If these wabi-sabi walls could whisper . . .

22 August 2010 by pcNielsen 2 Comments

Yesterday I started painting the whitewashed walls in our little bungalow. The plaster walls are 70 years old so bumps and cracks and drips abound. When I helped remodel old houses in Arkansas we would have hand textured the walls to cover up all of the imperfections. This texturing technique was nice, a bit of a stuccoed appearance. It made the place look new on the inside.

Work with the painter I’ve been helping out this year has been slow the past couple weeks, so I’ve busied myself with other things as much as I’ve been able (other things that are somewhat financially advantageous in these lean times, things not necessarily sculpture related as I’d prefer). I spent some time in my dad’s shop, The Milestone Gallery, painting walls, signs and staining furniture.

Our Sand Trap walls with a Marissa Lee Swinghammer print hanging on the chimney chase

Dad has noticed that people even want their antique furniture to look and function like new. Doors that are warped or don’t close all the way, the crazed finish of a tabletop or patina from age on a cabinet can deter people from purchasing the unique objects he collects. “I thought that patina was something people liked,” he said.

Indeed, why do we as Americans so often crave the new? The walls in our little house do just fine at what they were built to do, and as I spread “Sand Trap” — a taupe-y tint with hints of rose or purple in different lights — over the scuffed up old walls I began to appreciate their textures. In fact, I’ve concluded that perfect walls are actually boring in comparison.

By saying this I’m not necessarily advocating any kind of trumped-up aging process, no intentional distressing of new walls or surfaces. When you build a new building you should do it properly, straight studs and square corners. The history of a place must come organically; our little Nebraska bungalow may have more of an overall patina than most places, having been a rental for most of its years according to our neighborhood historian.

And now for an uncomfortable question: Does our dislike for the appearance of age or imperfection in our buildings hearken back to the same aversion we have to age in our own person, or in our American culture of human beauty where maturity is not esteemed as it is in other cultures?

My uncle, whose home also boasts whispering plaster walls, took advantage of the patina by exaggerating it, showing it off. I haven’t seen how he’s done this yet, but the idea is intriguing to me. If I feel like I have the time, I’ll probably try something similar.

Filed under Aesthetics, Architecture, Beauty, Feminine aesthetics, Interior design, Modern culture

The switch to renewables requires a redesign of American life

12 August 2010 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

On the way down to Nashville for the Hutchmoot we stopped for lunch at a friend’s home near Kansas City. While there I began looking at a magazine called World, as I recall. I glanced at an article in the publication pointing at holes in the recent plans for renewable energy.

The long and short of what my skimming told me — I didn’t have time to finish the article — Renewable energy such as wind and solar won’t work for the cars we drive. No kidding! The article also, if I recall correctly, pointed out that these energy sources won’t even provide enough electricity, even if they are developed to the nth degree, to meet our current electricity needs.

I’ve made the point on the blog before, as I recall, that we need to revamp the culture and our environmental design in order to get to where most or all of our energy needs come from renewable sources. We can’t work from the assumption that we can maintain the cultural status quo while at the same time switching over to renewable sources of energy. Instead, we must become creative in all aspects of our lives. Developing more efficient lifestyles seems like common sense to me — regardless of where our energy is coming from (Per my cursory skim the magazine article suggested nuclear, but I’d still rather see other avenues developed further along with more intentionally efficient living.).

Cameraphone capture of part of a wind turbine, going down I-80 on our way home from Nashville.

On our way down to the Hutchmoot last week, my wife and I were introduced to Rodney and Sidney Wright. Rodney wrote The Hawkweed Passive Solar House Book. He showed us around their house — inserting at least one pun into every sentence — pointing to all of the attention paid to making the home more energy efficient. The energy bill for the home was less than $50 a month for the 1,200 square foot structure in Paducah, Kentucky (a walkable community, he pointed out). The couple paid good money for energy efficient appliances, used prefabricated wall panels with dense foam insulation to build with and of course designed the home with climate and geography in mind, in a passive solar fashion.

