Wham Bam Lamb Slam '09

Pine tree on neighbor's house across the street (note the uprooted based of the tree)

A little traffic hazard in our neighborhood

Ok, so it's been awhile since we've made a post. Three reasons: 1) no power for nearly a week, 2) no Internet for 3 weeks, and 3) lots (and I mean lots) of fallen trees. Around 1pm on Friday, May 8, the tornado sirens sounded, and we headed to the neighbor's basement. After sitting out the storm, we emerged to find two pine trees and a power pole snapped in two and laying in our neighbor's yard. "Oh, my," we thought, "this could be serious." That is to say, we live in an older neighborhood with several big trees. One partially dead and looming pine tree in our other neighbor's yard has threatened our garage for the last two years. That's the causality I imagined next. As we walked home, we saw the carnage of snapped and uprooted trees resting on houses, in yards, and across streets. Luckily, we found our home to be relatively untouched.

Our backyard (the power line is suspending the uprooted tree)

Under that pine tree is my compost bin

The relaxed pine in the photograph above is one of the many culprits for our loss of power and Internet. And, yes, I'll spare you the suspense: the compost bins I made from recycled fence boards didn't make it. (Considering what so many of our friends had to endure with damaged homes, I'm more than willing to have sacrificed it.) The news reported that we had experienced sustained winds over 80 mph with some gusts (or rather blasts) exceeding 120 mph.

Immediately after the storm settled, I headed to the farm and home store down the street. With flashlight in hand, a retail clerk assisted me down the aisle where the generators were. This wasn't the first time our power had been off for an uncomfortable period of time, so I was more than willing to buy a little box of gas-powered convenience. (I later found out that getting said gas ended up being 30 miles away, but that's another story.)

Chainsawing trees all day builds an appitite for lamb

As it turned out, we were the only home amongst our foodie friends (two of whom had just bought an entire lamb) with a powered refrigerator and enough propane to cook up two nights of some fantastic dinners. Friday night was lamb shoulder and lamb burgers stuffed with herbs and goat milk feta. Saturday night was a smoked leg of lamb with all the appropriate fixings. Eric also brought over some fantastic wine and voila, Lamb Slam 2009. By Sunday, we were ready to be done with no power. I had to conduct a wedding the following weekend in MO, so we headed out early to grandparents and a powered civilization. Granted, we had endured our own little natural disaster, and our daylight hours were filled with endless chainsawing, but during those two nights of the Lamb Slam we ate well, drank great wine, and laughed a lot. Natural disasters are just more fun when you have great friends.

Before & After: Living Room (and a few additions to the dining room)

Living Room Before (with previous owner's furniture)...

Before, the living room ceiling, walls, and trim were painted a light celery green, which probably does not read as well in the above photograph. The carpet was dingy and in need of updating, and the vertical blinds just had to go. (Besides, we wanted to take more advantage of having floor-to-ceiling windows.) We liked the long narrow bricks in the fireplace (very mid century), but they were too jarring for a clean modern look.

Living room after...

First, we painted the ceiling and three of the walls Rhinestone white. The fourth wall we painted a stony blue. For the floors, we stayed within our meager budget and used Mannington laminate snap-in planks. The fireplace got a coat of super duty primer before a few coats of Rhinestone white. The mirror above the fireplace we got for a steal at a now-out-of-business boutique shop in downtown Springfield, MO. It's made of bamboo veneer. Originally, it was a much lighter color and full of scratches (thus, the steal for the price). All it took was some sanding and a very thick coat of mahogany gel stain and presto. A few other highlights include the floating orange bar (made from half of a dropleaf table acquired from dumpster diving in Boston--the "drop" in the dropleaf is soon to be added), the tripod lamp in the back corner (made from a surveyor's stand I got from another dumpster search in Boston), and the Broyhill Brasilia credenza (circa 1963) we bought from The Future Antique in St. Louis. We also cannot go without mentioning how thrilled we have been with our leather sectional, a great find from Macy's, of all places. (We'll try to get a better picture of it for another post, but for now, this link will have to suffice.)
Another important piece in our living room is the completed (at last) 4'x6' MIO tile project I mentioned in a previous post. I didn't want to glue them to the wall (as the manufacturer suggests for permanent installation). I knew we would end up ruining the tiles and the wall in the process (i.e., trying to adjust crooked tiles or wanting to try the placement in another part of the room). Instead, I ended up building a framed canvas from a sheet of thin MDF and routered 2x4s, painted it the same color as the tiles (Rhinestone white, again), attached the tiles with wood glue, and called it a (very long) day. In the end we couldn't be happier with the result. And, admittedly, we've been leaving those floor-to-ceiling windows open to let the occasional pedestrian view the final result. Oh vanity, I know, but when you put this much work into a project...

