Last week we posted about a couple of different modern door options that were available. This week I got an email from April telling me about Crestviews DIY door lite kits. If you are lucky like April and already have a solid slab front door, making it Mid Century just got a whole lot more affordable. Instead of replacing the entire door, you can just add the window panes to make it look like a Crestview door. You can choose from any of their retro door designs, or come up with your own custom design. Kits start at $179 which is way cheaper than you could ever get a new door for. Installation looks pretty easy (video after the jump) and you get the satisfaction of knowing you did it yourself. If you are not the handy type (or are unlucky like me and don’t have a plain slab door) and still want a Crestview door, check out their “showroom specials” that start at $800.
While you’re checking out Crestview doors, make sure you look at their totally amazing door-o-vision that lets you see different doors on your own house.

Door lite kits available from Crestview starting at $179.

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We started the week off with affordable modern doors, and we are ending it that way too. Shannnon Walker was mentioned in Monday’s post as an affordable alternative to some of the more expensive “modern” doors available. New to the door industry, Shannon created a orange and stainless door for their modern bungalow remodel. Since then she has been designing and selling doors to people looking for a less expensive alternative. Most prices range between $800 and $1,200 depending on the number of windows. She is working on a website (doorplay.net) but it isn’t ready yet. In the meantime, check out her blog.

Pics of her remodel after the jump.

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I have a friend here in Salt Lake City that has the same vision of modern that I do. He thinks that the prices being charged for the majority of stuff are way overpriced. Where we differ is that he actually has the skills and the resources to do something about it. He recently started playing around with making some contemporary doors. In an effort to avoid just copying someone else style, he has been playing around with mounting a 1″ piece of glass perpendicular to the door surface. I took a look at this door last week, and it looks amazing. The one in this photo is actually an interior door, but they also had an exterior door in the works. While talking about exterior doors, we both wondered. What do most people feel is affordable for a modern exterior door? Give us some feedback in the poll below. Also what do you think of the door? Hate it? Love it? Come on we can take it.

For more info about the door, check out modfab.utahmodern.org.

I have to admit that in the past I have been less than optimistic about modern prefab houses. Very few of them end up being priced at less than $200 a square foot. To me $100 a square foot is the magic number to try and hit before you can really claim it’s “affordable”. The 100k house is proving that it can be done with fairly typical building practices and a little creativity. So where does that leave prefab? Well not everyone has given up on it like I have, and the NY Times had an interesting article about a prefab modern home built in the Los Angeles area for $125 a square foot. The home shows some obvious influence from the Eames Case Study home and shows that using prefab techniques to achieve an affordable modern home might still be a possibility.
NY Times Article “Prefab, High-Concept and Green”

Via TreeHugger
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Thanks Rob!

Grassrootsmodern reader Baz just purchased a fantastic Mid-Century Modern home in Indianapolis, and in classic GRM spirit has already launched into the demolition. He is documenting the whole thing over at Atomicindy.blogspot.com He is making some great progress in helping restore the home to it’s former glory. One thing that he was looking to bring back to it’s old glory were the exterior lights. With a little help from some friends, he was able to run across Remcraft lighting, which has a whole line of Mid-Century Modern lighting. They have some great swedish modern bullet lights and cylinder bullet lights for a fairly reasonable price. Both come in single or double, and make for some great Mid-Century Modern exterior lighting.

Available from Lighting Universe starting at $65.

Remcraft Website

Last week was the start of West Coast Green, a yearly conference on green building design and construction. There were lots of big names there like David Suzuki, Sarah Susanka, and Al Gore. Perhaps one of the most significant things to happen this year was the showing of the SG Blocks container house. Constructed of used Shipping containers, the house was erected on sight in just four hours and 47 minutes. In following with the theme of the conference, the home was thoroughly green throughout with FSC certified woods, solar panels etc. Besides the amazing rate at which the home was built, I was amazed at the stated per square foot price of $150, which includes “all the bells and whistles”. If that number is true, then this shipping container home is truly an amazing combination of aesthetics and affordability. I would love to see if the interior is as well designed as the exterior.

Via Inhabitat

SG Blocks website

Designed by the Lawrence Group

Not only am I just finding out that there are plans underway for a huge Frank Gehry designed mixed residential/commercial project here in Utah, but Frank Gehry himself was here a couple of days ago to show the plans for the project and answer any questions that the public had. It’s obvious that the Gehry designed project is going to shake up Utah architecture quite a bit, which has some people concerned. Personally I have to agree with Gehry when he said

There’s been a lot of stuff around here that I wouldn’t call great architecture at this point, but I think if we do something special, other people might step up to the plate and it might up the ante,

Check out more details at the G Code Properties.

I have had a couple of people as me about how I was able to wire up our industrial outdoor lighting so that it comes on automatically at night and goes off in the morning. At first we thought about making it motion activated like our old one, but the reality is that we would probably prefer to have a porch light on all night regardless of any motion in the area. We were able to find a cheap photocell that activates the light fixture in low light conditions. The trick was finding one that would fit nicely in the waterproof junction box that came with our light. The one we settled on is pictured above, and was available at our local hardware store for around $8. They are commonly used for outdoor pole lights. I was able to find it online at farm-home.com, but I am sure there are other places that have it as well. To attach it to the fixture you simply unscrew one of the access holes in the junction box (we used the top one) and insert the photocell. It has a rubber foam gasket to keep it water tight. The only two downsides to the $8 trick is that photocell usually only last around 5 years, and they can only control incandescent lights.

We used to have two big spotlights on a motion sensor on our garage. Over the last month or so the motion sensor has gotten progressively worse until it was almost non functional. This weekend we finally got around to replacing the whole light fixture. We found these nice weather tight industrial lights in the “barn section” of Sutherlands, a local hardware store. We ended up buying one for the front of the house, and one for our back porch. I love the look of them, and love the $18 price tag even more. The one in the front we added a little bit of hardware to make it turn on and off automatically depending on the amount of daylight. Needless to say, we are quite happy to be rid of the two huge, non-functional spotlights.

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