It’s going to take this kind of intentionality in our design of life, I believe, in order to make renewables work. Sure some things might cost more now and then, but Wright made a point of saying that even though their uber efficient Swedish microwave/convection oven might have cost them $3,000 they built the home for only $85,000 (doing some of the work themselves, such as painting) just four years ago.

Wright also pointed out that we used to do better at designing our dwellings and communities as they relate to their local environments. What will it take as a culture to forgo the more common and under-considered living spaces we create in the United States?

Filed under Architecture, Basis for designing well, Community planning, Environmental stewardship, Interior design, Living incarnationally, Modern culture, Sustainable living

Conceptive creativity vs designing spaces

3 July 2010 by pcNielsen 2 Comments

My predisposition towards creating and refining interior spaces is getting the better of me again. Here we are in our new little home which we moved into — I avoid the word purchased since the bank still own’s 90% of it — in part because it was livable. Livable, yes, but not ideal.

First project underway, now complete.

The trick in part will be not putting too much time or money into the place, and working on projects that add the most value. The home isn’t in the best of neighborhoods and we won’t be able to add infinite value to the space with our projects. This, however, is a practical point of view. Merge this with a designer’s sensibility, which considers the practical as well as the aesthetic, and that’s where I’m headed.

The most expensive project will be replacing the kitchen cabinets. In our previous home we got away with painting and replacing the hardware, but the cabinets there were in better shape and more plentiful. We have a lot of saving to do before I tackle the kitchen. Before then will come removing the wall between the living room and kitchen (which is done), adding walls and flooring in the basement to create a family room and a bathroom (the bathroom is already partially plumbed) and painting inside and out.

Part of creating an organized studio space for myself to work in will be adding the walls in the basement. This is a relatively inexpensive project when you don’t include flooring, but it takes a fair amount of time. As in probably a month of weekends start to finish when you consider the wiring and pluming that will also be involved. And building in an entertainment center.

The struggle comes with another pervading inclination, that of creating works of art. Today I want to start a small series of paintings. My clay is either too wet or too dry at the moment (I’m still looking for a local supplier of a new clay body that I like since we moved) so I thought I’d do something in the way of conceptive creation, in this case painting (something I do on occasion). I quickly realized, however, the lighting over the new work surface I scrapped together is insufficient, so I’m back to thinking about spaces and projects around the house.

It’s a vicious cycle for me.

Filed under Aesthetics, Ceramics, Interior design, Painting

Art is supposed to be challenging; what is design supposed to be?

23 June 2010 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

According to jazz musician Henry Threadgill, art should be challenging. From an NPR interview:

Threadgill says art is supposed to be challenging, and that he doesn’t care if his audience likes his music, as long as it moves them.

“My only hope is they’ll have a reaction, and the reaction doesn’t have to be positive,” Threadgill says. “It could be negative. It’s fine with me if I drive you away. That’s as good as if I kept you there. If it was strong enough to run you away, then it’s going to do something to you. It’s going to make you think about something. It’s going to make you feel something that you weren’t feeling or thinking about before. And that’s the whole idea.”

Generally speaking, I agree with Threadgill, although this doesn’t always have to be the case. What’s challenging to a person is a somewhat subjective idea anyway. Most American’s ideas about art, I’d venture a guess, make them think about anything fluffy and sugar-coated, warm and fuzzy. Most Americans, thus, aren’t going to be interested in war-related images to hang on their walls and set on their shelves. They’ll be thinking of pastoral Kinkade’s or wildlife or an innocuous architectural scene with impressionist brush strokes — pictures in their head that sooth, not challenge.

Going with the idea that art should be challenging, though, I’m wondering what design should thus be. Should design (architectural and interior) actually be geared towards giving us a sense of comfort while the art within our spaces pushes our boundaries, asks us to think outside the box?

Filed under Architecture, Art, Interior design

On missing loft living

26 May 2010 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

A follow up to this and this, talking about living downtown.

