Our now or never point for installing network and audio wiring has stretched into now-or-some-time-in-the-next-three-weeks. So we have had more time to devise a solution.
This is the system I would have purchased had I been rushed. It is flexible and easy to install. Cost/benefit is pretty good.
Still, it’s not the ideal solution. There are multiple ways it is not right. The flexibility is just on the wrong axis. We don’t need 6 different sources of music in 6 different places, we need the music we want in about 2 areas. 1. Downstairs commons, 2 Master suite. We need access to internet radio and our iTunes play lists. And we need to know what we are listening to without walking half way across the house and kicking somone off the computer. It just looked like the ideal solution had not been invented yet. Until I stumbled upon Sonos.
It’s really cool to see interaction design that just knocks one out of the park. Everything I have seen about this product and the company tells me that they “get it.” The web site is sharp, and the FAQ answers actual questions.
We will be wiring standard speaker wires and volume knobs throughout the house. (Once again, I can thank commenters on this blog for a good decision.) We can plug our old component stereos into these and someday, a we’ll get set of Sonoses.
One last comment about the stairs before we start climbing them. They started building from the top. Really. In this picture you can see stairs starting at the top floor, leading to a landing, and … that’s all they got. There are just a few 2×4s and a strap holding the landing up.
The plumber said in 20 years he had never seen such a thing.
A lot happened yesterday. I know, I know, I didn’t post updated pics of the stairs. So shoot me. But David got a great shot of the landing.
The guys working on the stairs are totally my new best friends with cherries on top. The pic doesn’t show it, but they did get the upper treads in by last night, and one of the bottom supports.
We were told that the plumbing is pretty much done with the exception of the roof punch-throughs. There’s been rain in the forecast on and off and they don’t want to take chances. They decided to do the punch-throughs on Monday when the roofers can come in and immediately put down the shingles. And that’s it–then they inspect and move on to the last stage: drywall, flooring, and finish out.
The last stage!
David told me that things slowed down a little when the lead electrician came by and realized that his guys hadn’t done as good a job as he expected. Sounds like the kinks got worked out, tho, and I am glad I didn’t know there was a two-day hold up because it would have just caused me stress anyway and now all I know is that I am about to get to go upstairs and they are ready to schedule the roof and inspection.
And did I mention that I presented my thesis last night? I know that has nothing to do with the house, but it is just one more thing I am uber-happy about. I’m done! I got my Master’s! I’m so happpppeeee!
Back to your regularly scheduled remodel-in-progress.
If you are like some people, you only want to see pics of the finished product, right? So avert your eyes! Because I have pics of the half-finished stairs! Wheeeee!
Last night, we snuck in for a quick pic after bathtime. Ah, the smell of sawdust. And, let me tell you, I have never seen wood like this before. It is truly awe-some.
Tonight, we should have mostly finished pics for you. They won’t put in our cable railing for a while yet, but there will be treads, which means….
I FINALLY GET TO SEE THE SECOND FLOOR!!! If me and the beach ball can get up the stairs, that is 
I got an email today from Realty Austin. They wanted to show off their new home searching tool. Check it out!
Pretty cool, eh? I don’t think those are all the houses for sale in our neighborhood–there is one down the street that isn’t on there. Still, gives you a really good idea how many homes are on the market in a general area. Summer hasn’t even started yet… realtors, start your engines!
I was surfing around the other day and happened upon a truly fascinating article by Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The article is one of his oldest about American’s fascinations with suburban lawns.
Like the interstate highway system, like fast-food chains, like television, the lawn has served to unify the American landscape; it is what makes the suburbs of Cleveland and Tucson, the streets of Eugene and Tampa, look more alike than not. According to Ann Leighton, the late historian of gardens, America has made essentially one important contribution to world garden design: the custom of ”uniting the front lawns of however many houses there may be on both sides of a street to present an untroubled aspect of expansive green to the passer-by.” France has its formal, geometric gardens, England its picturesque parks, and America this unbounded democratic river of manicured lawn along which we array our houses.
I’ve never been a lawn kind of gal. We lived on a half-acre lot when I was growing up and I watched my dad while away the better part of his Saturdays mowing the damn thing, pruning the trees, trimming the hedges. It was gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but it took an inordinate amount of work. Most of our neighbors had services, but then most of our neighbors on our quaint and quiet little lane were also the retired original-owners my dad had grown up next to.
In Texas, a lawn is a strange and difficult obstacle to an otherwise hassle-free weekend. Texas lawns need year-round care, unlike my parents’ lawn in Illinois which was covered in snow for the better part of the year. Texas lawns require weed killer and ant killer and snake killer and creative de-pollenation. I have no time for these things. I am all about letting nature do its thang. Native plants are beautiful and require very little maintenance. Gardening… well, I’m not good at it, but I do enjoy it, I must say.
