I'll get to Terry's Tiny Critique in a minute because I want to show you the Warhorse Cafe. Most of you have never seen it and some of you never heard of The Goat Farm Arts Center.
They are nice. They are feisty. They can be nice and feisty - the way they were Tuesday night bless their hearts. These folks put ideas into words. We are fortunate to have them.
The Warhorse Cafe is the Goat Farm's living room.
It's funky and flexible and multipurpose. It's got sofas and lamps, art and tchotchkes AND an indoor bathroom. Here's Jordan Stubbs who I joined in the outdoor SRO section.
The view from one of the dirtiest windows in town.
Finally, Terry's Tiny Critique:
I'd enjoy another kind of culture meeting. I want our art experts to talk mostly about art, to do it regularly, to be a bit ritualistic, a bit less open-ended. I want to get to know the art as we get to know the experts and the community.
I'm an architecture optimist: Neither great architecture nor great design should require millions or mansions.
When this bungalow with a Greek temple for a front porch burned last fall, we nearly lost a great small house in a modest neighborhood. They are rebuilding. It will be the best of modern living. But we lost the porch's entablature, the Parthenon porch.
I can't find anything about the history of this house. All I know is that it was "neck-snapping good."
The original house had 12 foot ceilings. With rare exceptions nobody would rebuild a 12 foot ceiling. So they are doing 10 foot ceilings. It's huge cost savings, much cheaper to heat and cool, and provides livable space upstairs where there was none before.
The house is back better than ever But I continue to mourn a bit.
It's a 3:37 video that I can't even embed. You'll have to click the link below.
Magazines, TV Shows, Blogs bring us more design than ever, more interaction than ever.
But I'm not satisfied. With all the interest, with all the talent, with all the technology, we should be doing better.
Last night I found this little video about a little house. It's a fascinating house but that's not what interested me most:
It's criticism in a human voice. It's educational entertainment that leaves me thinking. It's a breath of fresh air.
I think it shows up lifeless real estate ads full of marketing keywords, scripted celebrity TV design shows, and worshipful brand building magazine articles.
Classic southern living at the 2009 Henry County Fair Demolition Derby. Micheal with 1st place trophy.
Miranda Lanzillotti Time Inc. Lifestyle PR Group sent me the October issue of the new, improved Southern Living Magazinehoping I would blog about it. Thanks Miranda. Stockbrige Emission Center made me an honorary member of the Demolition Derby Pit Crew. Thanks Bill, Jason, Lamar, Micheal, and Rick. What a great week!
So here is my man-blog review of 2 kinds of southern living. Demolition Derby - preparation
Remember the Stockbridge Emission Center Pusher Car? No? Here you go:
My Stockbridge Emission Center buds converted their pusher car for demolition. It's for a good cause: helping promote the Kiwanis Club sponsored Henry County Georgia Fair and the opportunity to win $500. Nice intimidating tu-tone paint job:
Southern Living Magazine - the giftI've been scanning Southern Living since the very first issue in 1966. My dad was a gentleman farmer and got Progressive Farmer. I think my mom suggested we switch to Southern Living (same publisher). So I've been scanning Southern Living for 43 years. Right now my kids' Grandma gets it so I scan it on family visits. Grandma always invites to take it home. southern living derby and Southern Living Magazine
The great thing about the magazine: If you read it long enough, you find a home, an event, a restaurant, a shop, a personality, right in your own neighborhood. I don't know if they've covered the Henry County Fair yet, but they just might.
Demolition Derby - getting ready
Before the Derby, the crowd got acquainted with the cars and drivers.
Southern Living Magazine - the scan
I've developed my scanning routine. Feeling a little sleepy-eyed from Grandpa's huge dinner - often including dumplings and chocolate pie - I head for the sofa and grab the latest issue. I do a straight front to back page scan mostly looking for colors, places, and food that catch my eye, and places I'm familiar with.
Then I go back and read the articles that interest me. Usually there are an handful of pictures that I show to the wife, kids, and anyone else in the room. They humor me and say, "That's nice Terry." Southern Living Magazine - the dog-earOn my second time through, I dog-ear the pages I want to follow up in person or on the Internet.
Demolition Derby - drivers' meeting and the "pen"
The drivers meeting was serious. I mean they are going to crash cars on purpose, man. But these guys were about to have one of the best times of their lives. The crowd started moving up from the midway, the rides, the corndogs, the livestock auction. There were far more than I can show in the picture. They were ready for a good time. The big machine made a pen from New Jersey Barriers. The derby cars drove in and the machine sealed the pen behind them. You can see the Stockbridge Pusher blur its way in.
Southern Living Magazine - the followupLast month there was a landscape article about a tiny yard in Midtown Atlanta. I dog-eared the page. When I got home I Googled the homeonwer, the landscape architect, and tried to find the house in Bing.com. I found the owner and architect but couldn't find the house. So the next day I did a drive-by and there it was. I'd driven by it 100's of times. Southern Living helped me to look more closely. Just like the magazine? Yes and no. The yard wasn't freshly manicured but still looked great and tiny. The house looked better in person. Seeing the house in context with it's neighbors and from different angles is something you just can't get in pictures.
Demolition Derby - crash, bang, boom...
