wile e.'s house

we've moved :)

no, not where we live--just our blog: to http://lisabee.typepad.com/itsawonderfulhouse

thanks for stopping by :)

craftsman style

i was reading house blogs this morning, and one very sweet couple was worried about the authenticity of their house (hm...you don't know anyone who obsesses about these things, do you? you don't know anyone who dragged her feet deciding whether she really wanted to work on this queen anne because she knew she didn't want to restore it to queen anne glory, and felt guilty about that? yeah, i got over that and decided that it was okay. but these kids are lucky enough to be building an architecturally swell house--designed after one they found in a 1905 issue of the craftsman magazine (how awesome is that? how jealous are you?). (oh--and when i say building? i mean building. i mean they're out there with saws and wood and nails, on the land, doing the work. amazing.)

anyway, i think they're adorable, and i felt bad that they felt bad about their pride and joy. especially needlessly. apparently they read something that gave them the impression that their house wasn't really a craftsman unless it was built from stickley plans. and i thought this was nonsense--stickley plans just make it a stickley house--a wonderful thing, to be sure, but not the only thing that makes a house a craftsman house.

so i've pulled out my copy of the mcalester field guide (how much do i love this book?) (answer: lots). and here's how the mcalesters define what makes a house a craftsman house. the craftsman period was prominent from about 1905 to about 1930. craftsman homes have low-pitched, gabled roofs,   though occasionally you see hipped ones, with wide, unenclosed eave overhangs, roof rafters usually exposed, with decorative ones added if the supporting rafters weren't enough :), a full- or partial-width porch supported by tapered square columns that often extend to ground level with no break or change at porch-floor level.

m&c's house is a side-gabled roof, which are what about a third of craftsman homes are (as opposed to the front-gabled roofs in the previous two gabled-roof photos). here's a side-gabled roof example from the city of new westminster's web site:

their house plans don't show particularly typically craftsman porch supports--typically, the shorter, squared supports would would rest on massive piers or upon one huge balustrade going around the whole porch, either of which begins at ground level and continues above the porch floor. if they wanted, they could easily make this cosmetic change. the canadian example shown here, though, has slim porch supports going all the way to the ground, just grouped in pairs for more substance. the mcalesters note that a floor-to-ceiling column may have been more common before 1910; since m&c's plans originated in 1905, it makes sense that their columns would authentically have such columns.

another cosmetic difference between m&c's house and the typical craftsman might be the exposed roof rafters, though it's hard to tell from the sketch. wherever the roof joins a wall, on a typical craftsman, the horizontal supports for the roof just continue beyond the wall and are exposed outside. often, apparently, these were added decoratively after the fact. (i think i remember seeing m&c cutting some of these in an old post, in fact, even though they aren't visible in the sketch of their house, so maybe they're already planning this.)

i love that they're doing the wood shingles on their house that are so common in craftsman homes (second only to clapboard in popularity). they're staining them one by one. can you believe it?

and, perhaps most interestingly, the primary inspiration for craftsman style, according to the mcalesters, wasn't stickley at all, but greene and greene (another point of great contention, i'm sure). they don't mention stickley at all.

anyway, i think m&c are doing a wonderful thing, building their home, and building *this* home--using a lot of salvaged materials, too, in their work--and that certainly honors the spirit that built the craftsman movement, regardless of who did or didn't design this or that. i think they should be proud of themselves and not worry about the rest :) but then, this is the girl who decided it was okay to put midcentury modern furniture inside her queen anne. just because she likes it.

the master bedroom closet

maybe shoji screens would make sense for our bedroom spaces--this conversion had to divide a space similarly to ours.

more design i can't wait to use

i can't wait to find a place for these prints, once i find copies of them. or maybe i'll make replicas of them. all three are by charles harper, and the work just looks so familiar that i'm certain he must have illustrated some children's books i must have loved once upon a time. as much as i adore the first two, though, i have a soft spot for the cardinals--they remind me of my favorite photo that smartboy took. look at them! :)

rasterbation

i'm really looking forward to blowing up one or two of smartboy's photos using the rasterbator and putting them up on a couple of carefully chosen walls. maybe the first one you see when you enter the house, and maybe the last one you see before you fall asleep :) you can also pay mybiggerpicture to do one for you--more expensive, but it might be better quality (depending on what printers are available to you). and less labor.

and more ways to incorporate his photography creatively into our decor: transfers onto fabrics (pillows, perhaps?).

ecodesign

remember how i was looking for the perfect rug for the living room? thanks to 2modern, i believe i've found it. this rug was designed by angela adams (i could swear that's the name of a feminist author...), a member of an organization working to end child labor; it's all wool on the front, backed by all cotton, with the two adhered with latex. i think it's a delicious complement to the color palette we have planned for that room, and is available in nifty shapes and sizes.
also exciting: should we not be able to find used, vintage bar stools to put in the kitchen, emeco makes them out of recycled aluminum. used is, of course, 100-percent recycled :) and true vintage, but when we can't find vintage that works, recycled is great.
2modern has a wide variety of ecofriendly pilllows, blankets, and other accessories, too, when we get down to that level of accessorizing and decorating. most of the rest of the furniture is way out of our price range, if a delight to behold.

