Palm Springs Forever Modern and "Eichleresque" Palo Alto ...

After selling the old house we were supposed to finally remodel this year we took a consolation trip to Palm Springs.

On our way to the Indian Canyons we stumble upon a modern development that looked quite interesting :-) That was ALTA, and it was only the beginning of the modern developments we have seen. And although rather high end in all details, it wasn't much more expensive than the creepy "contemporary Eichler-inspired architecture" of these Palo Alto apartments. And while I understand the expensive part I really don't get the bad design with the wrong Eichler label...

We've also spotted another high-end development in the area, the Pinnacle by Cioffi. And surprisingly, we found a back to earth development of the same Cioffi in the North side of Palm Springs, close to the Racquet Club Road Estates and Alexander steel homes. These is the Murano, and this is the kind of affordable nice&modern homes that I'd like to see here too...
Or since we're talking "eichleresque" condos/townhomes in Palo Alto, take a look at these Palermo development, kind of the same small sf but what a nice layout and design...

What we didn't find in this trip were the prefabs I was reading everywhere about, I need to do more research on this and another trip to Palm Springs :-)

And since the places to stay in this travel log aren't that kid friendly, here are some links for modern rentals to try next trip.

• Palm Springs Modern Rentals


• Palm Springs Homes & Condos for Rent & Sale
  

Please leave me a note if you have any recommendations for modern rentals for families with kids!

The King is dead. Long live the King?

No posts lately, still upset with our modern remodel that ended up by selling the house.

The new owners seem interested in our plans though, so now they are "working" with the architect to get these plans.

I wish them better luck and I really hope to see those plans for real and a modern house in the neighborhood!

The Slow Home ...

I was reading this post about The Slow Home - a new advocate of our Re-Modern Movement on LiveModern.

Interesting movement, but as long as we talk modern and green only and ignore affordability I don't see how this Future House can happen Now... As far as we've tried when you talk modern it becomes suddenly more expensive, and if you add green ... well, it is a SLOW Home Movement indeed and it doesn't promise to change the world anytime soon. I see more online modern green sites, but lots of pink houses around :-(

But you have to check the projects in theslowhome's FOLIO! Really nice projects, but as the modern goes these days, NOT too affordable:

Size: 6,800 gsf
5,300 gsf Larkspur Residence
New 4500 sf single-family residence on flat one acre site
4312 sf Ravine House in Toronto
two-story, 4,150 square foot single-family residence addresses a 625 square foot guesthouse across a lap pool.
Project Size 3,200 sq.ft.
Project Size 3,000 sq.ft.
a 2400 sq ft residence for a young bachelor
2,100 gsf beach house residence
...

It would be a novel idea to add some financial data to these projects for those of us who trust the modern architect to create their modern affordable home just to see that at least part of the reason for the pink architecture is ... well, money...

Funny bid :-(

Not too many posts lately, to wrap up, a disappointing time for our modern remodeling efforts, we are close to abandoning our QT project ...

Since the last QT post we've got a funny bid of ~700K for our modern remodel of a 970sf house + 700sf addition.
No comment :-(

International Contemporary Furniture ... for kids

From MoCo Loco: ICFF 2007: Kids

A new modern bunk bed ...

... from nurseryworks that looks modular, I wonder if it's bunkable, like you can buy one bed now and add the second later ...

Duet Bunk Beds by truck product architecture for nurseryworks:

* • stack or unstack beds
* • two cabinets
* • six open cubbies
* • three drawers under bottom bed
* • upper cabinet is accessible from top bunk
* • cubbies become a separate shelving unit when beds are unstacked

As always, the prices are "modern" too:
$2,490 with drawers or trundle
$1,200 bottom bunk with drawers or trundle

IKEA Bed

It's not exactly what we need (I still want some rails all around) but this is one simple clean twin bed (and cheap too, 149$ including the storage boxes) that we found & liked at IKEA after we have ordered the Flexa bed: BREKKE Bed frame with storage boxes

Wonderful Eichler!