The cars were sealed up in the pen, noses to the wall. Then we had 9 minutes of real southern living ecstacy: roaring engines, belching smoke, red mud flinging, powing, banging, and crunching, the crowd screamed, squealed, ooh'd and aah'd with delight... Until the only car still moving was the Stockbridge Emission Center Pusher Car! But it was a little muddy.
Southern Living Magazine - stuff that caught my eyeI'll need a bit more scan time at Grandmas to get through it. Here is what caught my eye this time:
Pansies on page 17 (I man-plant the pansies at our house)
Our Favorite New Cottage page 64 costs too much to be called a cottage but it's a beauty with it's red roof.
Dear Southern Living page 72. New feature? Very nice graphics for getting points across.
Garden section starting on 80. We're too lazy to plan. This is nice though.
Build an Outdoor Fireplace page 90. The one picured costs more than my house.
Plant Zones page 92, a Southern Living (and Progressive Farmer) standard.
Bishops House page 94. What details! Personally I don't need so much stuff inside but I like how industructable it looks.
Food pictures.....
Baptism at Moon Lake page 112. This is a new type of feature I think.
Healthy Living page 119. This is the anti-southern living. Pass the butter and salt please.
Two Great Auburn Galleries page AL 6 because Auburn is a cute nearyby college town.
Demolition Derby - the winner and tow truck ride of honor
So Jason took the trophy
The whole team celebrated...
And while some competitors didn't fare so well
The winning Pusher Car rode home in honor.
Thanks to readers, Southern Living, and to the Stockbridge gang. What a week.
Terry And thanks to "Hooked on Fridays" blog party; I hope y'all will click here and have a look.
Here it is, the building permit sign went up this week. It's across the street a few houses down. It's a postwar minimal traditional built in 1947. The owner was a veteran, raised a family here, mighty nice folks.
This is the kind of house most folks my age were raised in - me too. Probably about 1,200 square feet when built on about 1/5 acre. With additions it's about 1,400 square feet. They don't build like this any more, not with these details at this size. It's quite handsome but not old enough to be a classic, not new enough for "modern" tastes.
It's on the high side of the street. The driveway and steps look tired and have settled a little. Imagine how many girl scouts and trick-or-treaters have made the climb. My girl scouts and trick-or-treaters did.
All it needs is some paint and fixing up, the roof looks pretty good. Plenty of life left for a few more generations. That's what would happen in most neighborhoods. But in mine, it sold for $332,500 this spring and they are going to tear it down.
The back yard is flat, a nice place to park if you have a load of groceries.
As with nearly all postwar houses, the owners added on. What do you think: Kitchen bumpout on the right. Laundry room in the middle, new master bath on the left? The single car garage, like most on the street is gone. You could barely get a car in there anyway.
Well they are going to tear it down and build a whopper, more that 4,000 square feet I'd bet. I'm going to watch the whole thing.
P.S. Here is another teardown from my street, a couple of years ago. They did keep the foundation. Turned out pretty good but I don't have the a picture of it finished and landscaped.
There is plenty of crying and fighting in design. Frank Lloyd Wright supposedly said something like, "if the roof isn't leaking you aren't trying hard enough." I don't know if he really said it but we certainly don't have to try very hard to cry during design.
So on Sunday mom, dad, and Daughter #2 visited Daughter #1's apartment to hang pictures, straighten, organize, and rearrange. And boy do we know each others' hot buttons. It could have been - should have been - an emotional massacre.
Here is a bit her "office corner" in false color from a year ago:
Gordon said get 2 big mirrors. We did about a year ago. We got them cheap. They Rule. You can see this one and in the reflection, you can see the other. It's like having 2 more big windows.
It's all inexpensive. You also see the baby blue, damaged, brand new sofa Gordon found at MANORism for $200 (MANORism has a blog). The bench under the mirror is from Antiques and Beyond on Cheshire Bridge but it's no antique. The desk from Horizon on Ellsworth Industrial is everybody's favorite. The chair is mom's derelict office chair from Office Depot.
But I'm not here to talk about mirrors.
Sister, dad and mom spent hours messing with daughter #1's apartment without a single fight and without a single tear. It looks good too.
It might have been the round of Zestos milkshakes that did the trick.
Jeff has changed the colors. He's started building the hardware, removed all the old shutters and painted the windows.
In the original post Gordon and Jeff had designed new shutters, and selected colors for the shutters and for the window muntins. It was controversial. Family harmony was at stake. Dogs and cats were sleeping together.
They did a test. I took some pictures and did some PhotoShopping. Here are the original black, non-functional shutters. The test is in the lower right.
The muntins have gone white and the latest shutter color is California Paint "Pettingill Sage" Hist144. Here is the sample.
Let's go though the progression via my amateur Photoshop Elements, skills.
Black Shutters:
Photoshopped bluish shutters:
Removing the shutters changed the house big time. I almost snapped my neck as I drove by. I asked Jeff if he'd considered no shutters. He said emphatically, "these shutters are going up."
Photshopped Pettingill Sage (I don't have the correct colors and don't know how to manange the sun and shade.
It's a corner lot, here is the other facade with original black stick-on shutters:
Photoshopped with the bluish shutters:
The no shutter look. Here is Jeff. He's horsing the shutters around so I can get some pictures. Did I mention that he built the shutters himself? Well he did.
The Photoshopped sage shutters.
It's a great corner lot in the Lenox Park area of Atlanta's Morningside / Lenox Park neighborhood.
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