The Best Gin

Here are few things to share that reminded me of this weekend and just spending time with family at Christmas.

1. troutman rocking chairs (http://www.troutmanchairs.com/)

2. hendricks gin (http://www.hendricksgin.co.uk/)

3. For Christmas I made this mailbox for my brother's new house in great falls, va.

4. my son Harrison turns two (2) in a couple months and i built this stool so he could make dinner with mom in the kitchen. the wood came from my parents barn. its pretty old wood but not old enough to have square nails. the table in the picture was made from wood dating back to the mid 1800's and i removed handmade square nails. i love the family table. the purpose was to build a table where the kids could all do their homework and we could eat together as a family. the joints are all mortise and tenon. took forever. the pine for the table came from discovery antiques in gonzales, Texas. (http://www.discoverys.com/) best reclaimed building inventory in the southwest.

i came back to austin early to make pulled pork. my brother in law came home from oxford mississippi and was talking about pulled pork from corky's. it got me to thinking that i need to re-create our pulled pork experience from a wedding we went to in manteau, nc. i am sure i butchered the spelling but we had a great time a couple years ago there and i cant stop thinking about the pulled pork from pigman's (even though i am true to Tx BBQ). I am a bit of a novice on eastern bbq but I love pulled pork. brother in law (kevin) brought us some bbq sauce from "Rendevous" and I cant stop sopping it up on chips.

I stopped by central market this afternoon and picked up a 5lb pork butt. i will let you know how it turns out.

telluride

two things i really like about staying in the sunnyside house in telluride:


1. the carpet on the stairs 2. shaw original sink

day at the pumpkin patch marble falls, texas

Here are some of the picks from our trip to the pumkin patch in marble falls texas.

hotel original

The only fan you should ever own, the hunter hotel original:

building an old florescent school fixture

I've been busy with my work and lately my work includes building a light fixture to hang over our conference room table. Initially, I was looking for an old florescent school fixture with baffles but I've had no luck finding such a fixture on ebay, craigslist or otherwise. Here is what Central market had in there produce section. So after some world wide web investigating I found what I was looking for in a lithonia fixture, however it was too pricey in my judgement, $800. I decided to design and build the fixture. It cost me about half as much and I think what I created is a better looking product. I drew up the design and sent it to capitol company on north lamar in austin. Mr. Higgonbathom and James really helped me make it happen. I ended up there by chance. I stopped by there shop thinking it was another sheetmetal shop but they had everything I needed and were very helpful so I stayed and showed them what I was looking for. I left the design with James and he told me the metal pieces would be ready the next day. In the meantime I went to breed & co. near the university of texas campus and purchased the sheetmetal screws and chain I needed to hang the baffles. On the way home I stopped by the schwinn bicycle shop and purchase a couple of bicycle chains to hang the light from the ceiling. Breed & co. really has almost everything you could ever want in a hardware store. Another good hardware store in austin is the Ace hardware on 183 at anderson mill. I like the owner because he is a gun nut, actually he is more of constitutionalist and I respect that. Anyway, here is the product of my labor, I hope you like it. My plan is to sell this stuff eventually. The conference table doubles as a ping pong table. My wife and I are supporters of the Austin Children's Museum. We were attending a party at the ACM, located downtown, and I rediscovered these National Public Seating Corporation stools. They are not very comfortable but make for a short meeting and I really like the way they look. This got me to thinking about a website you should look at named Motoart. Aaron who works for me told me about this website. I am fascinated with their work. I am a pilot so it makes their stuff all the more exciting. I really like the wing that doubles as conference table.

metal window openings

It is difficult to define eactly what like about a nice building, but windows are usually it. Windows are the eyeglasses on a pretty girl in the library. A well designed window draws you in and holds your attention. Thought goes into a well designed window, well proportioned, breathing, attractive, balanced, scaled and functional.

These pivoting windows on an old service station in Terrytown caught my eye.