I also miss the living space, living in a loft.

I miss the large open living area and the [inefficient] high ceilings. I miss the large windows (even though we didn’t have windows so much as storm windows) on a second floor with, well, more of a view than most first floors in common city neighborhoods.

Sure the living arrangement we were in wasn’t the best. We shared a bathroom 50 feet down a hallway and a kitchen literally half a block away, and we didn’t have closets either. But the overall living space was still desirable.

Key, I think, to that kind of residence would be figuring out how to make the loft as efficient as possible, particularly with regard to high ceilings and utilities. High ceilings are desirable, high utility bills are not. Well-considered window treatments, quality windows themselves and air circulation seem to be a must.

Photo of a July 2009 supercell west of downtown, Grand Island.

Filed under Architecture, Grand Island, Interior design

Dead space comes alive

22 September 2009 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

Last week I had a bit of a lull in the projects and was able to relax some. Things have been busy again this week though as I work on both second floor bathrooms. This work included my first attempt at soldering copper, which failed — not miserably, but enough to require the assistance of a plumber in the end. Some work with drywall and paint was also on the docket.

I’m also adding some built-in storage. I really dislike dead space in buildings. Sometimes it’s inevitable, but in most cases it can be turned into useful storage. And more good storage also, in my experience, means that less square footage is needed for the same function.

Bathroom storage

I’m filling dead space with the same boxes I used for my wife’s yarn storage. Instead of yarn, we’ll be filling these with towels.

Filed under Architecture, Interior design

Laboring on Labor Day weekend

8 September 2009 by pcNielsen 2 Comments

This is what I labored on this past weekend.

Photo0053

I had hopes of finishing at least one sculpture. Hopes were postponed when my brother called to tell me about some wooden boxes at the Salvation Army. The boxes are from a heater company in Central City, Nebraska. I’m assuming these are the scratch and dent models; the Army was given 300 of them and charged customers like me $2 a pop. Can’t buy the lumber for that.

This is a modular storage system — I screwed four boxes together to create 6 2×2 units — for my wife‘s yarn. Some modification was required, although that was fairly easy. Puttying and painting took up most of my weekend. I’m kinda worn out, but I guess that’s what labor does to a guy. The front edges may be redone in the future, and I’ll add backs to them at some point as well, but they function for the time being. I couldn’t just buy the boxes and not work on the project right away though; they took up too much space in the studio.

The white cabinet in the middle I made, mostly from salvaged wood, including the doors, salvaged from a remodel job round-about 2004. Her stash quickly outgrew it.

Filed under Fiber, Furniture, Handmade, Salvage

Modern furniture aesthetics and design (or lack thereof)

19 August 2009 by pcNielsen 2 Comments

I loathe shopping for furniture in a retail setting.

Just before we moved back to Nebraska I sold our couch. We liked it quite a bit (and it was a great buy), but every time I sat down in it my allergies flared up.

We planned to replace said sitting tool with something, or somethings, after we moved. In particular we hoped to find a click-clack (sometimes called a flip-flop) couch. Their styling is less garish than many others, and we like to be able to accommodate visiting friends. Apparently these glorified futons aren’t all that though, and we can’t find them in most retail stores anyway. We also thought of a recliner for the wife to read in.

Her neck has bothered her in a bad way since we’ve moved, and we were both hoping that a different sitting situation would rectify that. So we started looking around. Craigslist and the Facebook Marketplace are very slow here in central Nebraska (apparently auctions are the in thing), so we resorted to shopping retail style.

Buying new furniture is not something the wife and I are accustomed to. Most of what fills our dwelling we were given, I salvaged and fixed up or I built. Cushy chairs are a little more complicated than beds and dressers to fabricate though, especially when you don’t exactly have a wood shop at your disposal. That said neither of us were prepared for the garishness or the cost of the furniture retail store.

