March 2008

This Modern Life

The Dwell House

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This weekend, we ventured down to Mountain View to see the much-talked-about Dwell House. During the trip I discovered a few things.

First, it’s a nice house — a 2500sf (at $320/sf building cost… an overheard figure) modern home with many bells and whistles. Great neighborhood. Great schools. Walking distance to downtown. A dream home for sure and one that will make the owners (one of whom I used to work with) happy for years to come.

But what I really realized is that I really need to lower my expectations when stepping into these situations (even in fetching green booties). While the house was indeed a nice place, I wasn’t overwhelmed by anything other than it being a beautiful mod-box. I was sort of expecting next-generation homebuilding beyond the fact that the home was premanufactured, but for the most part, the bits featured here — a huge product showcase for the manufactures and advertisers in the magazine — was stuff that could be fairly easily procured at the local big box (and by the proliferation of the tags on the walls, fixtures and furniture, it did feel quite a bit like I was walking into one big ad and magazine promotion).

Perhaps I was expecting solar panels for off-the-grid living. Perhaps a laundry gray-water irrigation system to help with the nicely manicured lawn. Maybe some new and somewhat untried materials, technologies or techniques. But I didn’t notice anything like this. While it’s touted to be pre-manufactured, nothing seemed really new-new (again, save that it was simply a very nice house).

For instance, when we visited the Sunset Breezehouse a few years ago, we were introduced to SynLawn… an odd, but new-to-us product that has since taken off. Additionally, I found the indoor/outdoor architecture of the Breezehouse a bit more intriguing and one which utilized passive solar and natural breezes (thus the name). Granted, these are two different cases, but since I do find Dwell a more avant-garde magazine and the fact that a lot has happened in the building industry in the past 2 years, I was expecting more when walking in.

One of the things I found delighting was the placement of a bedroom suite and desk-set by my friends at Semigood and the efforts of Branch and Design Public. This was a great contrast to the otherwise big-box-style products in much of the house (Kohler, Electrolux, etc.) and I’m glad that Dwell is getting behind up-and-coming talent when they can.

Anyway, as I mentioned, it’s a beautiful home… some pix:

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Renovation // Transformation

Shelf Wall (part 2)

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We’ve made a bit more progress on the wall in the office… still one more row of shelves to do, but it’s entirely functional as a desk arrangement now… Casie’s office was on-the-move and they passed off the old Aeron chairs to the employees… they upgraded to Leap chairs. All shelf hardware from Rakks. Lamp from Ikea. Speakers from AudioEngine via AudioVision in San Francisco (they sound fantastic, but the company just changed to a satin finish which is not as nice as the piano black). Awesome Josef Albers-designed LP from a thrift-store in Florida. All lumber from MacBeath. All work by us — cut and edge-veneered mahogany shelving and paneling — hand finished in Danish Oil, Rub-on poly, and wax. Anyway… images below. The light in the space is much better in the afternoons, but it’s time to go to work…

(edit: someone wrote to ask some specifics about installation… here goes. Also, the desk is 18.5 inches deep with a 1.5in gap in the rear for wiring pass-through. We couldn’t get much deeper because of the adjacent sliding glass door, but so far, it’s been plenty deep.)

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This Modern Life

Have a Seat

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We have a new favorite furniture store, Klassik by Lynne in Emeryville… just a few blocks from our old place. Not only is Lynne and crew super nice, but they have great stuff… and they have a unique policy of letting folks try it out before committing to buy.

When we were there last, we found a neat, angular danish chair in soaped oak. It’s become Marty’s new favorite chair. Unfortunately, while it looks like the oak version of a Wassily chair — nice and boxy, it’s a bit square in the space and we’ll likely opt for a more traditional, organic Danish Modern chair for the space… which is good because Lynne has a few.

But Marty’s going to be quite upset and will have to revert to his old haunts.

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Renovation // Transformation

Bed, Bath and Beyond

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One of the areas we concentrated on was the master bedroom, master bath and closet areas so we could get some sense of "livability" to the renovation. The closets were finished some time ago, but we just polished off the master bath vanity area.

For counter-tops, we went with Silestone’s Blanco Maple which looks a bit like old-school terrazzo and has a nice, subtle, neutral presence. We also went with the thinner 2cm material as the 3cm was simply too thick. Trouble is, finding someone to do just a bath (and use the 2cm material) was a bit of a task. We finally found Tim at Affordable Silestone and his crew did a great job. It was a bit disconcerting that the sink hole was not cut on a CNC machine, giving it perfect symmetry, but the guys did an amazingly good job with simple hand tools while on site. You can tell it’s hand-cut in some spots, but the more I look around at other granite and stone jobs, the more I notice that most counter-tops are not machine-perfect… some are even downright sloppy, so we’re feeling lucky.

All of our faucets and sinks came from the Bath and Beyond in Potrero Hill (thanks, Frank) and we ordered Marc Newson designed faucets from Porcher which have a nice, simple look and feel and Duravit sinks and toilets. We liked the sink in our old place so much, we got a duplicate for the hall bath (the next project). Lighting is from Ron Rezek, courtsey of Artemide (as always… thanks, Michelle!)

The cabinet came from Ikea (a 30in high / 24in deep kitchen cabinet base) and uses their Nexus Yellow-Brown doors — the same doors we plan on using in the kitchen if we get to it before they’re discontinued. They’re made of oak veneer stained to a warm, dark, honey color that’s very kind on the eyes when next to the original (in this case completely recreated) luan-mahogany doors and door frames.

In the toilet/shower area, the swing door was simply in the way when… well, using the bathroom, so while we had the wall open, Dan and I installed a pocket door that’s working out quite well. Because of some plumbing reconfiguring I had to do, I needed to bump out the wall a few inches behind the vanity sink which gave us the perfect opportunity to add a shelf behind the basin which is quite handy (and uses the depth of the space to greater advantage than a more shallow vanity would.

Now we have no excuse not to brush our teeth before bedtime.

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Renovation // Transformation

Wall of Shelves…

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This room — affectionately known as "the office" — never had paneling
originally, but we got the idea to use the original-style paneling for the wall and
make shelves (and a desk at the 30-in height) to match. But, we’ve been putting off the cutting of the paneling for the shelf wall. Since the pieces are 10-feet long, I had to create a jig out of some longer pieces of straight lumber to ensure the cutting was exact as the tolerances here were slim. The shelf-supports are from Rakks and sit flush with the wall surface and in this design, the pieces of paneling slide just underneath the lips of the standards… and since the standards are floor to ceiling, the pieces of paneling are simple, straight pieces (with no complex cut-outs). We think it’ll make a pretty neat shelf/desk-wall. (photos: during, after, and after the first coat of danish oil)

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