Tough times my friends, tough times.

The Brick House is now accepting advertising. I am also now available for any freelance writing, photography work or design consultation you may need. Also, if you are in the Inland Empire and need a whip smart, design savvy and motivated employee I’d love to submit an application. I can be reached via: contact@the-brick-house.com

Any suggestions for available positions or firms to approach would be much appreciated. I will be combing the employment pages.

Thank you readers, fellow bloggers, new friends. You are my constant joy to read, exchange ideas with and be inspired by. I’m looking forward to transitioning into a new career and would be ecstatic to receive any suggestions, tips or advice.

xoxo

Morgan Satterfield

The clever and talented Lily from bigBANG studio just posted about an impromptu swim party in Joshua Tree at a friends large live stock tank pool. I’m dying. DYING.

The Brick House is only a short drive away from Joshua Tree and I am desperate to know where these stylish folks  found this tall galvanized water storage tank, how they added that sweet custom ladder and what kind of filtration system they are using. So many logistical questions! So hot and in need of our own livestock pool with a killer deck and better views to lounge in.

This baby puts our own livestock tank pool plans to shame.

Hypothetically….

If I was to have a big old yard sale, would it be of interest for people to come out to Hemet and buy my crap? My consignment space is a total miserable failure so I’m shutting it down. This whole “going out of business” thing sucks since I’m packed to the gills with crap and have no real storage space, plus we really need some cash to continue working on the exterior. Big plans in the works…

I was thinking that before the summer kicked into total high gear (where my real job takes over every spare second of time) I could have a sale on Saturday, June 12th. This is a depressing option. I’m depressed. I also don’t want to just give things away for nothing – which I totally believe should be the yard sale pricing structure. If it was like a reasonably priced estate sale-ish thing would that be fun? Heavy on furniture and vintage (lite on baby clothes and junk – which seems to be the only stuff at every garage sale around Hemet). What do you guys think?

The one thing I abhor more than anything else in a home (and trust me if I come to your place, I will notice) is ugly tangled messy electronics. HATE FOR THIS. Boiling seething hate. The Boy and I have come to a number impasses over this “electronics” issue over the eight years we’ve been together. It’s been a consistent issue raised, but never resolved.

This particularly new electronic stereo mess has been sitting in the living room for a few months and I’m at about the point were I start to completely loose patience and stare at it with seething fury every time I walk by. The cords, the CORDS, all those messy cords…

I’m trying really hard not to be an asshole about it. Really, really hard. I understand that my role in the relationship is to be a complete freak about the aesthetic side of our lives, but he’s not willing to hide it and I’m not willing to look at it. No compromise is forthcoming so it looks like we got ourselves a stalemate.

My question for you is this:

How do you battle out those kind of decor issues with your significant other? What is your decorating snapping point?

*P.S. On the prettier side of things, I think I found a spot for the new spider table.

**P.S.S. I think I win though, cause come on. CD’s? What is this the stone age?

Now that the house is getting painted and the exterior is slowly coming together I’ve started to think (once again) about shade sails. While the above installation is not the most glamorous example of a shade sail, the structure and design is pretty similar to what I’m considering installing in our side yard.

Residential applications are a little less industrial and hazardous looking…

Our side yard takes a beating during the long summer days and could use a bit of relief from the desert sun. If we create a little outdoor dining / ping pong recreation area I’d like to alleviate some of that intense heat with a pair of rectangular gray sun shades that are attached to the eaves of the house and then strung out and fastened to three large metal poles cemented into the ground.

Instant shade.

Here is a mock-up in Sketchup of what I’m sort of thinking :

I’ve been looking around at shade sail manufacturers and found Tenshon whose 9′ x 14′ shade might just work perfectly in grey. At $169.00 each they are not totally unreasonably priced.

Here are some examples of Tenshon shade sails :

I haven’t been as impressed with the quality, pricing and color options (as well as size customization) at other manufacturers, but I’m still looking around.

It’s probably premature to start really planing this project (but I just love to plan and then get depressed waiting to do it for real) so my question for you is:

Has anyone installed a sun shade? Any tips or things to be weary of? Is this look dated or is it awesome?