wile e.'s coconspirators

our architect, lee calisti, is on board. we've met with him a couple of times, and one of the things we like best about him, besides that he seems to enjoy modern design as much as we do, is that he is completely flexible about how he works. he will work with us on an hourly consultation basis, as much or as little as we need. he has a great attitude about everything, too, and we really enjoy him.
we're getting our big-picture wish list for the project to him by the end of this month. yippee!
we're enlisting the services of certified energy inspectors palladio davinci energy and design services to help us green this project from the start. they offer three levels of consulting, from a home inspection to teach us how the house and its systems operate, which includes reference information and recommendations; to a design inspection, which includes measurements and a model of our current energy-efficiency performance, and ways to improve; to the ultimate: rating and certifying the home for an energy star label. this is what i'd love to do. we're talking to pdv now about what we'll have them come do, but we want to get them started soon, so that we can incorporate their recommendations throughout our plans with lee and the rest of the team.
lee is also going to get a structural engineer out here to evaluate the foundation and structural issues that are making the floors uneven. this is really what's going to inform the schedule and budget of pretty much everything that lies ahead, so that has to happen first. we will likely have to wait to do any big-ticket work until the spring, and that's when foundation work should be happening anyway (after the winter thaw), but if we get the evaluation now, we can do the design work necessary to get good bids from the people who could be doing the spring work. so we're eager to get that going.
i've also roped annie into going out to artemis in lawrenceville with me, hopefully with her sister-in-law popie, to help me get started thinking about interior design, fixtures, flooring, and the like. popie is not a designer by trade, but she is divine at design by eye. even though it's too soon to purchase, it's never too soon to plan :)

episode 6, in which wile e. considers the master bedroom.

the main uses for our master bedroom are sleeping and dressing. i try not to work in the bedroom--bad for sleeping. i like it to be a restful, serene place.

what i like most about the new master bedroom is that it's big and that it's on its own floor, away from the rest of the living spaces. i'm really looking forward to having this haven, and all this space. and since it's currently just a big open space, i'm hoping there won't be anything we don't like about it. my design priorities for this room are serenity and calm and functionality.

the room has east- and south-facing windows, so there's light pretty much from early morning until the afternoon. it'll suck for sleeping in (sans good window coverings), but that's okay with me. i'm a morning person. and smartboy sleeps through anything.

right now we have a deep slate grey with almost purple undertones in our master bedroom, with stark white trim. i sort of like that--i at least like the very dark walls, and i think i'll also like it in that very large room. maybe a deep brown this time, enriching those wood floors, softened by a nice rug to deaden the noise of dogs jumping on and off the bed all night :)

there are a lot of furniture styles i could see in our bedroom. i've always wanted a metal bed, maybe something a little less than modern like this balcony bed from crate and barrel. but maybe i do want super modern. i mean, i do love the case study bed. but really i think i might like something warmer and cozier than either of these. there are three collections at pottery barn that i'd like to explore. the farmhouse collection has a simple elegance that reminds me of the beautiful shaker aesthetic i've always loved. the sumatra collection has been my favorite of theirs for years. it gives me a little catch in my throat every time i turn that page in the catalog. and the valencia collection has that wonderful sleigh-bed thing going that makes me run my hands over the curves and think of bed and breakfasts visited years ago. none of these is a bargain, but there aren't many furniture purchases on which we'll need to splurge (the sofa is really the only other one), so maybe this can be the other. :)

i've been checking out green resources in town, and there's a shop in lawrenceville called artemis that sells reclaimed wood. maybe we'll be able to get our flooring from them. i'm looking forward to talking to them about this :)

modern window treatments

for rooms where the windows need privacy screening but full light *and* we don't mind people knowing whether there's movement and light inside (that is, probably not on the first floor--it creeps me out when i'm home alone and passersby can see exactly where i am, probably a holdover of being raised in a comparatively rural area and now living in the city), the design sponge has found a potential solution for me: . there are some other designs, but this one has the most mod look to it. i could see it working in a few rooms in the house with not-so-pretty views where i'd never want to raise blinds. even with some sheers framing the windows to soften the look if needed, it could work to mod things up upstairs.

episode 5, in which wile e. considers the room in which one eats the road runner. er, the dining room, that is.

hi love to entertain. i cannot wait to convert our living room into a dining room--we haven't had a dining room for more than two years. in my old apartment, i threw dinner parties at least once a month. sometimes buffets served from the dining room table, but often really sit-down dinners, elegant and grown-up. either way, i heart my dining room.

i don't fancy the dining room having other functions, really. it does have some nice niches beside the decorative fireplace for some bookshelves, so it can certainly display books, but i don't want it to be primary storage or activity space, really.

really i just want it to be an elegant, modern, simple, clean space, one that transitions nicely between the kitchen and living room, as it lies between the two. i like that it's open to both rooms, and i like my existing furniture well enough to keep it. not what i'd choose again today if i had a do-over--it's 16 years old or so, and feels a bit dated--but it's perfectly workable with perhaps an update to the seat cushion fabric. glass top, curvy black wood frames--basic contemporary styling. definitely not midcentury, but i can keep it from clashing if i keep things simple, which is my natural tendency. our dishes are all asian-inspired and neutral in tone, a look that flows nicely with the midcentury and the contemporary as well as with the color schemes we have in mind. (oh, and bonus news for me on that front: smartboy did the voice of color color sense game, indulgent as he is of me, and guess what? his color collections recommendations were the same as mine. go figure.)

unfortunately, this room is painfully dark a lot of the time. it has one east-facing bay window, meaning it'll be dark when it's most used. and it has zero lighting installed. time for a good modern pendant lamp that takes compact fluorescent bulbs. i think the colors in here will be pretty simple--continuing the maple floors (which i've decided will be bellawood; not only are they what bob vila likes and otherwise seeming to be good quality, but they're made right outside williamsburg, virginia, where i lived for nine great years. i like their natural grade northern hard maple  in a medium-width plank.), the black wood of the dining set, neutral tones on the table top, probably a taupe on the walls. i want to strip the paint from the brick fireplace, which will warm the room, but mainly i like the food, candlelight, and photography on the walls to take center stage. the room already has beautiful wood blinds that i think will stay, though i may add some drapes to soften the look.