Frank Lloyd Wright

October 24, 2007

This weekend Patrick and I went to Chicago to visit our friend Clementine and to explore the windy city. One stop we couldn’t do without was visiting one of the Craftsman Godfather’s homes: the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio.

After a long “El” ride to the suburb of Oak Park we hustled to catch the 1:20 tour. We walked up to the home just in time to see the tour leave (and the next one not being until 3:00!). Fortunately we were in luck…a group of another 5 people just missed it as well, so the lady at the ticket counter was nice enough to escort the 7 of us to join the group that had just left. The tour lady didn’t wait to show us that she was quite a bitch. When we joined the group she didn’t hesitate to inform the ticket lady that she didn’t want us to join the group and to just take us back to wait for the next tour. (In such instances I would imagine other tour guides to warmly welcome the late joiners.) Thankfully the ticket lady nicely explained to her that the next tour was not for another hour and 40 minutes, upon which the tour lady discontentedly allowed us to join. Once we entered the house and walked into the living room she told us that they didn’t display the lamps that would have been in the rooms because “YOU will knock them down” – not a nice “people could knock them down” or something less accusing…just plain old “you will.” Wow, we got accused of something before we even did it! Then when we were in the tiled dining room she freaked out at one guy and told him to close the water bottle he was holding – which was closed. Throughout the tour she asked if anyone had any questions, so at one point I was curious to see the interior of a built-in closet in the nursery and asked her if she could open it so we could see inside. All she answered was “NO!” I guess that answered that.

Overall the tour was interesting. The $12 fee was a little bit on the hefty side, but I guess we shall call it our contribution for our Craftsman passion. Based on our tour guide’s description of Frank Lloyd Wright he seems to have been quite an asshole himself. He would make his wife wear dresses he designed that would match the style of the house. Plus the fact that he left his wife and six children for a client’s wife doesn’t make him seem like a very caring gentleman either. But I suppose many influential people have their weird knack’s, so you have to separate his creativeness and what it has contributed to history from his selfish and, as our guide book put it, “not so humble” personality and life.

Here are some photos from our trip:

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home & Studio – front of the house (now facing a side street)

Frank Lloyd Wright Chicago Home

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home & Studio – side view towards studio (now facing a main street)

Frank Lloyd Wright Chicago Home

One of the “Bootleg” houses – one of Wright’s first home designs (for which he got fired by his boss)

Wright Bootleg House Chicago

Nathan Moore House (quite crazy with cathedral-like looking windows)

Nathan Moore House Chicago

Arthur Heurtley House

Arthur Heurtley House Chicago

You can see the Japanese influence on this design

Japanese influenced craftsman home

The Unity Temple (we decided against the $8 tour of the interior)

The Unity Temple Chicago

Unfortunately photography inside the home and studio were not allowed, but the interiors of his home definitely showed the influence of interiors that can be seen inside the common style bungalows with tons of wood work, built-in features, butler’s pantry, etc. (that is, unless they’ve been torn out by careless contractors wanting to make a quick buck). The pictures I’ve found online are pretty bad quality, but to get an idea: living room and dining room. The old dining room converted to the “kidsÂ’ homework room” had very nice built-ins, but unfortunately I can’t find a photo.

On our next trip to Chicago we’re going to have to find and explore the famous “Bungalow Mile”. Plus the German part of the city so I can connect with my peeps and see how much in touch they still are with their German heritage. ;-)

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Living Room & Another Animal Story

October 10, 2007

Living Room
Our living room has been somewhat neglected throughout our renovation process. Since we haven’t peeled any layers of paint off the woodwork we prefer not to touch the room. Otherwise it becomes the famous started project that doesn’t get finished because you start working on something else. We started with the dining room wood last winter and just about haven’t touched it since. So the thought is that it’ll be best to keep our hands off of the living room until we finish with other rooms. At least that applies to the paint removal process.

When we had our floors redone we weren’t made aware of the fact that they would tear out all the toe kick molding in the house. What we also weren’t made aware of was the fact that after the toe kick molding was pulled out the cost of replacing it was not included anywhere in the estimate. Uhmmmm….yeaaaah. Anyway, old story that I probably shouldn’t think about too much unless I want to ruin the rest of my day. Another thing torn out was the molding around the fire places. It took us a while to find a piece of wood somewhat similar to what had been there. We had bought the wood a while ago but had it laying around the house until now. So we finally took the time to work on it.

The fire place with missing molding…

The fire place after we cut the wood to fit…

The fire place after the wood was stained. And our awesome white pumpkins that our client Julie Stephens from Kimball Hall (www.kimballhall.com) got for us. We love them!!

Here are some of the close-up photos. That $8.00 miter saw from the home improvement store did a pretty decent job!