Thanks!

The Boy and I can’t decide.

Oven.

TV.

Paint.

Here is the deal-io:

Oven

I know I’ve mentioned before that our oven doesn’t work, like the stove top and griddle are great and all the pilot lights work – so it’s getting gas – it’s just that the oven part won’t ignite. We’ve had people come look at it, I’ve talked to restorers and priced out restoration – but the cost is really prohibitive and no one seems to understand whats wrong with it…so I’m tired of dumping money on it I don’t want to invest a ton of money into it if there is little hope of it really working correctly forever and ever. The other weird thing? We have a 40″ oven space and need at least a 36″ wide oven to straddle the gap.

TV

Our TV is about to take a dump. The top portion of the screen no longer works correctly and everyone’s head gets cut off. It randomly goes black and white and the volume will sometimes just go to max for no apparent reason whatsoever. It is a television possessed and we are waiting for it’s final throws out of this mortal coil. We’ve had it for almost ten years and it’s seems the time to replace is coming…but what will we do without TV? I don’t know, live life more fully, read more, do more house projects…but goddamn it after a long day of work I like to relax a bit and watch Hoarders: Buried Alive and weird documentaries about Brothers and Sisters in Love while snuggling on the couch in horrid fascination.

Paint

Still got to paint the house. OMG.

…

Oven

Because of the crazy wide gap we are going to need one of those super expensive six burner commercial grade totally over the top ovens to fit in the oven slot. I’ve been haunting the local dent and dings, trolling Craigslist and keeping an eye out restaurant supplies for something reasonably priced. I know there is NO WAY we will find something like this for $600 – but it would make a dent in the total cost.

It’s not like we are professional cooks and need a super slick oven, but I’m so sick of hearing The Boy go on and on and on about all the great stuff we could cook if only we had a working oven while walking around the Fresh & Easy. I GET IT. We can’t heat up a pizza. Yeah, I’m suffering too.

I had high hopes for this baby when I saw it at Ikea, but at $1,749.00 it is out of the $$$ range of possibilities. The other possibility is that we buy yet another 1950’s used stove and take the big risk that it won’t function either.

We’ve also thought about moving the cabinets over to shorten the gap, but that requires a whole lot of demo and moving the vents and lighting and trying not to damage the metal cabinets and original Formica in the process, as well as replacing floor tiles and moving electrical outlets. So all in all a CRAZY amount of work with a lot of risk to close in 10 inches.

…

TV

The Boy has been voting for a giant flat screen TV for awhile now (of course, gender stereotype and all). Flat Screens, LCD’s, Hi-Def…whatever. I’m pretty easy, I just don’t want it to be ugly and huge and I want to be able to watch Project Runway and maybe True Blood when that shit comes back on. We are not technophiles and pretty TV stupid as well as cheap, an awful combo.

I guess we could be as happy as this couple if we go to Costco and pick up ourselves one of those fancified flat picture boxes that all the cool kids got.

VIZIO 40″ 1080P LCD HDTV

$629.99

This is actually in our price range…but I bet you need a lot of fancy accessories to make it work “correctly”. Special cables, mounting hardware and such. Which adds up!

Paint

YES. The house needs to be painted – it’s been over a year since we started priming.

But…we are going pure white. WHITE WHITE. Which means we can buy one bucket at a time and we are going to need about 5 five gallon buckets. At about $500 this is a project we could do all at once or sparse out paycheck to paycheck. Plus we are doing all the labor so the time frame is pretty open. Just depends on what we want to do.

I’ve been asking around to friends and family trying to get input on how to solve this dilemma…

But what do you guys think we should do? What makes sense for both life enjoyment and house resale value? Or is there something even better we can do with this tiny lil’ windfall?

The next big exterior project will be constructing the horizontal wood slat screen on the front porch. I’ve gone on and on and on about doing this project (and it’s probably the project I’m most excited to do) since I think it will make the biggest architectural statement in our whole Year Of The Exterior remodel.

Sketchup to the rescue yet again…trying to work out all the hardscape elements for the front yard.

I think we will use Redwood…? Maybe?

