Gearing Up for Spring Cleaning: AT's The Cure

In the past I've mentioned Apartment Therapy's Book and how it has helped to give me steps for keeping our house clean and organized. Obviously this is a work in progress and we constantly need help and reminders. AT has been sponsoring these "Cures" throughout the last few years and I've signed up for "The Cure" twice now. They send you a weekly email reminder for what you're working on this week - you can focus on just one room in your house or you can focus on a larger whole-house scale. Last time I focused on our bedroom - which still needs alot of work  - but the room went from the ghastly pictures below to the tidy space above. You can go here if you want to sign up for "The Cure" this time around. I'm embarrassed to show you the pictures below but I'm happy to report that after The AT Cure it is much easier to sleep in the room. 

  When we first moved into the house Mr. Monkey went out and bought himself a chest of drawers - the one on the right to be exact. I had the on the left from college. Although the aesthetics for the drawers on the left may not be exactly ours I was happy that at least the drawers slid well. As for the dresser Mr. Monkey got, the drawers themselves did not work so well and they were too small for his clothes so the drawers were often left open and his clothes on top of the dresser. So through the 8 weeks of The AT Cure I set out to help both of us purge major piles of clothes and also find a functional set of drawers. The picture below is after we got rid of clothes and moved in the new-to-us 1960's bedroom set (Craigslist purchase). The 2 pictures up top are how it all looks now. I think I'd like to continue to focus on our bedroom but for now, for this 8 week cure I'm going to place all my attention on personal home office matters. So I'm announcing it here - (yes it's at the very bottom of this entry - hopefully most of you didn't make it down this far . . .) at the end of these 8 weeks I will have purged loads and loads of paper (recycled of course) and I will have a system for organizing our bills - paid and unpaid, and I will have a process for receiving bills, and for storing them when needed. Wish me and Mr. Monkey luck!

Backyard Shed: MHA Part 2

Hi Friends! Welcome to February. I've heard from some of you recently that I need to blog more often. I know things were getting pretty skimpy at the end of the year. So last month I managed 3 posts in the month and I'm hoping for the same if not more this month. If you want to be sure not miss any updates just click on the "subscribe to this blog" in the bar to the right. I know you will want to keep updated because we're (FINALLY) moving forward with some projects over here in the modern monkey section of Friendly St. 'hood - finally. Major going-ons include - new bed, staining and hanging of front door - yup we still haven't done that (this includes buying modern hardware), and the super big deal - the backyard shed aka Margarita Holding Area (MHA).

Mr. Monkey and Friends (I think I was in a band once called Mr. Monkey and his friends) (thanks Friends!) have made some serious progress. Check it out!

Up top Mr. Monkey was working on a beautiful December day believe it not! And had nailed up a good deal of the siding. One re-use and recycle tip is that Mr. Monkey used the same planks of wood to create the board forms for the concrete bits that he did for the siding. Below is a detail shot of an eye of a wood board that was left imprinted in the concrete wall. Faux bois concrete style?

This is a view from the back of the shed - this is kinda the alley view. You can see the rafters and the frame for the back windows.

Here is Mr. Monkey is being a monkey and climbing down the south side of the shed. This window is a little funny because it's a bit low. I like it because it rests in between the two texture elements of wood and concrete. It will also be the only eye-level window in the place. The other windows are up high and are meant to let the light in. Mr. Monkey was so thoughtful when planning this aspect of the shed. The shed will be a working shed and so there will be stuff piled high. We don't want to see that stuff from the backyard and we don't want people in the alley to be able to see our stuff in the shed - so he went for a clerestory window feel to let light in but to keep clutter out of sight.

This view below is from the front door perspective. The building is a long narrow shape. You can kinda get a sense of the clerestory style windows and the eye level window. The narrow eye-level window faces out to the pear tree and a future wet-land garden (that area of the back yard is always pretty wet). Overall we're pretty excited and actually since I've taken these photos more progress has been - all the siding is up and windows are in place so those pictures will be posted next week. Next up is the roof and then the staircase up to our Margarita Holding Area. For now it looks like we're on schedule to have a summer debut of the sunset viewing space. Can't wait! Thanks for reading about the MHA and all the other silly stuff on here.

