Getting into the salvage game

June 20, 2011 by Jeff Erkelens

I’ve wanted to incorporate salvaged and reclaimed material into our houses for a while now, as I think it adds so much intrigue and texture. However, I’ve always come across a few roadblocks. Namely: price and a place to store it. I can’t really say we have solved the storage issue, as we have completely filled up our basement and now have to build around all the stuff, but the price was right.

We got two giant truck loads from Pennsylvania from Provenance, an architectural salvage shop in Philadelphia. We had wandered up to Philly a few weeks back to visit friends. We brought our truck thinking we might pick up a few odd items to incorporate into our house. I didn’t really plan on buying 3000 linear feet of 1x12s and 3200 square feet of maple flooring, but things happen. Luckily, they deliver.

So, we got a boat load of 2-1/4″ maple flooring from one of those giant high-schools that were built in the fifties to handle four or five thousand kids. The school was recently demolished and I think Provenance pulled up almost 20,000 square feet. They had been slowly selling it off, but were really looking to move the last bit and make room for new inventory.

What I love most about it is that every so often there are these 2″ wide stripes of red, yellow, green and black that were the line markings for the basketball court. I don’t think we will go to the trouble of trying to puzzle it back into the shape of a basketball court, but these random bits of color will be something really unique. We are going to install it in the basement of our house and work it into some select locations of our next couple houses.

The other big item we got was a whole bunch of various lengths of 1x oak boards, which were about 1/3 to 1/2 the price of what I’ve seem for other reclaimed woods. I think they were somewhat affordable as they didn’t come out of an old building, but were actually old 2″ thick scaffolding boards that had worn out their working life. Provenance was able to mill them in half to 3/4″ thick and double the yield. What we are left with is one side that has this great, rich oxidized look and another more blonde, virgin side. Lots of possibilities. Anyway, we are definitely excited to take a break from all the ponderosa and plywood wall cladding.

 

 

Project: 6th Street SW · Tags: , , · 1 Comment

Music to my ears

June 17, 2011 by Jeff Erkelens

Sometimes it’s nice to have a little closure.

I don’t know what I was really thinking, but a few years ago I bought an upright piano on the cheap. I played a little as a kid and I think I thought I was going to have the time to take it up again. There were a few broken keys and it was terribly out of tune, but I thought it would be a fun project.

So, I and the rest of the Latitude fellas first carted the piano into the Monticello house a few years back. I had a bout of enthusiasm and I got some tuning wrenches from my buddy Ray and quickly tuned half the piano. My attention to it waned and we were left with a piano that was half in tune, half out of tune, so you really could only play one half at one time.

Then we moved on to the King St house. We loaded it in the pick up truck again and muscled it into the house.  Broke a few more keys driving across town among other wear and tear issues. After sitting in our living room at King St for over a year collecting dust, Joey had a piano tuner come and offer his opinion, which basically was, “fat chance trying to save this.”

So, we took some sledgehammers and sawzalls to it and we’ve been left with the carcass, the keys and the sound board, for over a year. Spontaneously, we thought wouldn’t it be great if we could somehow incorporate it into our house. So, we lugged the soundboard into the truck one last time and drove it down the street. It’s still quite heavy, but nothing like moving the whole piano.

Originally, we thought it would be great to have it on a wall in our living room, but then quickly realized we would be driven bonkers by kids banging on it all the time.  So, we settled on framing it into the 1st floor half bath, which is out of the way and has a door.  We thought it would be this great fantastical and surprising moment to walk into the bathroom and see the giant sound board. An added bonus is the back half faces into our mudroom nook, so we are going to use the shape of it to inform the shapes of the built in cubbies.

Project: 6th Street SW · Tags: , · 1 Comment

Riverbluff Kitchen

May 26, 2011 by Jeff Erkelens

I thought I’d take a second to spotlight the kitchen at Riverbluff, as the kitchen is a space where we love to play with different textures and finishes. It’s usually the kitchen that is the time capsule and tip off for when the house is built, whether it’s avocado appliances and orange Formica counter-tops from the 70′s or cherry cabinets and granite cabinets in the 90′s.

