24min readIf you adore the yards that get featured on the cover of atomic Ranch, but you don’t live in Palm Springs, are you just out of luck?
No, you can still have striking plant structures and beautifully composed outdoor spaces. You’ll just do it with different vegetation. Listen to my most recent conversation with Jim Drzewiecki of Ginkgo Leaf Studio for some great strategies.
37min readAs a designer, it’s so hard to pick a favorite project, but one I’m talking about today has certainly got to be at the top of my list. I recently covered this house on the YouTube channel, because it’s a perfect case study of getting the 90s out of a perfectly nice mid-century home.
Sometimes you find the house in the perfect spot that completes your future dream checklist … but no one has taken the time to revise the 90’s remodel. So only you can really see it’s potential.
Today I’ve invited homeowner, Michelle Cramton, to talk about how we took a shell of a house and turned it into her dream retirement home as she was literally starting from zero after the Altadena fires last winter. I am so happy to share her story of resettling back into her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, and into her mid-century dream.
Her contractors are still tying up the last loose ends so no “after” shots yet but some of these progress photos are looking pretty SNAPPY!.
Settle in to hear Michelle telling you her story of how we met, how we started thinking about this project together, and how we explored her options in a master plan package.
And then had the opportunity to take it further through a bunch of really fun additional services.
She just let me stick with her from the beginning right through until now! We’re currently working on the last final few details of the house. It has been such a treat to get to follow along closely at every step.
You’ll find some photos of this house below. These are recent progress snaps. We don’t have final photos yet, because work is still underway. In fact, in the conversation you’ll hear just a little bit of banging – outside work being done.
If you’d like to see a bit of the design process, jump to the YouTube case study I just made about this house.
48min readAre you familiar with Kerf Design kitchens or bathrooms or wall mounted shelving units? To quote Kerf’s website, “Good joints should be admired. Construction should be simple and honest. We tinker, we improve, and we consider every detail. We love plywood.”
Well, I do too.
If you’re in the market for a Kerf kitchen or just in the mood to learn a lot of interesting background on construction with veneer or plywood materials, you’re in luck.
In this great chat with founder Nathan Hartman, we cover how their designs are manufactured, how the plywood is sourced, different wood grain types, and how this kind of minimalist, sleek, modern cabinet blends in perfectly with the traditions of mid-century history.
I’m also in luck because Nathan perfectly articulated why all of the different members of a design construction team are really valuable.
It works so well for his group to his group to take a project that started with a designer who can handoff to them once the schematic element is well established. Then Kerf’s team take in the project and figure out each detail of kitchen storage and plan for perfect construction before handing off their completed cabinets to a construction team for install.
This conversation is going to give you some insight into built-ins and kitchen design and cabinets generally.
It’s also wonderful insight into the specific process that Kerf uses to create great kitchens that make their homeowners so happy.
35min readYou may already use AI to get input on many areas of your life. And you may feel like the convenience outweigh its many negatives. Maybe. But here where we talk about making right choices for your home, let me assure you, you will not get good advice or even peace of mind about your design options by asking AI.
To paraphrase a meme I saw recently, Hey, y’all don’t ask ChatGPT. Make friends with a nerd.
And I am so, so happy to be your mid-century design and remodeling nerd.
I’ve been irked by AI for a while. It seems like it is over promising and under delivering. And I’m always kind of on the lookout for more information to corroborate my opinion.
The Washington Post recently ran a top of the page headline piece titled something like, “Can AI Do Your Job?” The very first example they gave was, can it do the job of an architect or a designer. And the short answer is, “nope.”
On their very first example they asked it to create a digital floor plan based on a hand drawn floor plan. And it was literally just supposed to recreate a hand drawn sketch as a digital floor plan. The human version was very tidy and annotated with dimensions. The chat version? Just a bunch of rooms labeled. AND with a bizarre relocation of spaces, including a bathroom surrounded on three sides by corridors. Certainly not a useful replica and in no way an improvement.
Why is AI so bad at being a designer? And even worse at helping you plan a remodel for your mid-century home? I have thoughts.
55min readI was thrilled to chat with Dana Jenkins and Colin Davis of the Instagram account @un.flipping,(who may have coined the phrase!) and have blown up online by sharing their five-year journey to add the soul back into their thoroughly flipped mid-century home.
We all know the story. You find an MCM ranch in your perfect neighborhood, only to click further into the listing to discover a flipper has been there first. They’ve ripped out the character and replaced it with trendy, generic finishes.
It’s a tragedy…(well, to us it is).
And many mid-century lovers believe it’s also the final answer for the home. Remodeling something that has been “updated” is wasteful, isn’t it? And it’s almost impossible to undo the damage to original finishes or find replacements for pieces that ended up in the dumpster.
