Coffin Half Bath Finished, Nursery Almost Complete

It really is a dramatic difference. Hard to believe that the coffin is gone and our sleek new bathroom is here. Everything is changed but the floor: new walls, new wall color, new baseboards, new sink, new toilet, new mirror, new light fixture. Actually, once the walls were done it only took about 2 days to finish the rest.

The complete album is up:
http://picasaweb.google.com/dryanlocker/TheCoffinHalfBathRemodel

I still will add blinds and decorate. I will post some more photos when the decor is totally done. We are thinking about putting some of my Tibetan art and masks in here; keep an Asian theme going.

The nursery is also almost done. The walls are done and most of the trim and touch-up is done. Now we are waiting for the new carpet (July 3), new blinds (shipping July 6), and the furniture (which probably will not all be here until Mandy's parents bring the new crib with them when they come for the delivery.

Nursery Painted, New Fan

We just got our first coat on the nursery walls. Second coat will go on tonight. It is a pale, semi-neutral green. The room will have a safari/jungle theme for our little hunter. It will mostly be tans and greens. I also installed a new fan/light last night.

Once the walls are done we will paint the trim, replace all of the outlets and switches with Decora stuff. We are putting down new carpet as soon as all of the painting is done. Only 7 weeks to go before our little boy arrives.

I have finally gotten back to work on the coffin half bath. It is ready to be sanded down and should only take some touch up mud in a few places after sanding.

Check back on the web albums as I have added some photos in the nursery and coffin half bath folders.

Screen Box Built and Hung, Nursery Begun

This is the completed and mounted box/shelf/mantle that I built to conceal our projection screen. No fancy joinery, just a little glue and a lot of nails from a nail gun. I think it turned out pretty nicely. It is a foot deep, so we could put quite a lot of stuff up there, but we will probably just keep it simple. Still no projector, but there is no couch so it doesn't matter. First things first. I have put more pics in the Web Album, so take a look:
http://picasaweb.google.com/dryanlocker/DenRemodel

We have also recently begun work on the nursery. There is not too much to be done in there: strip wallpaper, re-texture, paint, new carpet, new light/fan, decorate. Thankfully this will be the first room yet that we have not had to strip down to the studs in any area. We will keep our fingers crossed. I have created a new Web Album for this room that will have new pics from time to time, so check back:
http://picasaweb.google.com/dryanlocker/NurseryRemodel

I am still working intermittently on the 'coffin' half bath. I still have to finish floating the walls out with mud, sand, texture, paint . . . I have just gotten so burnt out on mudding that I seem to be stuck on that stage. Once I get that done it should not take very long to finish.

Staples Pulled, Screen Hung

I think my estimate of 2,000 staples now looks very conservative. There were a ton. And they're all out now. It tore up the walls, as did getting the last of the wallpaper down, so it is looking pretty rough right now. I think I am going to have to float all the walls out at least 1/16", maybe more.

I hung our projection screen. It is a 106" Da-Lite High Power (2.8 retroreflective gain) with in an eletric retractable version. It is pretty sweet. I still have to build a box around it. It will be black and look vaguely like a fireplace mantle.

You can see from the picture of it rolled down that the high gain screen coating really works. The flash makes the screen look brighter than the walls, which is exactly what it is supposed to do. Our problem is that we are putting the system in the worst imaginable room: one with tons of windows that you cannot control the light. The only way to get around this is to use a high gain screen and a very bright projector (2,000+ ANSI lumens). The retroreflective screen means that it directs most of the light back toward the projector, which means we will have to use a long-ish drop pole for our ceiling mount. The projector will probably end up hanging at about 7' from the floor, which means that you will be able to touch it, but won't hit your head on it. It still will not be perfect, but will serve our purposes very well: Most of the time it will be for movies at night (no light issues) and the occasional Sunday afternoon game (usually overly bright footage anyway).

Death by a Thousand Staple Pricks

So apparently when you cover your walls with padded silk, you have to use about a bo-zillian staples to hold it up. So for the next few days Mandy and I will (very) slowly and methodically be pulling out all of them. Seriously, I conservatively estimate that there are over 2,000 staples in the walls. The staples tore up the walls pretty badly, so I am definitely going to have to put a layer of joint compound over everything just to smooth them out before we can texture the walls. Weapons of choice? Needle-nose vice grips, some very tiny pry bars, and . . . dental probes.