I’d like to think we are building something that is timeless, but who knows. I mean we are using stainless steel appliances, which I have to think at some point will fall out of vogue. My tastes skew to both the comfort of the country farmhouse and to the crispness of modern design.  Maybe it’s too much of a mish mash, but I like this eclecticism and believe country and modern play well off each other.

Excuse the photos as I quickly took them myself.  It’s also a little difficult to capture as it’s a pretty narrow, galley kitchen.  This kitchen is another take on what we were playing around with on the Rockland house.  I love using two different sets of cabinet faces and counter-tops in a kitchen and how they play off each other.  On one side we have the sleek stainless cabinets with the soft butcher block top.  On the other side, we have the more coarser appearing concrete counter-top with the crisp white, foil finish cabinets.

The devil is in the details, and here are a few in this kitchen: I hate how hulking fridges are and how they protrude past the cabinets. So we made sure to place the fridge at the entry way to the kitchen, where a wall hides this fact. The cabinets are from IKEA, but they unfortunately don’t make a stainless steel toe kicks, so we are having custom made brushed stainless toe kicks made up (one of many punch list items). The IKEA farm sink, also from IKEA, which we love, is not meant to have the backside exposed, so Tommy made a custom wood trim piece that wraps the sink and masks the unfinished areas. Thinking about lighting, we made sure to put in a bulkhead between the kitchen and dining area as it both defines the kitchen and keeps the overhead lighting from spilling out into the dining room.  I also acknowledge that there is not a lot of upper cabinet space, as I love open kitchens with windows. Obviously, got to keep all the food somewhere, so we have a dedicated pantry closet with ample shelving right off the kitchen.

As far as appliances, we are sticking with a Bosch brand dishwasher, as it has proven to us over numerous houses to be extremely reliable and quiet. This is also the third house where we have installed an induction range by Samsung. Induction uses magnetism to heat cookware directly, so the actual cooktop stays pretty cool to the touch and is a great safety feature for kids. Plus, induction boils water faster than gas or electric and has the same precision of temperature ranges that great a gas range would have. My dad always had great industrial restaurant style gas ranges and I have a great nostalgia for that, but there is something to be said for the the ease of cleaning a glass top and not sacrificing performance.

Project: Riverbluff Circle · Tags: , , , , · Leave a comment

Keep that man behind bars

May 13, 2011 by Jeff Erkelens

Before Tom left us choking on his dust and exhaust, he gave us this parting gift: a new take on the upstairs hallway railing.  I was a little burnt out on our standard horizontal cable railing as we’ve done the same detail in four of the last five houses.  The cable rail is a great look, but we just wanted to try something new.

Joey keeps saying on our house she wants really skinny pickets spaced close together.  I mentioned to Tom the idea of playing around with the standard picket railing and this is what he came up with.  A little bit of a pain in the ass: all that ripping, sanding smooth and polying,  but it’s definitely one of my favorite things in the house.

Now, if only Tom were around to give us a carcastic yet whimsical explanation of what it all means.

 

 

Project: Riverbluff Circle, Uncategorized · Tags: · 1 Comment

Cable Me

June 23, 2009 by Jeff Erkelens

So.  We love that cable rail. We love metal, we love horizontal lines, we love the simplicity of the look.  Honestly, I also think part of it’s allure is you actually don’t see it that much in the flesh. You see it a lot in magazines, some in commercial buildings, so I find people really want to reach out and grab it when they see it in a house.

Did I mention that it can be used as a musical instrument? Tom knows how to play both the theme to Jeopardy and The Facts of Life.  I know how to play the first part of the theme to Jaws.  The part where the shark is coming.

So, we were honestly a little timid when it first came to the cable rail thing.  Mainly because of price as the proprietary systems cost a fortune.  We have to thank Moriah for making it seem easy as he turned us on to a method of doing it with material right off the shelf of Lowes.  Since then, we’ve trolled the internet and our currently spending our time at e-rigging.com (cable and ferrules) and mutualscrew.com (You have a dirty mind! That’s where we are getting the turnbuckles and eye hooks).

So here’s the system:  One end you have a small eye-hook. You thread a cable through that and create a loop that is crimped with two ferrules. The first ferrule is what locks the two cables together. The second ferrule is cosmetic and is what caps the wire off as you run it maybe only halfway through the ferrule.  You could get away with one ferrule, but you should really take the extra time to crimp carefully. Then, the wire runs along and at the other end you make another loop with two ferrules that runs through the eye end of a 4″ turnbuckle. The jaw end of the turnbuckle runs through another small eye hook. We are complete.