This Sunday we've stopped at this open house in Palo Alto:
***Palo Alto *Greer* List Price/Date: $1,195,000 - 4/18. 3 bedroom, 2 bath 1437SF home on an approximate 6000SF lot. One of, if not the finest upgraded Eichler that I've ever seen. Stunning - in all respects, and in all the details. A "Trophy" Eichler. Kenneth DeLeon of Keller Williams represents the Seller.

It was indeed a perfectly upgraded Eichler, and here are some pics I found on the web. The owner was also the designer and he did the best back-in-the-future MCM remodel I've seen around. Kudos!

Googled it a bit and found this Curbed SF Open House Report: Eichler in Palo Alto:
From a friend of Curbed SF who's selling his Palo Alto Eichler:

I'm moving from Palo Alto to New York and selling my Eichler house, for which I was designer and GC for a whole house remodel starting in 2000. Having been a teenage modernist whose favorites were Neutra and Schindler and whose 15 year old mind was altered forever when my family then moved from the east coast into another Palo Alto Eichler, I really understand these houses. So when I was able to purchase the worst Eichler on the block (in Palo Verde), I had a strong vision about remodeling it for the 21st century.

Modernbook's Dream Theatre

Modernbook Gallery hosts a Dream Theatre exhibition of Jerry Uelsmann from April 6 through May 30!

Greenmeadow Eichlers

It seems odd that tomorrow’s house today in 2007 Silicon Valley is a '50s Eichler, but indeed Eichlers are cool modern houses! And they are more modern than many new houses built here these days ...

And my favorite place for Eichlers is Greenmeadow. Well, it's not only my favorite, from this market data it seems there is a lot of interest in these houses, a "pristine-like" (meaning in great need of update, not necessarily pristine) Eichler listed at ~1.2M goes easily for ~1.36-1.5M...

Greenmeadow Eichler remodel

Here's the link to the Sunset story: Open to the outdoors: A 1950s Eichler home gets a seamless update

We've met Mark Marcinik a couple of years ago when we wanted to buy an Eichler in need of remodel, but that Eichler went just too high for our budget:-( And we liked Mark a lot, we actually wanted to contact him for our modern Eichler-like remodel too!

Now regarding this story, I'm wondering how much was that remodel and how long did it take, no one is mentioning these mundane details ...

QT or Eichler, this is the question...

Our bid quest is still inconclusive, we've got a better bid for the metal roof but no good electrical bid and no drywall bid at all ...

So we are reconsidering our modern remodel again:-( and balancing between remodelling and selling this house and buying an Eichler:-)

Flexa bed ...

Our search for that modern bed ended by ordering a white Flexa twin bed from Lullaby Lane:


Pls leave me a comment if you know of a modern twin bed that's similarly modular, flexible and safe for a young kid ...

QT: in search of better bids ....

Last try to start our modern remodel, we need to find better bids for some that just came out almost 2 times more expensive than originally planned for (like electrical and roofing). And it looks like we are not the only ones with this kind of problem in Bay Area:
Affordable metal roofing in Bay Area?
Frustrating Electrical Bid in Bay Area!

Last week it seemed we will never get a bid, but after some more research and ideas hopefully we'll have some good news soon!

I'll post more info as soon as I'll see better bids :-)

I like these kid bed collections from Morigeau-Lépine too!

Another post in search of a modern bed ...
I've seen the Morigeau-Lépine 9000 collection at Lullaby Lane a while ago and liked it.

They had the bunk bed on display and sale, so it disapperared pretty fast.

Now I've noticed the other Collection 2800 and I like this too!


These 2 collections are so different and quite modern compared to all their other stuff ...

Palm Springs modern travel log

Since I was planning a second trip to Palm Springs sometime next year, here's an inspiring travel log :-)

Postcards from Palm Springs: Modern Gems in the Desert

Places to stay:

• Viceroypalmsprings.com


• Orbitin.com


• Centurypalmsprings.com


• Palmspringsbungalows.com

Places to live:

• Midcenturyrealestate.com


• Midcenturyproperties.com


• PSMhomes.com


• Thetowerspalmsprings.com


• Modernlivingspaces.com


• Vistasanjacinto.com


• palermopalmsprings.com

Places to see:

• Mmodern.com


• Psmuseum.org


• Artplusindustry.com


• Nps.gov/jotr (Joshua Tree Park)


• Psmodernway.com


• Roomservice-la.com

Places to Shop:

• Orbit In Shopping Guide.

