiling, a cool detail.

Archway into the guest bedroom (or guest redroom) with built-ins.