Dining room before (with previous owner's furniture)...
Dining room after...Ok, so we've shown the dining room before and after in a previous post; however, we finally finished the wall once hidden in the cave created by the awkward placement of the shelving unit. After we removed the shelving unit and placed it against the opposite wall, we placed our bench under a very simple coat rack (8 Ikea hooks on 4 mahogany stained slats of wood). The orange floating bar I mentioned earlier is a little more noticeable in this picture. We still need to get a bar stool to go under it, but that will have to come later.

So now that the living and dining rooms (or perhaps we should just refer to them as a great room) are "done" (for now), what's our style? At first, we were headstrong about mid-century modern, but our budget necessitated the use of a lot of furniture we already had. The style of the green and orange leather chairs, cow skin rug (not pictured), dark circular mirror, and organic touches (e.g., twigs near fireplace) almost give this room a colonial African modern look. (Who would have thunk it?) Granted, the label of this style does not seem appropriate for our post-colonial world, but what would you call it? It's not totally modern. For one, the materials and palate are too warm. It has some mid-century elements, but I wouldn't go as far as to call that the style. "Eclectic" is always an option, but that word seems overused in interior design to mean anything (or sometimes just a nice way to say "no style"). Oh well, this is trivial, I realize. At the very least, this "style" conundrum has prompted us to consider some new options for our walls. I think we'll try to do some interesting effects in Photoshop (e.g., heavy color saturation or posterizing) to my great grandparents' slides from a trip to Africa (circa 1960).

A Rainy Day Makes for a Good Planning Day

After a great brunch with friends this afternoon, we headed home to get our day of chores started. I borrowed the neighbor's truck and headed for the hardware store for lumber. On the list was a sheet of MDF for the MIO tiles, a 2'X4' half-inch sheet of birch plywood for coat racks, and boards to widen the exposed beam in the office to accommodate a ceiling fan. The rain put a damper on any hopes of painting or staining. Oh well. We had time to make asparagus and mushroom pizza on the grill and planned more for the completion (for now) of the office rennovation. We're considering the following three fans from Home Depot as options for the office: (right to left) Hampton Bay 52 In. Vasner Colonial Pewter Finish ($229), Hampton Bay 54 In. Sidewinder Brushed Nickel with Opal Glass ($229), and Hampton Bay 54 In. Windward III ($169). We had been looking at the fans at ylighting; however, these are quite a bit cheaper and just as aesthetically pleasing.

Art (and discoveries) Around the Square

designs by 1187 creative

It's been a busy weekend already. We mounted the hanging orange bar (pics to come), visited the farmers market, bought paint for the MIO wall tiles (tomorrow's project), and wrapped up a few yard projects. Tonight we ventured out for a quick dinner at Longbranch, a great local vegetarian cafe, before we stopped in several other downtown businesses for the Art Around the Square event. The easy favorite was photography by a graphic designer at 1187 Creative, the coolest little design studio in the area. I had noticed several well-designed posters around town with their brand and finally checked out their website. A good example of their branding concept/design is my favorite bike shop in town (we have three), the Bike Surgeon.

We were also thrilled to peak into a few more spots we cannot wait to visit again. Fusion is a great bar with a light menu. It will make a perfect stop before a nice dinner at Global Gourmet. Unfortunately, both places have a pitiful web presence, so the links just take you to Google Maps with a few food reviews. Oh well.