It isn’t that there is nothing interesting going on at the Erwin House. If you consider cleaning, organizing, and purging interesting, then it is a regular kegger around here.
Actually, we’ve been going 20 rounds with Hakuna Matata, our friendly community credit union. And it hasn’t been pretty.
The good news is that, as of 10:30 this morning, things seemed to finally settle between Team Erwin and Team Hakuna Matata. They got in a few great punches over the months, but this morning Team Erwin came out ahead.
There are still some details to wrap up, and because we really, quite desperately want this whole mortgage business behind us, we might be somewhat silent for a little longer. But, rest assured, Erwin House still stands. And the landscaping still waits and waits and waits.

Throughout the project we have been taking picture from the same vantage points. Last week I put them together in a Flickr Slide Show. Below is a preview of some of the shots.

The results of the Erwin House “Guess Our Massive August Electric Bill Contest Game Event” are IN!
Total consumption in KwH from Aug10 thru Sep11: 2,325
Total current electric charges: $253.46
With blurry eyes, the closest guess not higher than the total belongs to AUNT GAYLE with a guess of $249.99! Congratulations, Aunt Gayle! I got a pan o’ brownies right here waitin for that convection oven to bake, bake, bake!
Oh, wait a second. My pocketbook! OW!!! DANG.
Our runners-up:
Paul and Ed Norton with guesses of $245.01 and $245.00, respectively.
All ya’ll get me yr snail mails so I can send you a little somethin’ in the mail, ya hear?

Christiane has a moving rule. Move the art first. That way the old house no longer feels like home, and you get your butt over to the new one as fast as possible. (My rule is move the stereo first, same reason.)
We had an unusual moving experience and did not follow the rule. In fact, all our art sat in a closet for nearly a month.
This brings to mind another rule. My design rule. Whatever you are designing, it should not look right until the last element is added. If it looks finished before you’re done, time to start over. For architecture, the last element is the people and all their stuff. The house was looking so great without the art, I was afraid we had violated this rule.
Labor Day weekend, we finally had a spare moment to put the art up.

I suppose that it is inevitable that houses like these are being torn down. As neighborhoods change, generation after generation, so do the houses.


I sat staring at Toby Weiss‘ photos and wondered how to save these unique spaces. How could more people not appreciate the originality and creativity that it took to conceive these homes? Is my own taste in architecture really so obscure?
The comments on these posts tell me that others out there are just as concerned with the destruction taking place, but I don’t think that will solve the issue. And I don’t think the answer is to somehow “save” these homes by turning them into historical monuments.
Instead, I’m issuing a kind of call to arms to all you other enthusiasts out there: rebuild. If we can’t save these houses, the least we can do is to archive them photographically as Weiss has done and then repeat the forms in our own efforts. These one-of-a-kind relics may disappear over time, but at least we can pay homage to them in our own way, keeping alive that which we love about them. Imitation is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery.

I’ve been on home tours where the kids’ rooms are a little over done. Stuffed animals arranged on hooks on the wall in the girl’s room, or a perfect display of antique sporting goods in the boy’s room. It’s like the kids are just another accessory for their parents to decorate with.
We let the boys decorate their own rooms. Our 7yo had the first finished room in the house. A victory he deserves. He was clear-headed, decisive, and uninhibited. He picked out the fan, curtains, rug, poster, and bedspread. He angled the spotlights to get the light just right. For the photo above, I just walked in and snapped the picture. He had cleaned the room and made the bed. The results are excellent. Almost too excellent.
The next room completed was my room (also called the laundry room). A 24″ wire shelf from Target just brought the whole thing together.
Only 10 more rooms to go!