Blu Dot in San Francisco!

I was looking for this Couchoid sofa from Blu Dot (more pics here) and here it comes to Zinc Details:


Zinc Details to Host Reception for Innovative Furniture Design Firm Blu Dot

Champions of the Good Design movement to speak about the Blu Dot design process and kick off Zinc's "Dot Spot" on February 9

Zinc Details will host a reception for John Christakos and Maurice Blanks, two of the co-founders of the innovative furniture design firm Blu Dot on Friday, February 9, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. at Zinc Details, 2410 California Street in San Francisco. To commemorate the occasion, Zinc Details will be giving away a Blu Dot strut table to a lucky winner. Refreshments will be served.

Known for its imaginative manufacturing techniques and love for the masters of 20th Century design, Blu Dot has been called "the latest in affordable cool."

Designers Christakos and Blanks will be on hand to speak about the unique Blu Dot design process and to help inaugurate Zinc's new "Dot Spot" in its showroom at 2410 California Street. Zinc Details is proud to announce its affiliation with the Minneapolis-based firm and its position as the only Blu Dot dealer in Northern California.

Christakos says of his two fellow co-founders, "after we left college and began to furnish our first homes, we didn't like the stuff we could afford and we couldn't afford the stuff we liked. We figured we were not alone and we were naïve enough to try and do something about it. Blu Dot was born in 1997."

American Contemporary Furniture says that "with the inventive, can-do spirit that characterized the work of the Eameses, Blu Dot has resurrected the values of the Good Design movement and its popular potential."

"We're glad to be able to solidify our relationship with Blu Dot. Their furniture has become the perfect solution for our customers with a good eye for high quality, affordable design," says Zinc Details owner Vasilios Kiniris.

QT: frustrating project after 3 years of design ...

I'll skip the Glidehouse phase for now, 'cause we've got the new budget just before starting building ... almost double than what we've started with!!!!!

I know now we were naive when we've started a modern remodel in Bay Area with only a 200K budget, even more naive when we've chosen & cut the design and increased the budget to 250K, even foolish more than a year ago when we were getting ready to file for permits and found a design error that costs us another year of design and another increase to 380K!!!!!

So please do let me know if you know of a more reasonable way to find a modern house in Bay Area ...

Moda Bed

We went today to Room & Board to see this Moda bed for kids.

They had only the bunk bed on display and that looked nice, and we actually liked several of the Moda products.


But I was hoping to get the twin bed now and make it a bunk bed later. Well, it's not modular, so we'll keep looking for the modern kid bed ...

Bamboo Flooring?

So we've got samples from Smith & Fong Plyboo.

And here are our 4 choices:

1. Edge Grain Natural: this is the bamboo floor we've seen and liked.


2. Edge Grain Amber: now that I've seen the sample, I like this too.


3. Strand Prefinished Honey: I think this is supposed to be the closest match to 1 or 2, but for some reason I don't like the color&pattern of this at all!


4. Strand Prefinished Dark: I like this way better than 3, but we didn't want a dark or chocolate floor ...

And yes, we did the dent test, the standard bamboo floor gets dents from everything, so unfortunately we cannot afford the look we like (1&2) ...

The strand is better, no dents but it will still scratch they say, but that will happen with all hardwood... But how would that dark floor go with our small bedrooms and light, bright and open living areas? Hmmmm ...

Vancouver, or there’s a much more sensitive market to well-designed objects than to well-designed buildings. ...

Just checked the Dwell Magazine website and found this Vancouver story.

And since I've always had mixed feelings about Vancouver (I love the natural Vancouver and always find the built city not up to its natural surroundings) and have quite a few friends living in or longing for this city, I'm adding this post here too.