So, obviously the big difference is that the proprietary systems are much more streamlined: The rail at one end slips into a small tube that is anchored to the post and has small little allen screws digging into the wire to lock it in to place. The other end has another little tube scenario that swivel up a threaded rod to get taut.  Ours has more components and is a bit more chunky.  But, if done right, looks great.

A few keys to success:

Take the time to really cut all the wires exactly the same length and to crimp all the ferrules in the same place, so that the loops are all the same.  Take the time to make sure that when you put on the turnbuckles, they are slack to the same degree. That way when you add tension, all the components line up over each other and it doesn’t distract the eye.

Spend twelve bucks and buy a portable drill press attachment for your cordless drill cause you are not free handing all those posts. Except if you trying to recreate the album cover to whatever Joy Division record that is.

Code says no 4″ ball can ever pass through it.  So that means not spacing your cable more than 3 1/2″ apart tops. For, if you can put your hand in between two cables and flex it such that the cable moves to get that 4″ gap, you fail. And, you would have to add a crazy amount of tension to not make those cables move much.  So, give yourself some breathing room.

If you’re inside, it’s all super cheap as you can get all aluminum zinc plated.  If you’re outside, you got to not skimp. Go with stainless steal over galvanized, particularly for the wire as that will rust pretty easily.

Project: Rockland Avenue · Tags: , , · Leave a comment

why go out to eat?

June 22, 2009 by Jeff Erkelens

So, you go in to pretty much any restaurant with a modern decor in Charlottesville and you are going to see DuRock, a cement backer board, on their bathrooms walls. Zocalo, X Lounge, Mas. I feel like there is one or two more.  They love it.

We’re just as guilty of stealing that idea as it’s our third bathroom we’ve used the Durock as cladding.  For me, it’s got so much texture and visual interest to it. It is a colder material, so I like to soften with some wood. In this case, we went a simple wood chair rail.  Again, one thing I can’t get away from is taking a traditional form and updating it with modern materials. So, we took a classic two tone look with the chair rail, but used the bright red candy apple tile down low (look closely, we’re missing a tile. It’s on the punch list), with the durock above.

IKEA has this new lines of sinks that are really sculptural, so I thought it cried out for an equally sculptural support for it. So, just made a simple slatted support out of wood. I love me some slats. That’s why all our of railings and fences are always slatted.  No pickets!

Anyway, got one more bathroom to show off, maybe tomorrow.  General philosopy on bathrooms: such a small space that material wise you can go a little crazy and not break the bank and have some fun.

Project: Rockland Avenue · Tags: , · Leave a comment

Master Bath

May 28, 2009 by Jeff Erkelens

As always, my camera sucks and I like to think doesn’t do justice to a compact, but wonderful master bathroom. We went heavy on the yellow pine, but I think it works really well with the grey mosaic tile in the tub and the aluminum and glass ikea cabinet. I forgot to get a shot of the floor, but we put in black slate with a grey grout. I don’t know, I really like the yellow pine and it could almost tip things over into being to cabiney (if that’s a word). But, when you juxtapose it with some colder, more austere material, you get what we at Latitude 38 like to call…”urban country.” Boo yah.

So, the kitchen is kicking some serious ass these days, like chef kicking ass.  Sous chef, pastry chef, they’re all gonna wanna party in there. We’ve got the countertops and large farm sink in, but I’m waiting until just a few more little trim things are in before snapping some pics.

Project: Rockland Avenue · Tags: · Leave a comment

Gotta put the big honkin tv somewhere

May 17, 2009 by Jeff Erkelens

So, I feel like one of the biggest things missing from most new houses is the lack of built in shelving, bookcases and other quirky features that a lot of old houses have. Growing up in an old Victorian, I try and infuse my houses with the same warmth and charm that the house I grew up in has, albeit with probably a more modern and less ornate spin.

