Inman Park's Fun Figure Fence

We cruised through Atlanta's Inman Park today and took some pictures of a great fence belonging to a corner bungalow.



So few designs are fun:


Who lives here? What's it like inside? It's a lot bigger than it looks.


I think a circa 1920's bungalow (might be older) should look it age. The hydrangeas have done their color duty and but continue their work in form, texture, and fading.


But I'm easy to please. This is just one detail on one house on a street you might not even find.

Thanks,
Terry

Faux Painting the Patio

Hooked on Houses is hosting her "Hooked on Fridays" blog party; I hope y'all will click here and have look. Today, I'm hooked on our little patio. I'm also participating in my second Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch!

We never go out there but it is a decorating opportunity. Gordon made us realize our bedroom overlooks a "driveway." It could actually look good and make our bedroom look better. As Tara Dillard would say, it will create a "vanishing threshold" that brings inside out and outside in.

Here it is after 18 years in the woods - 155" by 60" about 65 square feet.


After the pressure wash:



Here is the pattern. Thanks to Dave (best math guy I know) for sending it to me. The problem was how to get full "tiles" along the width between door and the edge,

Tiles will be in 3 "whole" rows.
Tiles will be yellow and red.
There will be a 2" black border.
"Grout lines" will be 1 1/2" black (change our mind on this).

Here are the colors: They complement our bedroom. The aren't matches but we have yellows and reds scattered about the room.

This is all very bright but the theory is the colors will fade behind the leafy, dirty, dusty layer of outdoor stuff get's on there. This is in fact what has happened.

Benjamin Moore Floor and Patio Paint, oil based.

2020-30 "Sparkling Sun"	Yellow faux tiles.
2007-20 "Sly Cherry"	Red faux tiles.
"Black"	The faux grout We didn't need it.

I had to use the Pythagorean theorem to figure out the dimensions. (Fortunately I went to Ga Tech and had a calculator that could do square roots. That was easy enough but laying it out gave me a headache. I drew two sets of pencil lines, both wrong. Finally #1 son helped me do it with masking tape and I was good to go.

Here it is after one coat with masking tape is still on. I think one coat is enough; we're trying to be a bit outdoorsy-rustic.


We don't need to paint the grout lines. The old concrete is perfect as is. Removing the tape was the most pleasant painting experience I've ever had. Look at those edges, corners and even tiles.

Please notice the all important Deep Woods Off. As my brother Kenny says, "it's a little buggy out there."

Here it is in it's grimy goodness, I scrub it a little each spring:




Here is our somewhat vanishing threshold. I can't really show you all the stuff in the the bedroom that pulls the colors (green carpet with black, brownish, reddish, yellowish) and the textures.








This is the ancient view:


Y'all are so nice to come by
Thanks,
Terry

Here is thy way back to the Hooked on Houses "Hooked on Fridays" blog party; I hope y'all will click here and have look

If you are more ambitious about painting smoother concrete, here is an amazing painted "rug" at the Academy Theater in Atlanta's Avondale Estates.


Thanks to Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch.

Before / After

Hooked on Houses is hosting her "Hooked on Fridays" blog party; I hope y'all will click here and have look. This week I'm hooked on the change to our house. This is just a taste. You can make each picture bigger: Click the picture and select "all sizes." I'm also participating in my first Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch! Hope I'm doing it right.

The neighborhood, Morningside, had been down and was coming back. It's a post-war minimal traditional built in 1950. The first owners enclosed the porch, added a laundry room / workshop and raised 3 children. I was raised in a house almost exactly like this.

We bought it in 1977. We stared having our children in 1983. In 1988 Bill Harrison, a friend from my Georgia Tech days and Gordon Stringer, a local designer began to transform our house.









Here is the east facade from the Rock Creek ravine. Very tough to get a picture from down here.











The north facade didn't change much but we got a great elevated porch and good place for parties.





Gordon told us to paint the ceiling blue. We did and the porch went from feeling too high to feeling cozy.


As many pictures as I've taken, a post like this make me realize that I haven't taken nearly enough.

You can see some of the insides here.

Thanks to Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch.




And thanks to Hooked on Houses.