QT: from a ranch house to prefab

6 years ago we've tried to find a nice, simple, modern house in Bay Area and we gave up.

We thought about buying land and building a Kids Town (that will become our QT story) with a group of friends.

4 years ago we've searched one more time for a house, but I guess the plan was ready, buy whatever in a nice location and remodel/rebuild it modern. Whatever meant a 50s ranch house (a Blackfield in Mountain View), ~600K for ~1000sf at that time ...

First remodelling plan in 2003 failed because the architect plans for ~200K turned out to be more like 400K when we've talked to contractors.

And so we've heard about Glidehouse (probably from Dwell Magazine), a prefab from Michelle Kaufmann Designs...

The Silicon Valley Paradox

One would think that Silicon Valley ought to be modern.
It's at the forefront of technology for the past many years.
There are more young&smart people and money here than in so many other places.
But look around, does this place look fresh or modern?
I found that modern here means mid-century modern, which is absolutely wonderful, but what about the end of the century or next century modern?
What is the missing ingredient here?

Bamboo Flooring

We have decided a while ago that we like bamboo flooring and we've choosed something like the vertical grain natural bamboo. Now that we're getting closer to the actual building process we've started to finish some research on old design ideas and for bamboo flooring we found these LiveModern threads that made us a bit nervous about the bamboo flooring (we don't have pets, but we have kids)
Plyboo bamboo flooring
Bamboo, comments from people who have it...

So next step is to schedule a visit to Smith & Fong Plyboo in South San Francisco, check the Plyboo strand too and decide if this is the right option for us, at least for the living area, the bedrooms will have the nice&green bamboo floors for sure!

Geologica & Florim

I wanted to see if anyone had actually installed Geologica tiles and asked this question in of LiveModern's forums.

And someone mentioned a similar italian product, Floor Gres:
I've never seen the graniti fiandre geolociga product but it sounds similar to this stuff:
http://www.floorgres.it/home.asp?l=E

we use the "Globe" series on a number of very high end jobs even though you can get the stuff for $7-9/sqft depending on the stock/ format. It's indestiguishable from natural stone and indestructible.

Fiandre in general makes a great product so I think you'd be very happy.

These tiles are also so stable that you can lay it over Schluter Ditra matt so the build up will match up with your wood floors without having to do all sorts of padding and furring to make the two match. (as opposed tp laying it over a concrete backer board).

http://www.schluter.com/english/products/2002/sectionf/ditra/601-index.html

Floor-eka!

We've visited Geologica's San Francisco showroom and found quite a few options, although we haven't decided on the overall color scheme yet. We know we like the light yellowish bamboo and so we need a tile color that's not too close to the bamboo.
We've talked to Nicole and here are some options we've considered for the entry, hallway and kitchen and possibly the rest of the living areas:
- First choice was this New Stone Ardesia Blue. Nicole recommeded us to see it installed in the new showroom of House of European Design. It looked beautiful but dirty, not at all easy to maintain, out of our list it goes.
- We've looked at 2 New Stone greys, pietra di bedona and pietra serena. We liked pietra serena better because it had a more uniform pattern and a lighter hue.
So the pietra serena is our number one choice so far, it's neutral to let us bring other colors, hopefully easier to maintain than Ardesia Blue and should go nicely with the bamboo, what do you think?
- We've also checked the New Ground earth-tone, lighter colors and we kept coming back to this grey ground with a hint a green. But these tiles are porcelain, and for some reason we liked the engineered stone better. Still on our list.

We'd love to hear comments on our choices so far!

And here's some more quick info on Geologica stones:
The Geologica products are recreations of rare, exotic, extinct and technically limited marbles, granites, limestones, quartzites, slates and travertines and are available in a large variety of colors, sizes and finishes. Geologica stone is made of 100% natural minerals and is manufactured for durability -- it is frostproof, and extremely resistant to stains, scratches, UV rays and chemicals. Since Geologica is a non-porous material, it is extremely easy to care for and maintain. Cleaning with water and a neutral cleaner is all that is requred -- sealers, polishes or waxes are not needed. Please call us for a brochure, samples or more detailed product information.