mod remod

ready, set… almost go!

December 29th, 2010

Does Progress take a vacation during a holiday week? As luck would have it for us, no. Progress is in motion!

Let’s see… it was almost October when we met with Markus, our architect. He’s swamped with responsibilities as assistant professor of interior architecture at RISD, so hooked us up with Emily Wetherbee, also on the faculty, to carry on with what we started.

Our original plan was to start with the upstairs living/kitchen area. But winter isn’t such a great time to rip out exterior walls, which is one of our goals, so Emily, David and I decided to switch gears. Stage 1 of our destruction will now be the downstairs as it’s all interior work.

After several meetings, including today’s, Emily is closing in on detailed plans for the engineer — then off to the city for a building permit. I’ll give you a better look at the plans when we’re closer to final…

So 2011 looks like it’s going to be The Year. Finally. It’s actually going to happen. No, really.

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snow day!

December 27th, 2010

Hope you had an excellent holiday. It’s finally looking festive here. The first and likely last blizzard of the season arrived last night. The forecast said 21″ but we only got 12″. 50 mile an hour winds left us with bare spots and crazy 4′ drifts…

Oh, in case you were wondering: yes, a foot of snow on top of the slippery, polypropylene thermal blankets on our construction zone makes for hazardous footing. The good news is that even though the patios are on hold until spring, we found an excellent use for the pond in the meantime…

Snow tunnels!

Hope you’re out there having fun, too!

Tags: koi pond, patio
Posted in garden, randomness | No Comments »

a dual-flush toilet for $20?

December 19th, 2010

Sure, you could spend $200 on a shiny, new dual-flush toilet. But it turns out that you don’t have to. Ima let David tell you why…

* * * * *

I was reading about the new 1.28 gallons per flush toilets the other day. They’ll probably become the new standard at some point. That got me thinking about how much water our original, raw-liver-colored, 1971 American Standard toilet has wasted during the three years we’ve been talking about renovations.

Since 1994, all toilets sold in the US have been limited to using 1.6 gallons per flush. Dual-flush toilets, invented in Australia in 1980, lower that usage further by using no more than .8 gallons for #1 and 1.6 gallons for #2 (some use even less).

While researching all this and looking for attractive toilets that meet our water-conservation needs as well as fit our tiny downstairs bathroom, I came across the HydroRight…

Starting at around $15, it converts any toilet into a dual-flush — in fact, it looks remarkably like the mechanism in Kohler’s dual-flush toilets.

Our upstairs toilet had been leaking last year, so I replaced the entire mechanism. That involved removing the tank from the bowl, a job I wasn’t looking forward to again. But the HydroRight doesn’t require anything so drastic to install. It simply replaces the rubber flapper that dumps water into the bowl when you flush, and it replaces the handle with a two-part button system.

If your toilet has a float controlling the water level, you’ll need to replace the fill valve. That’s the tower thing on the left inside your tank. The HydroRight folks have a number of fill valve options starting at about $10. It requires some tools and a little bit of mess to install, but it’s still manageable.

* * * * *

Thanks, honey! I just want to add that the HydroRight has picked up a number of innovation awards this year, which lends it some pretty solid street cred. If you want one, Amazon and Home Depot are just a few of the places you can find it.

A corporate video on the product.
A video on installation on Good Morning Arizona.

My favorite thing about HydroRight, other than the water we’re already saving: the flush button.

1 for pee. 2 for poo. Makes me smile every time.

Posted in bath, green | 2 Comments »

kirei board

December 18th, 2010

With our patios on hold until the spring, it’s time to turn inward. As we close in on finishes for our interior remodel, I’d like to offer this for consideration: kirei board. Japanese for beautiful, clean, pure and truthful, kirei is a natural, engineered product made from reclaimed sorghum stalks.

Heat-pressed using a non-toxic, formaldehyde-free adhesive, kirei comes in panels like other sheet goods — it’s basically another kind of plywood. I think the first time I actually saw it in use and not in a magazine was at a Dwell on Design show in L.A. a few years ago. You’ve seen this cabinet, right?

Nice one, Iannone Design. Since then, they’ve released a number of other pieces crafted from kirie…

There’s a lot going on in this board — a little goes a long way. But in the right applications, I think the pattern is rather stunning…

Strong and lightweight, it’s a great wood alternative for cabinetry, furniture, floors, ceilings and walls. You see it increasingly in retail spaces — I know I’ve seen it at Aveda.

Here it is at Denver Botanic Garden in the cafe. They used it for their recycling station…

I just had to shoot a closeup of the crazy patterns going on in the doors…

Jennifer Siegal, a modernist prefab pioneer, uses kirei board in her prefabs as well as in her own house…

Here’s the whole Dwell slideshow of Siegal’s home in case you want to see more.

Kirei looks pretty crazy unfinished. It comes in 10 mm (about 3/8″), 20 mm (about 3/4″) and 30 mm (about 1-1/8″) panels. This sample we just got shows how it’s bonded to poplar to make it more stable…

Here’s a thicker sheet sample…

You can really see the sorghum stalks…

This would need a good sanding, obviously, but it sure is pretty…

You can finish it with wax or a water-based polyurethane. Not so into DIY? Heck, you can have kirei cabinetry built and shipped to you. So 21st century.

Tags: green, sustainable, wood
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if only…

December 14th, 2010

Something occurs to me as I look out over the yard of almost shins-deep, rapidly hardening mud…

Had we chosen the Circle Up landscape layout from among our many choices, the pond and patios would probably be done now. Probably. Maybe. Smaller pond means less digging. Less digging would probably have meant fewer sacrificed plants and less brand-new topsoil carted away — both of which will have to be replaced. Now we can look forward to fabulously mucky, slippery journeys up and down the slope after every snow and rain shower, all winter long. Oh joy.