Bring Recycling Home Tour: Part 2

Here is the 3rd home from the home tour that I visited and it also happens to be the most interesting architecturally-speaking.  The back story is that it was built in part by students from the University of Oregon's School of Architecture. For the initial builders, the students, it was an experiment in passive solar. I guess since then the current owners have continued to developed the homes natural inclination. The water from the roof enters into a dry stream-bed that helps to keep plants watered in the ground and on the roof (see round mirror by second story window lets you see status of living roof). Much of the garden art is recycled. These pictures simply don't do the place justice. All in all the Bring Recycling House Tour seemed to be a big success. Is was a scorching, sweat-running-down-your-back kind-of-day and all the houses had a steady stream of visitors. It's great to see a homes tour that's not all about ladies in big hats and gloves, and lunch in the garden.  Yay for Bring Recycling! Read more about my visits there here and here. 

Good, Simple, Functional = Modern

I was scanning my pictures for things I've been wanting to post but have gotten looked over for no good reason. I found this little picture which exemplifies all that should be considered positive about modern design. It might be hard to tell why this picture is special you have to look in the cup. Go ahead, look at the cup, see what's inside? A straw, right. But not just any straw - it's what the straw is made out of . . . you guessed it, that's right! GLASS! I love these straws at the sweetest little cafe in Eugene. It's called Park St. Cafe and they are the only restaurant that I know of that has glass straws for tasty cold drinks like Hibiscus Cooler - and iced herb tea of sorts.  I love these straws because they exemplify all that is good in modern design. They are simple, but they are recyclable and re-useable. Like they say in the wine bizz - they have a good mouth feel and they're nice to look at too. Like I said good design. Now sure I wouldn't hand one over to a child who likes to bite their straws but for most of the population we can use them and reuse them again and again. I hope this is a design tip that spreads fast! Enjoy. Does anyone else know of any glass straws or glass straw makers? I haven't had a chance to research them yet. But I'm thinking we need a set here at the Monkey Pad. Cheers!

Sunday Fun at Bring Recycling

In past blogs I've mentioned one of our favorite diversions just on the outskirts of town - Bring Recycling.  A new initiative at Bring includes recycling natural cork from wine and champagne bottles. I hope programs like this will help to bring down the costs of cork floors - because they are lovely to look at but are still a touch outside our price range.  Anyway I've included some pics of the Bring building which was built from many recycled products and with "green" concepts in mind. We were there today to donate several items: 1) The old front door light fixture, 2) the desk that I was unable to sell on Craiglist,(see here too) 3) the ceiling fan that we changed out last weekend. It felt especially great to get rid of the desk that had embarrassingly sat next to the front door for far too long. It worked well to hold our Halloween pumpkins but beyond that it was just collecting dirt! We also went to Bring to peruse for a new/re-used front door. I have been loathing ours for a while and I think we just will keep dropping by in search of new doors. Even though we were looking for doors I get stuck looking at the light fixtures. Here are a few pictures of cool light fixtures that you could re-use in your retro-pad if you lived in Eugene/Springfield/Cottage Grove/Creswell area.  I snagged a little globe light for a buck to switch out with the one I was not so pleased with - more on that later. Anyway I hope you have a great recycling center in your neighborhood that like Bring is super fun to sort through and that you can repurpose items every once in awhile. Happy hunting!

More Modern Patio

So one little piece of modern living that I'm proud of and that I have to show off whenever we have visitors is our patio table. Check it out. The whole set was purchased from Bring Recycling. First we found the pocket door that looked like surplus - new but never been used. Then we started looking for legs and found the yellow metal sawhorses. Then we found the chairs. Add an ikea light fixture and you're all set for less than $50!  The "art" on the wall is leaving thanks to a deal I made with Mr. Monkey. The "art" has sentimental value for him  . . .  The rocking chair in the corner was a thrift store find. I'm thinking about painting the sawhorses and nice shade of blue or green. Plus we're on the lookout for newer chairs. These are not bad but I'm not a fan of the golden yellow hue and it's too much work to reupholster 3 dollar chairs - not worth it. What do you think about tulip chairs? Hope you find yourself sitting in a modern patio soon!