They allow the movement of air which is functionally important, yet they have an industrial and universal appeal. Earlier in the year I was driving down congress ave and I took this picture of the scarbrough building as I was sitting at the light.The green tint of the windows is just right. This is a handsome building, one of Austin's best.

gardens on 35th did a great job with their windows. I stopped in on a wednesday and tried to take a few photos without being noticed. It is difficult to find the actual manufacturer of this type of metal window because they hardly exist, but I eventually found the only company that I know of that makes this type of window, a&s window associates. You will notice the casement for ventilation in the middle of the window. I like this, but the proportions are a bit strange. Well much of austin is strange. fd2s building is in an old warehouse in east austin. I think this building is an example of well proportioned windows. Not too big and sized to compliment the building.

purpose

The purpose of writing is to give you an idea of what my building will look like. Allbeit parts and pieces with an occasional hand drawing. I take pictures and mental notes of things I notice about old buildings, fire hydrants, cast iron tree grates, signs or whatever. Each item works fits together, it shouldn't compete or it wont work. I like the word "work". It is used best with other words like water works or public works. I like the word "public". It works well with public house or republic. Most of my ideas come from places. Sometimes its places in Austin where I live and others it is on planned trips to places we've visited like, seattle, gonzales, santa fe, tulsa, charlottesville, georgetown (dc), new york. Sometimes when my wife is with friends or family I will make the rare solitary run to places like archer city, tx to visit booked up home to Larry McMurtry. Larry McMurtry is an excellent author because he makes what may seem mundane fascinating because his writes about what interests him. Everybody knows about lonesome dove but what you really should read is "all my friends are going to be strangers". Its about his time at Rice U. and then his road trip to california with an interesting woman. His new book titled,"books" is really good also. I bought it in telluride at another great book store, between the covers. This store is small but they a better than any other book store that I know of at putting out great books to read. That tells me they read what they sell and I think thats important. When were there last year we stayed at a house named sunnyside. It is exactly how I would have a vacation home if my budget were limitless. Partnered with good taste extra cash can reap good design. I prefer a well built cabin to high end appointments so this is a little misleading but I thought I should share because it is so well done. In August we got away for a week in telluride, this time just my wife son and I. I took some photos of things that caught my eye. Some things red,

and some blue,

I dont know how this would fit into my building but except that I like this blue. Its like paris metro lettering blue. I took a clay hand class last spring and made an address sign for the house with the same blue color. I think it would work well with a well designed hanging metal shop hanging sign like one you would see in any good town. And while this third one is not hanging, it is an example of attention to detail. There is something to be said for marking permanent property boundaries. Not marking it like a barbed wire fence with a texas & southwest cattle raisers association sign. More like something you would document something in a drawing. Like you drew a line on the ground that no one could erase. I think a white cast stone with black or charcoal grey paint in the lettering would look right.

I look forward to talking about water towers and cisterns. Round rock and marfa have great water towers. I would like to incorporate that type of watertower design into a water collection system with galvanized gutters. I have other ideas about the overflow once the tank is full. Much like a childrens see saw when the tank is full the see saw, triggered by the full tank, would pivot on its axis and allow the water to continue onto the water quality/detention pond in a channell that is rectangular formed concrete which runs across the property including the sidewalks and parking lot. Ultimately the overflow water would end up in the pond which doubles as a place to flyfish for bass which can thrive in this type of pond (with lots of structures of course). I'll leave you with these three pictures of martindale, texas. The grain silos are there to support the a for (i split this word up so it would wrap)mentioned cistern and water catchment system. The vertical wood member is one of my favorite design features for an old building or a new one. Looks better on an old building. Simple design is always the best. And most importantly is form follows function. "Utilitarian" is what is important. This vertical support is only long enough to bare on the wall and allow for two bolt holes adequately spaced. The bottom of the timber is tapered to ease back to the structural wall (I need to remember to talk about double withe brick walls later). A good example is the tips iron and steel building next to the train station in austin. I think they used to build locomotive engines there at the turn of the century but I am not certain. I will share those pictures with you soon. Behind the support you notice an english running bond with what I call a dead soldier course every 6th course. This goes back to the double withe wall. The bricks are turned perpendicular to the other bricks to tie each stack of bricks together. If you look closely you can see a tension rod at the top of the picture, hidden in the rafters. I dont recall its purpose but it is tensioning something. The last picture is of a carpenter working in one of the old buildings in martindale. I did not intend to take his photo, it was a bit impromptu and I think he rather enjoyed the photo op although his expression hardly lets it on. But he posed anyway and i think people like this really complete the picture. I cant think of a better place to be than exploring a town like martindale. I want to build buildings like they did in 1900.

pre-construction

I spent most of the day on one website. I discovered a blog named insidetheloopblog.com. This is the best webpage I've seen in a while. I've been searching for a medium to deliver my ideas, pictures and architecture. This blog really got me started with ideas. Not to mention her taste is excellent. I will post the pictures architecture from the different cities I've gathered my ideas including; new york, telluride, seattle, martindale, hamilton. I know i am supposed to capitalize but lower case looks better.