For if lawn mowing feels like copying the same sentence over and over, gardening is like writing out new ones, an infinitely variable process of invention and discovery. Gardens also teach the necessary if rather un-American lesson that nature and culture can be compromised, that there might be some middle ground between the lawn and the forest–between those who would complete the conquest of the planet in the name of progress, and those who believe it’s time we abdicated our rule and left the Earth in the care of its more innocent species. The garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature half way.
David is our resident lawn-mower. He likes the lawn, and he’s willing to take care of it. We’ve got our work cut out for us once the remodel is finished–chances are good that our lawn has been demolished along with much of the original house. Luckily, we live in a really cool neighborhood with amateur (and professional!) landscapers who have gone where we have not gone before. I look at our new yard as a fresh palette, an example of what the New American Lawn could look like if we met nature somewhere in the middle.
When I drove by the house early this AM, there were about 10 pickup trucks parked up and down the street. I haven’t seen that much activity since the demo crew arrived three months ago, so I was both pleased and perplexed.
Things slowed down in the last few months as we were warned they would. The plumbing, electrical and A/C all needed to go in and those are the tedious, perfectionist tasks that are very complicated but don’t show well in pics. Look! Another light switch! Look! A can light! Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, the framers have returned to fix the sill issue on all of the windows (they’ve done the bottom floor but haven’t erected their makeshift scaffolding to do the second floor yet). I saw the electrician’s truck; yesterday he was on a ladder all day installing all of the outdoor lighting. And… drum roll please… the STAIR guys were there this morning!
That’s right! They are FINALLY going to be putting in some stairs!!
Who knows if I will have any pics to post later tonight, the stairs are some complicated foo. We didn’t give our contractor an exact idea of what to build, we simply gave him a bunch of pictures and told him generally what we wanted and then trusted him to find an artiste who could erect something wonderful. This is how much we trust our contractor, see?
The main points were that we wanted the stairs to be as open as possible since they are in the middle of an open area and we didn’t want them to block the view, sound or energy flow of the first floor. We also wanted the railing of the stairs to match the deck railing to create a flow between the indoors and outdoors. Both the stair treads and decking will be in Ipe wood.
When I drove by, there were four guys standing right inside the front door where the stairs will go, tape measures in hand. I am so. freaking. excited.
Those of you who know me personally know about my interest in Jungian and Campbellian archetypes, themes that appear and reappear throughout the ages across unrelated cultures. I see three square windows everywhere nowadays. In trying to find out more about their architectural history, David and I stumbled upon a few interesting links…
The three square window theme dates back to the Incan Temple of the Three Windows at Macchu Picchu:
It is now known that it was built long before the Incas, and that it’s olden name was Tampu-Tocco, “Haven of the Three Windows.” The place, and its unique windows, are featured in local lore regarding the origins of the Andean civilization when the gods, led by the great creator Viracocha, placed the four Ayar brothers and their four sister-wives in Tampu-Tocco. Three brothers emerged through the three windows to settle and civilize the Andean lands; one of them founded the Ancient Empire that preceded that of the Incas by thousands of years.
Ubiquitous they are, and yet considered modernist. From Architectural Ruminations on a 1936 Armstrong home:
The design makes effective use of tones and textures from the white of the stucco to the grey of the limestone, darker tones and shadows at the bricks, and darkest in the repeated composition of three square windows. While the stone face of addition partially concealled by vines and planting appears to be old, the white stucco of the garage extending beyond the end together with the flat roof of the addition, is a clear indication of its modernity.
Armstrong has developed his architectural expression by the careful juxtaposition of materials, forms, geometry, and textures.
It appears we are not the only ones with an eye on 50’s doors:
I never cared for the diagonal thing myself, but I’ve always liked that other 195Os contender, the three square windows stacked vertically. They’re crisp and Modern, unlike the diagonal version, which looks to me like it’s trying too hard to be different. Then there was also the model with the same three square vertical panels. but they were wood, attached to a flush door.
Another random find:
when i was a kid, i’d hang out by the back door in my kitchen. the door had three square windows, one on the bottom, one in the middle, and one on top. and i remember at one point only being tall enough to look out the bottom one. then the middle. then the top.
Funny to think that this theme has such interesting origins and varying interpretations. I’ve read others, from the fact that early art shows three square windows on the side of the Trojan Horse, and that three windows are often used in Christian architecture as an entry point for the Holy Trinity.
And here I just thought they looked cool.
We have Eagle windows. I am giving them a deliberate shout-out and link. We did not spec a brand of window, we just asked our contractor for the best value, and we got all wood double hung windows. They are spectacular. The only way they could match our original windows better would be to put ten layers of gloppy lead-based paint on them.
The Framers came by today and corrected the trim around the windows. Sill, drip cap, no board under the sill. What a huge difference this makes. I can’t wait to move in and spend one lazy afternoon after another building wood screens for them.
But I wonder if this obsessive attention to detail means a have a little too much in common with a certain beaver.
(Props to Lauren for the heads-up on the article.)
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