Other than that I’m not actually sure how to build this thing. I’ve been discussing the physical construction process of how to make it work with carpenter Craig, but he wants to use a bit of heavy duty hardware that I feel might distract from the clean modern aesthetic we are going for.

Any suggestions or secrets about how to achieve this horizontal screen before we screw up yet another DIY project?

What lurks behind that mysterious pocket door in the kitchen?

HURL. It’s the laundry room.

Oh yeah. It’s FUGLY.

These are old pics from a few years ago and it’s only gotten worse if you can imagine.

With my new and improved Google Sketchup powers (thanks all for the great tips! I’m starting to get the hang of this shit) I built out the laundry room as it currently is. This is the view from the kitchen! The room is only 9′ x 9′ and houses the washer and dryer (in ODD locations), a utility sink, shower, closet and toilet cubicle as well as the secondary breaker box.

Here is a view from above.

Now for the tour. To the right you’ll see the 3′ wide toilet “poopicle”, then squeeze on by the dryer on the left that is installed through and on an exterior door, the utility sink is on your left if you can once again squeeze by the dryer sticking out in the middle of the room. The washing machine is on your right and then there is the tiny musty shower with a shower head installed at about 4′ high and a ceiling that’s at about 6′. Just a wee bit claustrophobic and almost impossible to wash your hair.

There is a huge closet though…

Here you can see the breaker box on the wall of the toilet poopicle and the dryer wedged into the defunct doorway. The Brick House was rigged up this way when we moved and it’s been on my “priority list” for when we somehow run into a big pile of money. I’m not even sure how to slap lipstick on this pig so I’ve just left it, with the awesome teal paint and plastic tiles falling off the walls.

Ohhhh x-ray vision.

Look at that huge closet. Guess whose going to get turned into a shower! And here is that little cramped and useless second shower. Only used in the direst of emergencies.

My mission is this: With my new found sketchup power I’m going to stop ignoring this beast and get going on a plan of action. My questions for you are these…

-We have one FULL bathroom. Should I keep the shower and just remake it so it’s usable? Or is it weird to have a big shower off your kitchen totally far away from the rest of the house?

-Stackable or side by side laundry? Pros and cons?

-The sink may have to go. Is it weird to have a toilet, shower and NO sink off the kitchen?

-How the hell do you brick up that stupid door? Should it get turned into an exterior door again? Or a giant window?

This whole room is one giant clusterf*ck. No wonder we’ve been ignoring it.

I am desperately trying to learn how to use Google Sketchup and it may just be the most frustrating program I’ve toyed with in a LONG while. Screw you Sketchup and your complicated rules and axis and inferring and lines not crossing.

As an experimentation project I wanted to model out The Brick House including the patio project and my proposal for a horizontal slat screen on the front porch and a matching slat wood gate for the driveway. It took me awhile to figure out that you could load already prepared 3-D elements…

Wow, that is way wonky. But you can kind of get the idea about the slats? Right?

Look a grapefruit tree! Much cleaner and much more well trimmed than ours.

There are all those pesky pavers in a virtual world…and they are still a pain to install. I haven’t figured out how to add gravel yet.

The roof was the worst thing to make, OMG geometry is not my strong suit. This little blank model represents about a good solid two days of intense work. Slow and steady as I tried to figure it out, watching tutorials and looking around at the 3-D warehouse. I may start again and try to get it all cleaned up and done correctly…I can’t wait to start redesigning the laundry room.

Anybody else play with this Sketchup beast? Any tips or tricks?

I can see the appeal and want to get a little more competent, but that learning curve is mighty steep.

I received these little Jens Quistgaard tiny taper brass Dansk candle holders in the mail a few weeks back. A surprise gift from the east coast – thank you Wes!

Let me divert your attention to the elephant in the room behind the Dansk cuteness…

I picked up this ceramic elephant at a little antique store for a few dollars and I swear I’ve seen him around the interweb before. My memory is failing me and I can’t seem to recall where he comes from…

I have this nagging feeling that he is Italian. My feelings tend to be wrong…

He is rad nonetheless.

So if anyone recognizes him, pretty please help jog my memory.