I stumbled across this sconce a while ago while I was looking for some good wall lighting to go above our cabinets in the hallway. It has a fairly small footprint at 5″H x 3.5″W and the satin steel gives it a nice simple look. It’s amazing how hard it is to find simple, and inexpensive lighting. If you like this style, there is also a Piazza floor and table lamp.

Available from Sleekspaces for $64.

EQ3 is right up there among my favorite furniture companies. They make a product that is relatively high quality for a price that is quite affordable. It seems like up until now they have focused on the modern contemporary line of furniture, which is just great. Looks like now they are expanding their horizons a little more with their new Canyon line of furniture. Featuring dark wood veneers and more rounded lines, the Canyon series is definitely a kick back to some great mid-century modern design. As all EQ3 products, the prices are fairly reasonable for a great product.

Check out the whole Canyon line here.

Now I will be the first to admit that target doesn’t always have the highest quality goods. In fact some of them are down right shoddy. Sometimes though it doesn’t really matter if the quality is great if it is cheap enough. Such is the case with their Nice Home Bentwood Stool. Sure, it might be a little flimsy, and you may not trust it to hold up your aunt Velma, but for only $5, it’s definitely good enough to hold up your favorite plant.
Available from Target for $4.99.

We officially closed on our new mortgage last week, and our loan funded yesterday. Even though there is still plenty to do around the house, I guess that sort of marks the project as “completed”. I thought I would give a brief recap of costs for those of you who are curious to know how we ended up. As you remember if you have been following from the beginning, we bought our home just over two years for right around $106,000. It was a good deal for a 700 square foot home on .11 acres of land. We almost immediately started tearing it apart. In the first year we ripped half the floor out right down to the floor joists, ripped out a big wall and dropped ceiling, and ripped out the old forced air furnace and installed radiant heating. We easily spent over $10,000 that first year out of pocket.
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With prefab houses failing to deliver to those who are looking for affordable modern architecture shipping containers have stepped up. People have been talking about it for a while. I used to anxiously read over at fab prefab in the shipping container section waiting for someone to actually build. It seemed like lots of people talked, but very few were actually doing anything. Luckily times are changing. This six pack from Atlanta Georgia has recently gone up and is looking good. Not the best container design I’ve seen (it lacks a little creativity) but the build price is rumored to be around $75 sq/ft, which is awesome.
Head on over to Materialicious to read more about it.

Check out a video here.

We finished most of the painting a couple of weeks ago. We decided to do it all ourselves to try to save some serious cash. We figure we probably saved somewhere between $5,000-8,000. We did spend a good 12 days at least trying to bust it all out. I figure I logged about 150 painting hours. We still have the rest of the stair tower to paint (too tall to reach without stairs). Many thanks to everyone for the help. A special thank you to Stephanie and Kenner for the great color advice, we are very happy with all of the colors.
Now we have varnishing the windows to look forward to.

Jacob

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When we designed our bathroom we always planned on forgoing the standard bath mat in favor of a wooden one. We even placed an extra drain outside of the bathtub so that when you stood on a wooden bath mat the water wouldn’t just pool underneath. I had planned on making my own out of Ipe, but I have to admit I am tempted to just get this teak one from West Elm. I even love the matching stool.

Available from West Elm $89 - $129.

For those of you looking for design inspiration for your modern or midcentury modern abode, I would encourage you to attend the 2007 Eichler Homes Tour to benefit the Hospice by the Bay. This two day event is hosted in Marin County California (which is located just north of San Francisco) and will feature over 20 post-and-beam, midcentury ranch homes built by Joseph Eichler. This annual event for charity is a great opportunity to see a variety of different Eichler floorplans and also get some inspirational ideas for updating or remodeling your modern home.

Marin Eichler Tour Dates are as follows:
Saturday, Sept 15, 10am - 4pm
Sunday, Sept 16, 10am - 4pm

Tickets are priced at $50/one day or $80 for both the Saturday & Sunday Tour.
This event has been an overwhelming success the last few years, with attendees coming from around the country (and the Bay Area) for this great charity event. Hopefully you can make a San Francisco vacation out of it and take in some great mid-century modern residential architecture!
Tickets for this special event have recently gone on sale and can be purchased online.

Via Marin Modern Real Estate Blog

There is something about Frogster that borders between endearing and creepy, and maybe that is why I love him so much. Made of neoprene, the mother frog has a zippered pouch in which she keeps her three baby wooden frogs and a lily flower. All the kids have a magnet so you can pull them around as your own little frog train. Frogster sits about 9″ tall and 3″ wide.

Available from the MoMA store for $19.

This one is for all you pet lovers out there, you know who you are.
Before we had our son Arrington, our dog was our child. Going to Petsmart used to be a shopping black hole, we could never leave there with just a bag of dog food. I’m sure our goldendoodle Ainsley would approve of these bowls and stand. The large bowls have a bone embossed on the bottom, and both sizes come with a white food bowl and a blue water bowl. The bamboo stand helps keep thing neat and tidy where they belong.

Available exclusively from Red Envelope for $35 - $55.