Curse you, hindsight. Curse you.

Tags: hardscape, landscaping, patio
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the dyker lights

December 13th, 2010

This weekend, we took our second annual holiday light stroll through Dyker Heights, the Italian-American birthplace of no less than Chachi, aka Scott Baio. It’s in Brooklyn near the Verrazano Bridge. We’re talking inspired, over the top crazy insane displays.

Towering toy soldiers. Spinning ferris wheels and carousels. Nodding reindeer. A jovial Santa-clad homeowner on a throne at the end of a long cue of wide-eyed children and camera-laden parents. Every 6-year-old’s dream!

Wish my pictures could capture the glory and the spectacle. Unfortunately a lot of them just didn’t turn out. Maybe it’s just one of those things you have to see in person to believe…

Where and when: [with thanks to the Dyker Lights Visitor’s Guide]

11th Avenue to 13th Avenue and from 83rd to 86th Street
D/M trains to 18th Ave; R train to 86th Street
For best viewing visit in mid-December
Weekends tend to be better than weeknights
Visit between 7-9 pm for the most intense lighting

Want more?

A little history of the Dyker Lights.

A guided bus tour that ends in cannoli and cappucino.

And last but not least, there’s a PBS documentary called Dyker Lights shot in 2001. Can’t find that for view anywhere, although it airs on NYC PBS this year. Fuhgeddaboutit.

Tags: holidays
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30 festive things

December 8th, 2010

Guess who just came out for the holidays? No, I don’t mean Ricky Martin, silly wabbit. I mean our vintage aluminum Christmas tree, vintage Holly Time revolving tree stand and trippy vintage color wheel. ’Tis the season, homies!

Wanna join me in being a kid again? Come on…

And last but not least, the Santa tree topper…

Where I find these things (in case you actually care)

eBay | The place to go when you want something specific. My favorite searches: “vintage Italian glass Christmas (or Xmas) ornament”, “vintage sputnik Christmas (or Xmas) ornament”, “vintage atomic Christmas (or Xmas) ornament” and “vintage spinner Christmas (or Xmas) ornament”. I’ve also gotten a few great vintage trees — as you’d figure, just hunt for “vintage aluminum Christmas tree.”

tin toy sites | There are plenty of places to pick up Japanese tin toys, but I tend to frequent tinmantintoys.com and tintoyarcade.com. I gave up trying to score deals on vintage tin toys on eBay — prices are astronomical. Obviously big demand for them by collectors. Since I’m using them as tree decorations, I figure they can be repro. They all come with keys and actually wind up, spin, roll, twirl, etc. They tend to be heavy so I use fishing line to afix them to the branches.

flea markets and antique stores | Good for great old Shiny Brite decorations, felt elves and whatnot. You just never know what you’ll find.

revolving tree stands | There are new ones out there but if you want an old one, try “vintage revolving Christmas tree stand” or “vintage Christmas tree turner” on eBay. If you’re willing to pay a little more to make sure the stand will work for years to come, there are a few sites that recondition the vintage stand motors. Oak Tree Vintage is one of them. Ours was new in the box, dated 1961. Works like a charm… well, most of the time.

color wheels | eBay eBay eBay. I’ve never seen another one that looks like ours… yet.

Tags: holiday ornaments, vintage
Posted in kids, things | 1 Comment »

december 7, 2009

December 7th, 2010

This is what the yard looked like one year ago today… (click to biggify)

For better or for worse, here’s what it looks like today…

Check back in a year and I’m sure the differences will be easier to spot. Heck, the patio and pond might even be done!

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patios: day 6

December 6th, 2010

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!! 23 degrees this morning and it barely reached freezing today. Brisk wind didn’t make it any warmer, that’s for sure. Still, the Land Design Associates crew was here at 8 a.m. with their woolies on.

With temps this low, they couldn’t do anything involving concrete. Installing the flexible pond liner is a no go too as apparently it gets brittle below freezing. That made it a clean-up day instead.

Fill went in around the backside of the pond walls…

The floor of the pond was raised up some with base, raked to level, tamped down…

Piles of soil were leveled out and the yard was graded back to something manageable. Then the pond and patio area were covered in thermal blankets again to keep the ground pliable…

The stone pavers can’t go onto the patio until the pond liner is in and the coping around the edge of the pond is installed. Soooooo… looks like we’ll have a wait for the temps to rise before much more can be done up top. There is, however, a chance the lower patio may go in tomorrow.

Shall we consult the Magic Eight Ball to see what it has to say about that?

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Tags: garden, hardscape, koi pond, patio
Posted in garden, projects | 1 Comment »

patios: day 5

December 5th, 2010

So our patio project is really hardening up. heh heh. See all that cement?

It’s now in our backyard. Day 5 was all about finishing the walls of the koi pond. That entailed a lot of cement…

And a lot of ensuring that lines were squared up and things were level…

And a lot of yard guts being moved out of the way and into the street…

What does that mean for the plants in the margins of the yard?

Let’s just say I’ll be digging out the cardoons and the euphorbias and yadayadayada.

It never made it out of the low 40s today. Brrrrrrrrr. But in spite of the cold those boys powered through the walls. Look at them go!

With the temps dropping down into the 20s at night, the crew decided to break out the thermal blankets on the newly poured walls and upper patio area…

As well as the lower patio…

That was a long Saturday’s worth of progress. Nothing going on here on Sunday. Except more hardening. And maybe I’ll get out there with a shovel to see if I can find my poor plants. Sorry plants!

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