So, I’m totally stealing this line from John Quale, a UVA architecture professor, but I heard him tell his students basically that “the television is the new hearth.”  I’m not going to get into a critique on the implication of that, but from a design standpoint, if I don’t design into the space a place to put the flatscreen tv, the homeowner is going to plunk it somewhere and it’s just going to be too dominating. So, I’ve really taken that to heart and while I cringe at the term, “enertainment center”, we’re basically building one into our houses from now on.

The first two photos show the built in shelving in the living room. We left that ladder there to try and give it some scale. (the ladder is six feet tall). We didn’t run the shelving all the way to the ground as we felt that’s a great wall to put some chairs or a sofa against to see the views of the mountains.  From personal experience, once you fill the shelves with books, the tv actually shrinks in size and is less noticeable.

The other two photos are from previous built ins from other houses we have done in town.

Project: Rockland Avenue · Tags: · Leave a comment

Kitchen Preview

May 11, 2009 by Jeff Erkelens

I’m a little reticent to show pics yet as it is missing some key elements, but here we go.

So, I think this is going to be the coolest kitchen we’ve done so far in terms of tones, textures and materials. I really wanted to do stainless steel base cabinets as I think they are really striking.  To soften the feel of that, we are going to install butcher block countertops, which almost gives a country feel. There will also be stainless steel backsplash that rises up to a wood shelve that goes around the entire L of the stainless cabinets.

For the kitchen island, I thought it would be cool to basically flip the colors. So, instead of grey colored base cabinet and a wood top, we went with birch veneer base cabinet and we will install a concrete countertop on top. I decided not to add any pigment to the countertop as I want to maintain its light grey color to play off the stainless steel.

We went with those large, linear ikea handles too. I worry a little bit that the look will become dated and almost become the mod equivalent of cherry cabinets and granite countertops in McMansions. So, reflecting on this, we didn’t go with the extra long handles and only put them on the island cabinets.

As far as the function of the kitchen, I went with the concrete island as I see that as the place where you make all your food and wanted something extremely durable that you could both put hot pots down on and could take some water.

One could argue that the biggest drawback to the kitchen is that there are no wall cabinets. This is because there are two large windows in the kitchen that take up most of the wall space. We did this as I love a kitchen with lots of natural light and we wanted folks to take in the awesome views of the mountains.

Now, to remedy this, we’ve done a few things. It’s a large kitchen with plenty of base cabinets for storage to help compensate. It’s hard to make out now, but we are building a large ledge shelf around the exterior wall cabinets as an extra spot to put stuff.  The ledge would make a great spot to grow herbs too.

 In addition, we’ve got a nice pantry area with french doors (we are going to build shelves at the height of the glass). And, we installed some more shelves in a utility closet just off the kitchen.

Check out the pics:

Project: Rockland Avenue · Tags: , · 1 Comment

Concrete Countertops

May 11, 2009 by Jeff Erkelens

Kitchen is starting to come together. We have a fairly large kitchen island that we decided to pour a concrete top for. It’s been a few years since we’ve gotten to do one, so it was exciting to go through the process.  Of course, I say this before having to lift it off the floor into place.

Like most people that have done a diy concrete countertop, I just  bought Fu Tu Chengs Concrete Countertops and followed the instructions. This was pretty easy as there were no sink cut outs or anything fancy.

I just love the texture and tone of finished concrete. It’s such a great material as it take the form of whatever you use to make your mold out of. We used melamine board, which is perfectly smooth, so hopefully when we flip it the top will be completely smooth to the touch.

The only thing I’ve really come up on my own is how to vibrate the concrete to get out any air pockets and voids. They sell mini portable concrete vibrating snakes, but their really expensive. So, I just use a palm sander with no sanding pad and put a plastic bag over the concrete so it doesn’t get on the sander.

I’d like to think I’ve made a lot of progress in terms of thinking about passive solar design on this house. Besides the window orientation, great insulation and large roof overhangs, we have gone with a concrete floor on the first floor as a way to capture that solar gain in the winter time, such that it can be released at night.  In the kitchen, we have a large south facing window, but the combination of the height of the window and the cabinets in the kitchen will probably prevent a lot of the sun from striking the floor.

Now, I’m not just saying this as I actually believe the concrete countertop is large enough and properly placed to actually capture heat from the sun and radiate heat.

Project: Rockland Avenue · Tags: , , , , · Leave a comment