house on fire

we're finally up and running. and man, it smells good in here.


this is the view of the woodstove from the main living room.

as you can see above, the chimney heads up and then shoots through wall to our workroom, where it makes its final turn up and out of the house (see below).  kinda funky, but it seems to work really well. 




we received our first wood delivery over the weekend, and judging by the size of it, it may be our last for years to come.


here it is in our basement.

lucky for us, delivery included stacking. my back hurts just looking at the pile.

ice ice baby

tomorrow, i'll be in atlanta at this...



come see at booth #75, if you're anywhere in the area. click on the image above for more info.

how to eat a beignet: a visual guide

blog catch up post #2

this past weekend was dabney's birthday and to commemorate the event we decided to take a very quick trip down I-55 to new orleans. dabney had never been before so we thought it would be the perfect way to celebrate turning 29 again.



the boys flew into town to join us for the revelry.


no trip to new orleans would be complete without partying on bourbon street, shopping on magazine street, and eating all over the place.  man, what an amazing dining town!













we even managed to catch up with a st. louis friend (temporarily living in NOLA) over one of the splendid meals featured above.



our brunch was even accompanied by a jazz band AND enormous bloody marys.





from the grandeur of the garden district to hurricane katrina's devastation (and rebirth) in the 9th district, we managed to cover a lot of ground.













dabney, hope you had a wonderful birthday! (she thinks you look hot for a 29 y.o.)

blog catch up post #1

two weeks ago, i spent a hurricane ida-free weekend golfing and playing games in charlotte, nc.

we bowled and played pool.


we took in a charlotte hornets game.


but above all, we played a lot of golf.



we played a total of 54 holes when the weekend was said and done and it was heaven for me.







thanks to my playmates.  here's to STL 2010.  :)

fanfarlo again

this time with a cover of neutral milk hotel's "in the aeroplane over the sea"

you gotta have hearth

that stove is just about in, but before it could be installed, there was the small matter of the hearth. we thought about installing black honed granite. however, the cost was more than we wanted to spend and the placement of that big slab of stone (really just a matter of a few feet away from the GIANT slab that makes up our kitchen island) didn't thrill us - stove versus stone.

instead, we went an entirely different direction... steel.



voila! stove in place.



ok, the hearth and surround may look all rusty and disgusting in the picture above, but take my word for it, it looks pretty cool in person. (flashes make everything look weird.) at first, i thought we'd try to take care of all the rust by eliminating it entirely, but honestly, i kind of like the effect now that i've seen it up close. we'll just smear some mineral oil all over to darken it up a bit and call it a day.

next up: busting through the wall with the stove pipe (luckily, the pass through is already there) and we'll be all set for our first fire.

oh yeah, i better order some wood...

they don't call it the gay high holiday for nothing.

perhaps i would've mentioned last friday what we were going to be for halloween had i know at the time. but it came down to an excruciating decision and a last minute whirlwind of activity (yet again)  to come up with the following:

paperdolls!





as you can see, cardboard is our best friend each and every halloween. the "dresses" weren't the most conducive to sitting, let alone dancing, but somehow we managed to a lot of both saturday night at our friend's annual holiday bash.

those wigs?  it's amazing what can be done with a little yarn, a bandanna, and some thread.

whoa.

better to pick up chairs with

this new place we've adopted is car crazy and since we've been living in a walking city for so long, it's been hard for us to accept the need for a second vehicle.

we've gone from a one-car family to a one car + one truck family.

yeah, that's me unloading sod from the back of our new-to-us 2001 gmc envoy.


when the possibility presented itself, we initially hesitated. we never wanted a second car, but the truth of the matter is it sucks to be the one left behind when the other is playing golf or picking up sixteen mid-century chairs or actually working at a show for any extended period of time.

this is for real

just when dabney thought she'd seen everything possibly for sale on craigslist, she runs into this...

OWN A PIECE of Entertainment HISTORY !

Sammy Davis Jr's Glass Eye

Made in the late 1960's

Story behind the The glass eye :

My Gandfather was the Eye Doctor for a
Eye care company that personally and exclusively,
took care of Sammy Davis ,Jr
when he came to St.Louis to preform or visit.

More info. will be provided for the buyer.

Selling to raise money for my sons college fund.



here's the original, if you want to see it for yourself. if it's not there anymore, it must have sold.

burn, baby, burn

we've had plans to install a wood stove in this house all along. we just ran out of funds to make it happen during the construction phase. however, we did manage to have the chimney installed which made total sense to do while all the other innards were being worked on.

we're happy to report that wood stove dream of ours is about to come true - just in time for winter.

while we would love to have a big giant stove to gather around, our designated corner won't allow for such a large appliance. so instead, we've opted for this cute little norwegian number. ja!




at just over 25" tall and a smidge over a foot wide, it's the smallest stove on the market, but it should be enough to take the edge off and give our furnace a break every once in a while.

i just placed the order today, so stay tuned.

see those dewlaps fly!

friday recently discovered the joy of all dog joys... hanging out the window of the car. i am happy to report that she LOVES it.



here's friday at 25 miles per hour.


here's friday at 35 miles per hour. look at those ears fly!

what a way to start a morning

this morning, friday and i were paused on the corner waiting to cross the street.

woman stops at the intersection and rolls down her window, "that is one. big. girl."

man, i hope she was talking about the dog...

the yard, pt. 1

step inside our house and the place is beginning to look pretty lived in already. outdoors is a totally different story.

since the day we moved in, we've lived with a construction zone for a backyard. in fact, we've been using leftover plywood as a walkway from our garage to our house for the past five months. 





we got sick of it all and finally did something about it.  thanks to dabney's dad, landscape architect extraordinaire, we had a plan...

...beginning with pavers that lead from garage to backdoor.



we knew we need a friday-friendly backyard, so nearly half is gravel.





with the help of some magic sod, we added grass.  the stuff is like 30 lbs hair plugs.  instant gratification.



presto!  we were done. 



we still have many trees and containers to add, but this we'll give us a good base to build on. 

more soon...

p.s.  if you're wondering about that frontyard, we haven't touched it.  we're leaving that for a spring project.

won't you be my neighbor?

one of the reasons we were drawn to our particular location was the artists' studios next door.

wouldn't you know it? the damn place is for sale.



not only has it been nice to have other creatives in the immediate vicinity, it sure has been wonderful to not have full-time neighbors across from our still curtainless house.

please, oh, please let some respectful, nice, quiet creative types take up residence - or better yet, make this their monday through friday workspace.

fingers crossed.

mogo cuties in action

one down, sixteen to go...

one lucky ebay bidder will soon be the recipient of the chair on the right.


it's a beauty alright!

congratulations to dabney on the very first sale of one of her many mid-century chairs.

one down, sixteen to go...

this could be yours!

http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/6727124

crafty bastards

meet me in st. louis DC tomorrow at the crafty bastards arts and crafts fair!



back online next week.