Archive for the ‘question’ Category

SIDE YARD

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

Knocked down all the knee-high weeds but everything is still a horrid mess.

Being full on freaky for furniture, I wanted to check out how the table looked in the side yard (and at least free up some storage space). I kind of feel like it might be too nice to leave out here…but maybe that’s all the ghetto looking surroundings working their magical guilt.

The ground is super uneven and it’ll definitely be a long time before that final “look” is achieved. We still have a bunch of stuff to do to get this area looking and functioning like that fancy virtually landscaped yard.

Wait? But what things?!

Things like this:

SIDE YARD TO DO

+ Rototill soil
+ Level/grade dirt
+ Drip irrigation
+ Plumb/filter pool
+ Run electrical
+ Weed barrier
+ Weld metal edging
+ Decomposed granite
+ Concrete paver walkway
+ Stain/seal fence
+ Plants
+ Tree
+ Lighting

Look at that beat up table top. This thing was ridden hard and put away wet. The teak will do well outdoors though.

I’ve got a ghetto tarp covering up the table to protect it from the harsh sun for now, but it still needs a nice weather resistant cover to keep it from getting too abused. At least I know rain won’t be an issue. Thank you wicked dry desert climate!

+++++

In other unrelated thoughts and boring stuff:

I’ve been working on the show with Laure again, as well as tirelessly on the shop and other sneaky ventures. Summer time means that it’s 8,000 degrees in the desert and working on the house is a physically torturous and sweaty nightmare. Admittedly, I’ve been phoning shit in around this old blog as of late, but in all honesty, I just got nothing. No great ideas, no fun content, no big projects I can share. I’m exhausted and totally uninspired and the house is a disaster pit that I just awkwardly walk around while trying to ignore random piles of laundry.

Otherwise, it seems that I’ve been straying away from blogs and spending more time on twitter and instagram and other micro-blogging (I hate myself for even typing that) formats which are easily accessed on my phone. As I’m traveling more and spending less and less time at a computer, these little venues feel like an immediately accessible option and are seemingly where more and faster interaction is taking place.

So, to you – you fine summer loving and attractive folks – here are a few things I’ve been asking around about:

How do you deal with crappy uninspired creative lulls?

Have you noticed a shift in the way peeps are interacting with blogs and the blogging community (please punch me for writing blogging community)?

Anyone feeling slightly burnt out? Please say it’s not just me feeling completely cray-cray crazy lately.

FILED UNDER: exterior, furniture, landscape, question, readers

59 Comments »

ONLINE SALE

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

Here is a sneak peak at the pieces going up tonight for sale at 8PM (hopefully). As a newbie to the whole eBay listing process, I have to admit being a little intimidated and overwhelmed. There is a lot of detailed crap to figure out (Pictures? Condition? Shipping? Terms? Freight? Insurance? Pricing?) and every single template listing thing for eBay is incredibly ugly and impossible to navigate. I’m hoping all goes well and the items post when they are “supposed” to – nerve-wracking stuff for sure. These puppies are also “supposed” to end this Sunday night in order for shipping and delivery to be arranged before the big sale.

I set up a sad little eBay store HERE. I’ll update with some direct links to the listings when they go live.

But because Summer is more adept and organized than me, you can check out her MODERNHAUS listings right HERE. There’s burl…just saying…

*Also, SO very sorry for all this annoying sale stuff. I’m trying to step it up and learn from the last big sale we did – which was kind of a mess. Now I’m ultra panicky about doing it better and being more organized and awesome at it. Anyone ever sold on eBay before? Any tips? Horror stories? I’d love a little more anxiety please…

FILED UNDER: ebay, furniture, question, vintage

40 Comments »

Reader Dilemma

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

We’ve tried this reader question thing before and it was a lot of fun, but then I slacked off on keeping up with dilemma requests. No more! I’m a blogger. Look at me blog.

Mia recently wrote in with a rug dilemma. For someone who pretty much only has cowhides covering the floor, I seem to get a lot of rug questions. Also landscaping. Which is strange since there are weeds throughout the entire yard. Who cares! I love to have an opinion and you guys do to.

Without further rambling, here we go.

Mia writes…

Hello!

I’ve just about saved enough money to buy a Moroccan rug from Moroccan Maryam’s website – but I can’t decide which one to get!  Your taste is awesome so I thought I would ask you for advice! I really love *(#1) – but I think it may be too huge for my tiny living room.

Thanks for your help : )

mia

This is the living room in question:

ooohhh. White floors. Fancy.

This is the Room & Board sofa (in Terra) that Mia is buying to go with the rug:

And here are the four rug candidates she’s chosen:

Here is my take:

My first style choice is rug #1. You are concerned it won’t fit, (and rightly so) but at 63″ it’s only a little over 5′ wide. Now what I would need to know is the width of the room (is it 8′ or 10′?), but what may be a bigger issue is the length of the room. Rug #1 is almost 15′ long. Do you have over 15′ in that room or will you walk right through the front door straight onto the rug? Because front door to rug = hot dirty rug mess.

I know there are a number of rugs available at Maryam’s site, so the first thing to do is to take some painters tape and outline the most appropriately sized rug for the room – in other words, where you want it to go. Obviously you want it to float under the sofa and allow some breathing room in front of the media unit. Measure those dimensions and find a rug that is similar in pattern to #1 and as close to your dream dimensions as possible.

Also, I really like THIS pattern.

I think before you do any buying it would behoove you to do a little bit of measuring work. A bit of pre-planning can save you a bunch of money down the road, since the worst thing to do is invest a bunch of cash in an oversized or undersized rug. Nothing looks weirder in a room than a strangely proportioned rug.

My other question is – where is that sofa going?  Looks like that room is super narrow and awkwardly shaped with lots of broken up architecture. Space planning seems like it would be extremely difficult. Will your current pieces be moved around or moved out? How is the rest of the furniture layout being addressed?

OK, instead of a simple answer to your question I just raised a bunch of issues.

What do you guys think? Which rug should she go for?

FILED UNDER: consulting, question, readers

36 Comments »