The World Through Diamond Windows: 2016

Sunday, March 6, 2016

"Bite Me"

The Entry Hall proper is long, 28' feet.

I like it as a gallery of sorts very spare. Others felt it needed something but what that something was no one seemed to know. The center table NO. You can see the earlier post about design "rules" that should but don't work here.

The bench, a super consignment shop find, came out great but has been positioned all over the space.

Ultimately the bench was placed under the children's portraits. "The Dude" will get his portriat at age 3(their faces are better formed rather then just baby and no he will not be wearing the floral jumper). "The Dude's" spot is on the other side of the opening up the stairs, also known as "Baby Jail".

The art on the walls is big and good.

The space between the doors to the Dining and Family Rooms that was the real issue. It is tall, narrow and bang in your face.

We tried sculpture, pedestals and small tables. Nothing worked... we kept slamming into everything, even though there is plenty of room and points of egress. This mysterious magnetic pull is same reason we do not have an island in the kitchen. We cannot process that there is a large immobile object. The children take a full body slam, I get it right in the hip bone, the husband get it right in the gut knocking the wind out of him. When we go into others houses we make ourselves put our hands on the islands edge to physically register "LARGE IMMOBILE OBJECT DO NOT EMBERASS YOURSELF".

A piece mounted tight to the wall that fits the 9'6" x 14" wide space that I can afford and is not totally lame, has a little edge, plays well with what is there, and I want it now is what I need. The universe says, "Bite Me".

Did it ever....

"Bite Me" by Wells Mason

The title of the work alone. I had to have it.

Wells Mason is a designer and a sculptor. His specialty is combining seemingly disparate materials, like exquisite hardwoods coupled with salvaged steel.

Unlike an ordinary craftsman, there’s also an intellectual component to much of Mason’s work. With a careful hand and a broad vocabulary, Mason crafts a sometimes humorous, sometimes scathing message that’s equally concise and complex. via Generous Art

"Bite Me" was available through Generous Art of Austin Texas. When original fine art is purchased through Generous Art, 30% of the sale price is donated to the charity of your choice, 50% goes to the artist and 20% to Generous Art.

Generous Art was founded by Jennifer Chenoweth, an artist. Following a series of conversations with her friends about creativity and business, about how valuable community is to our lives, how to give back for all we are grateful for, about the lack of transparency in the art business, and about how artists get supported and their work valued.

The works represented by Generous Art encompass all mediums, price points and they are a pleasure to work with. One is quickly reminded of what art in its purest form is meant to be... a pleasure to the eye and a lift to the spirit.

The two older children decided the harts represented each of them, "because mommy loves each one of us". The bite out of the harts? "Because sometimes mommy gets annoyed with us."

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Don't touch anything! It is supposed to look like we live here...Not like we actually live here.

The house tour was on a Thursday. The trucker and I rolled the rug into the house on Tuesday. Rolled on a dolly it is 22' x 16'. The furniture was delivered about ten minuets later. We were encouraged to have the houses decorated for Christmas so for the week leading up to the tour. I totally ignored my children and fed them a diet of Dunkin' Doughnuts for breakfast. Before you judge I made sure they ate at least half the egg and cheese croissant before their allotment of munchkins. Chipotle for everything else since it is a balanced meal in a tortilla. The first floor was off limits. There were a number of "Mommy Dearest" moments that week.

This was the picture of the house that was included with the tour tickets. It is a wonder anyone bothered to show up.

We are not "that house" any more. We look a little more legit.

This was taken just before we ripped the stoop out.

Lets Go Inside.

Entry Vestibule

Jamie, of Parker's Petals, had held a class the week earlier at Jonathan Adler and shared tips and inspiration. No my arrangements will never be as good or even in the same neighborhood good as Jamie's but they are better then they were before her instruction.

The Entry Hall with Living Room to the left.

The antique French fabric made up nicely on the consignment shop bench.

As discussed in an earlier post that we have no real symmetry. Nor do we have any great place to put a big tree so I measured up my children and went to the tree yard. Each child got their own tree to "decorate" under strict supervision. It was Martha gone mad. Favorite ornaments were "missing". Anything I deemed unappealing was covertly dealt with while they slept.