NEW PICS!!! Den (almost) Complete, and Half Bath Demo Started

I have just posted a whole bunch of new pics in our Picasa Web Album. In particular, please take a look at these two new albums:

Den Remodel
http://picasaweb.google.com/dryanlocker/DenRemodel

and

The Coffin Half Bath Remodel
http://picasaweb.google.com/dryanlocker/TheCoffinHalfBathRemodel

We have recently finished, or at least almost, our den/family room/media room. It was about a 3 month project, but the results are well worth the work. New walls, new colors, more open and airly looking, and wired for a projection system. That is the part that still has to be finished. The screen just arrived but has not been installed yet.

"The Coffin" is our only half bath/powder room and is called the coffin because it was covered from floor to ceiling in padded silk with gold silk piping around every edge. It really felt like the inside of a coffin. We just got started gutting it, and all of the silk is down. We will replace the sink, the toilet, light fixture, mirror, change the wall color--basically everything but the floor will have an entirely new look.

Notice that I have added captions to most of the photos with extra information.

Also, we had a productive day in Austin on Friday, where we picked up a great light fixture for our sun room. I will get that hung in the next couple days and post pics. The old one was a beautiful Italian porcelain pink thing that is very valuable, but does not fit the house at all. The new one is fun and funky, and is reminiscent of a George Nelson bubble lamp. Thanks to our friends at Urban Living in Austin--they have such cool mod stuff!

Office Remodel Pics

The first room that we took on as a major redo was the office. The real difficulty of this room is that half of it was being used as the laundry room and we wanted to move the laundry room across the house. This meant that this project really meant redoing 2 rooms, because the prospective laundry room had to be plumbed, etc.

Basically I tried to imagine my idea of the perfect home office and then tried to create it, complete with multiple runs of cat5 hidden in the walls, and lots of desk space with good lighting.

We pulled a bunch of paneling, capped the plumbing for the old laundry room, pulled down the accordian-room-divider-thingy that separated the office part from the laundry part. I then re-walled the room, and built a desk where the washer and dryer went, complete with 2 desk areas, corkboard back and wall-mounted monitors. We also painted all of the cabinets black and the walls light blue. We also moved another book case from the den into the room and built it into the wall and trimmed it out. We also ripped up the floor and retiled it.

Take a look:
http://picasaweb.google.com/dryanlocker/OfficeRemodel

and more

http://picasaweb.google.com/dryanlocker/OfficeRemodel02

Night Shot

I took the tripod out and took some photos right at dusk. This is the view from the back patio.

Intro to Atomic Birdcage

This is the story of an ambitious remodel/rebirth of an amazing mid-century modern ranch house in small-town Texas.

About a year ago, my wife and I left the fast pace life of downtown Houston for me to take a job in my family's hometown of Brownwood, Texas. In the dead center of the state, Brownwood is a small town of about 25,000, and feels like idyllic small town America.

Like many small towns, Brownwood has some fantastic architecture that can be had for modest prices (typically $70 sq. ft. or less), but most need lots of love to bring them up to their full glory.

Most of Brownwood's architectural gems are turn-of-the-last-century Victorians, but a surge of development in the 60's and 70's resulted in more than our fair share of Atomic Ranch houses.

We were fortunate enough to purchase what is probably Brownwood's best example of the mid-century ranch. Our home was built in 1962 by up-and-coming concrete mogul, Bob Ingram.

The house is 3600 sq. ft. and almost perfectly symetrical in a U shape, with two wings of the house surrounding a patio. It sits on a gorgeous lot aproximately 1 1/2 acres. It is a far cry from the tract-home Eichlers built on the west coast, but shares the same modern soul.

We are only the third owners, and the house had not been updated in about 20 years. Our undertaking has been a rather large one, especially since we are doing all of it ourselves.

Prior to purchasing this house we had no real interest in mid-century architecture, but that changed as soon as we fell for this house. We have become mid-mod enthusiasts, and we are trying to restore and revamp this house in a way that honors its history without directly repeating it.