First off, the garishness. Of the, for example, 100 recliners in a furniture showroom only three seem to have any aesthetic sensibility. Most appear thrown together (i.e., not designed) and cheaply built. The upholstery is strange in most instances and also seems lacking any serious consideration.

We couldn’t imagine paying money for most of these products, especially at the prices plastered on such monstrosities. Why is it that so many new chairs costs as much as the used cars I’ve purchased?

Leather chair

One of the less offensive recliners we saw in our search, via cameraphone.

In the end I bought a used chair from a pawn shop. It’s quite clean, although it seems to have previously rested in the presence of a smoker. The offending smell isn’t too overpowering since the object is vinyl (a requirement buying used for people with allergies, if you can’t find leather). Hopefully it will buy us some time to save some money and find something we actually like.

I wasn’t shy about my dislike for the selection at the furniture mall. The salesperson responded more or less by saying “to each their own.” I have to wonder, though, if our aesthetic sensibilities as a culture haven’t more or less succumbed to the cheap and unconsidered sensibilities of overstuffed furniture factories. That’s what there is to be bought, and most people won’t question it. They’ll look around a little, find the ones they like best and be happy.

Not me. I have higher standards and, while I don’t aspire to snobbery, am proud of those standards.

Filed under Aesthetics, Central Nebraska, Furniture, Interior design, Mass production, Modern culture

Hand-painted flooring

27 July 2009 by pcNielsen 3 Comments

The building my wife and I moved into the second story of last week was built in 1885, with an addition that basically doubled its size in 1895. We’ve been tearing up some nasty carpet upstairs, and underneath some of it lies this ~115 year old gem:

Linoleum

My father found something he believes to be this same flooring, or a description of this flooring, in a copy of an 1896 Sears catalog he has in his possession. Apparently it’s a handmade precursor to linoleum. Some sort of oil was applied to burlap — I caught a glimpse of the burlap when pulling up carpet in a different room today — and then the flooring is hand-painted. This particular design, in a building that was originally a bank, reminds me of a Piet Mondrian painting.

The photo above was taken in the only room the flooring seems salvageable. At some point it was painted brown and covered with carpet, but that paint seems to be coming off easily enough. We’ll see.

Filed under Grand Island, Handmade, Interior design, Painting

A human’s first “non-need”

4 July 2009 by pcNielsen 2 Comments

In my first college design class, as an architecture student, one of our projects involved researching of and writing about chairs. We read about designs by Eames, Bertoia, Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and so forth. Our professor pointed out that a chair, or somewhere to sit our sorry plebian butts after a long day in the field, is the first thing we will think of to buy or build assuming all of our other needs are met.

And I think she was right.

As we pack up the house we’re selling some things we won’t need in the foreseeable future, or won’t have room for in our upcoming living space. I used Craigslist, which I’m pretty new to, and easily sold our guest bed and couch.

We really miss the couch.

We own other comfortable chairs, but apparently they aren’t comfortable in the same way. The plan was to replace it with a svelte black leather couch that wouldn’t aggravate my allergies like the whimsical, eight year old model we just sold. However, I was looking forward to one less large piece of furniture to move.

So the past few days I’ve been on a hunt to find a cheap and temporary replacement, most likely a comfy chair for the wife to read in. There are a couple places in town that sell used, and I’ve been to a few garage sales as well. So far everything I’ve seen has been dirty or overpriced — or entirely hideous. The one exception was a blue recliner at a friend’s yard sale; unfortunately it formerly lived with cats, which I’m quite allergic too. Another vintage store in town, Amandromeda, purveys a number of well designed seats, though none are suitable for extended periods of time with a book in your lap. I’ve also inquired via Craigslist and the Facebook Marketplace to no avail.

Next up I plan to hit a vintage spot in Fayetteville called the Flying Dog. Moving is stressful enough without a decent place to rest your rump, so I hope I can come up with a chair on this holiday weekend!

Filed under Interior design, Northwest Arkansas, Personal reflection, Siloam Springs

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