Living Room

Love my Costco Deer.

Dining Room through to Family Room

My floral work shop. Basement. Pj's and Dowton Abby reruns

Family Room

The Mud Room. Seriously... I was vetting the coat selections so as to color coordinate.

And here is what the Living Room looked like shortly after.

fallsabigail, beaubreckenridge, sassiemotto and laurejouan like this

fallsabigailMake no mistake it is a Living Room.

Unlike

Sunday, February 14, 2016

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave...

No shocker I did not make it for the One Room Challenge. I did however make it for the Holiday House Tour. Credit goes to the ladies of the committee they are all fabulous actors and friends. The day they came to visit every door was blocked for masonry work. The Mud Room stairs and walk, the Front Stoop, and Window Well were all crumbling.

Mud Room Steps & Walk totally shot.

Front Stoop totally shot. Antique Planters totally fabulous.

Window well following its removal.

The top course of bricks on the side patio had been hacked in half to accommodate the shanty that had been removed earlier. Nothing says "Good Neighborhood" like a corrugated plastic roof.

Side Porch with hacked bricks removed.

Under normal circumstances the masonry work would have been straight forward. Rip it out replace it all. However, we did not want the new to look new. So every brick and piece of blue stone was numbered, photographed, chipped out, cleaned and stacked for reuse.

The bricks are all marked S & F Co. or S & F B Co. The house appears to be build entirely of bricks from the Sayre & Fisher Brick Company formerly of Sayreville, New Jersey. Founded in 1850 by James Sayre of Newark, NJ and Peter Fisher of New York. By 1913 the S & F Brick Co. was the largest of the 8 Raritan River brickyards producing 178 million bricks annually making it the largest brick works in the world. The company closed it doors in 1970.

Sayre & Fisher Brick Co.

The mortar was mixed repeatedly dried and sampled to get as close to the original pink-ish mortar plus age it 80 years. Jose, with Curb Appeal, came in for one set of stairs. As is typical jobs here start as one thing then grow. "Can you ask if he has time to do more?", "Can you make it bigger?", "It just looks so good!". Every day. Jose and his crew were here for weeks.

Typically the master of the house would survey the days work in the dark with a flash light and beer. He being just home from work was properly clothed and because I eat and sleep like a 5 year old, I was in pajamas. Woe is she who does not have all the answers for these moon lite strolls. Usually they erupted into shouting matches, in the front yard beer in hand and sporting the pj's (what a pretty picture) over my lack of concrete information in this case about concrete or not tacitly agreeing with his next great idea. If you don't want my opinion don't ask. During one of these walks he decided the stoop needed to be bigger. Thus requiring a back hoe, we can't do anything without a back hoe. The yard put up one last fight. A root system that would have prevented widening the front stoop nearly broke the back hoe. How much more stuff can possibly be dug out of this yard?

That is the root system it was huge.

Mr. Bentley's roofers were out to do preventative maintenance, add a few new snow angels and some copper flashing. A three day job turned into two weeks and once the copper flashing and snow angels started going up the master of the house wanted more. Every pitch was sheathed in copper and 118 snow angles were installed. Every day, I would send pictures and every day I would get a call..."Can you ask Mr. Bentley if the flashing can be wider?", "Can you ask if we can have another course of snow angels?", "Can I have new gutters?", "Can I? Can I?" Finally two weeks into a 3 day job Mr. Bentley said we were water tight and could keep adding in the Spring. We do like shiny things.

Yup. That is a hole. Found it. Fixed it. This hole had a few friends. Not any more.

Making the ascent to the tippy top to attached the copper at the peak.

Copper on the dormers.

Most people want the big equipment out. The master of the house likes to park it right out front. We needed the back hoe to move a Cut Leaf Maple tree for planting. Trying to plant the Maple we discovered the foundation of a collapsed Belgian block grill that we thought we had taken down.

We need the back hoe! Bring in the back hoe!

How much more stuff can be in this yard?