Patrick applying a special stain blend of “Provincial” (same as the floor throughout the house), and “Cherry” (needed to make the new wood match the color of the aged/old wood)…

And close-ups of the stained molding around the fireplace. Now we only have to see about investing in an air compressor so we can actually attach the molding to the floor!

Another Animal Story
On a separate note we have another sad animal story – in my previous animal story I’ve mentioned the neighbor

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Beltline Model Mile Comes to Our Neighborhood!

October 2, 2007

That’s right folks – I can also post on here! I bet you never would have guessed. Steffi does such a great job keeping everything up to date that I have focused more on the Westview Neighborhood website (www.westviewatlanta.com). We’re such nerds!

Anyway, yesterday at our neighborhood meeting they announced that the first mile of the Beltline will be constructed between Westview and West End. This is a massive effort that both neighborhood’s are honored to have!! On OCTOBER 20TH between the hours of 8:30am and 12:00 noon a major clean-up will take place in association with WEND, Park Pride, PATH, Trees Atlanta, and the BeltLine Partnership. Construction is set to begin by January 2008 and within a year we will have the Beltline “Model Mile” running through our neighborhood.

The “Model Mile” will feature a jogging path and an arboretum, complete with granite markers that identify the various trees. The AJC had a great write-up about it, and you can read it online here.

We are very honored to have the Beltline touching down in Westview/West End. I have read numerous times that people predicted our neighborhoods would be the last to benefit from the Beltline… and now we are lucky enough to be some of the first!

Please help out on October 20th during the clean-up!!! You need to register ahead of time by going to http://www.treesatlanta.org/volunteer.html. The effort is hoping to have 300+ volunteers.

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One-Year Anniversary

September 27, 2007

Here I was hoping to break out some great blog about our one-year homeownership anniversary…and all I got was this crappy photo. :-P

So yes, a year ago today we signed our lives away to own this house. We didn’t move in a year ago, but nonetheless it’s crazy to think a year has passed since we bought the house. We’ve got several things accomplished – like putting in all new plumbing, electrical, A/C and heat, a new kitchen and a new bathroom…and well, we’re obviously still slowly working on the rest. When I think about the ugly house we had under contract in East Atlanta I am sooooooo glad that the deal fell apart and we ended up with this house. I absolutely love it and the details and the history and the fact that I can say that I bought a house when I was 24 years old!

So here’s to our one-year homeownership anniversary…in PJs and ready to go to bed, but a “cheers” nonetheless. :)

2007 Anniversary

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And Here We Thought We Were Done With Plumbing…

September 26, 2007

So here we thought we were done with plumbing. Since our house had been stripped of all its copper plumbing before we bought it we had to replace the whole system. Then take the whole plumber nightmare (after nightmare, after nightmare, …) into account and well…let’s just say we were very much over plumbing and plumbers. Apparently fate decided we weren’t quite entirely done with it just yet.

While we were on vacation I went online to pay out water bill. I was a bit shocked that the bill was about $30 more expensive than our highest bill – and we had been out of town and not using the water for half of that period! The city had recently come by and replaced the old water meters with some new digital ones. Patrick and I had heard from other people who had theirs replaced that the water bill became more expensive afterwards.

When we got back from vacation Patrick mowed the lawn and had trouble at one spot next to the house where it was still very wet. We didn’t think much of it. It had been pouring a couple of days earlier so it probably just hadn’t dried yet. Only the wet spot stayed even after days of no rain. By Sunday we were starting to get into panic mode – it had to be a water pipe leak. We found a place online (based on Kudzu recommendations) who also happened to be open Sundays. We called and scheduled an appointment for Monday. Monday a guy came and gave us an estimated cost – ahhh, you gotta love those unexpected high bills. (I guess that privacy fence I so desperately want will have to hold off a bit longer.) The plumbers were scheduled for “sometime Tuesday” (but couldn’t specify when).

The two-men plumbing crew rang our door bell about half an hour before our alarm clock was due to go off. We showed them the area and they got their tools ready. Before we knew it our yard looked like this…

Plumbing pipe replacement

Plumbing pipe replacement

…and exactly 2 hours later the guys were all packed up and driving off…. :)

Plumbing pipe replacement

Plumbing pipe replacement

Instead of running the pipes through the yard to the back of the house like it was before we followed their suggestion to bring it in at the front of the house and run it along inside the crawl space instead. I’m not sure how much other people pay to have their pipes replaced, but I definitely can’t complain about the 2-hour turn-around time and the fact that they were able to come out a day after quoting us a price.

Hopefully our plumbing woes will be over for a while now. Really the only original plumbing feature now left in the house is the sewage pipe back to the street. But I won’t talk about that too loudly…I don’t want the sewage pipe to get any ideas after all. ;-)

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