Terry

Shutters? Louvers? Curtains? Heliodons? a video

Lightroom Studio an architecture / design shop in Decatur, Georgia modeled their building and used a heliodon to understand how to manage the sunlight, pretty important in a modern design.



Trees play a huge part managing Atlanta's summer sun. It get wawm down here. Probably does where you live too.

Thanks,
Terry

You might enjoy following Lightroom Studio on Twitter.

Not design - the "pusher car"

This is a guy thing.

Update: The Stockbridge Emission Center Pusher Car is the winner of the 2009 Henry County Fair Demolition Derby!!

We are very fortunate to have auto mechanics in the family. They don't work for free but we can whine about our cars at family gatherings. From my "man" standpoint, I love the shop, I love the smell, the practicality, the problem solving, and I particularly love the Stockbridge Emissions pusher car.



You have to move dead cars around but tow trucks are expensive. So you need a pusher. Here is the carefully crafted business end:

My Kenneth Turner Candle from Cote de Texas has arrived

I commented on "Help Celebrate Cote de Texas' Second Birthday With A Giveaway!" And what do you know, I won: Cote de Texas' Second Anniversary Winners!" Thanks so much.



How about this autographed "Joni Webb" card?

Where to put it? I think it will migrate around the house. I'm almost looking forward to the next power outage to fire this baby up - almost. I think having some folks over for a little candlelight dinner would be better.



I'm not worthy but I am grateful for the candle and for Joni's Cote de Texas Blog.

Jeff's Shutters #2

Hooked on Houses is hosting her "Hooked on Fridays" blog party; I hope y'all will click here and have look. This week I'm hooked on Jeff's Shutters again. Do you remember the original Jeff's Shutters post? A lot of nice folks left great comments.

Jeff needs your comments again because...

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.



Thanks so much,
Terry

a masterpiece of the highest order...

Treat your ears today...from your rock 'n' roll Architecture Tourists. Even grown men might need hankies for this one.

"As for the Messiah, it's like Michelangelo's 'Creation of Adam,' one of those rare works that appeal immediately to everyone and yet is indisputably a masterpiece of the highest order." Kenneth Clark, Civilization.



20. Air (or Duet) Anne Sofie von Otter - mezzo-soprano
He shall feed His flock like a shepherd; and He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.
(Isaiah 40: 11)

Sylvia McNair - soprano (at 2:12) get out your handkerchiefs
Come unto Him, all ye that labour, come unto Him that are heavy laden, and He will give you rest.
Take his yoke upon you, and learn of Him, for He is meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
(Matthew 11: 28-29)

21. Chorus (at 5:18)
His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.
(Matthew 11: 30)

22. Chorus (at 7:38)
Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.
(John 1: 29)

Academy and Chorus of St Martin in the Fields
Sir Neville Marriner ( conductor )
Dublin 1992

Here are all the words to Handel's Messiah.

Thanks,
Terry

We want to live in a tropical/colorful place

Off 11th street in Midtown Atlanta:


When Jo Ann and I are cruising and see something like this, we both say, "Why can't we live in a place like this?" I mean a place where you can be this colorful. I locked on to Southern Aspirations post about Stuart Florida (see her picture of the "Colorado Hotel" towards the bottom) and realize that I'm searching Atlanta for just such a colorful place.



Some commercial places can do it like Habersham Gardens:




Or the Irwin Street Market:


And there are 3 pink houses in Ansley Park:


But only the older, funky neighborhoods and architecture can dare the colors. Like the MLK district in the Old 4th Ward.


Or this pink one in Cabbage Town within sight of Oakland Cemetary:


The Wigwam condo is a treat


This pink mill house in Scottdale is a favorite:


The black house in Atkins Park isn't a tropical color but it has palms:


You can get away with a yellow house on a few streets in Morningside:


You can paint your trim pink in Virginia Higlands:


There is Pink Mirror Fence in Oakhurst, certainly a license for color:


This blue one in Poncey Highlands even makes dead Kudzu look good:


Even the dark red brick of the Virginia Cotton Docks looks a bit tropical with the overflowing bush thing (Know what it is?).


Oh well, this post is just making me more envious. I have many more of these pictures for another day.