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.

This whole week I am blogging over at Design Sponge. I’m so excited because Grace at Design Sponge has been such an inspiration for me over the years, as well as a great resource for affordable goodies. At first I couldn’t even think about what I could share with her readers, since she is much more of a design expert than I. After a lot of pondering I though I would share the story of our remodel at our last house. So if you aren’t familiar with the story, or just want a quick recap, make sure you check out my guest blog all week at Design Sponge.

Thanks Grace for the opportunity to share!

Those of you that have been following me on Twitter know that last Friday I started on my own kitchen project. We got the entire old kitchen demoed out, as well as the room underneath it (scope creep). We put down new subfloor to get rid of all the squeaks, and got a good start on the plumbing. Today we are ordering our flooring, white rubber tiles, and looking at countertops. I hope to finish up the plumbing and start on the electrical.
Check out my tweets to see how I’m doing!

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!

Almost two years ago I posted about Design e2, a PBS show that focuses on sustainable design practices, particularly in our large cities. Truth be told, we don’t have a TV at our house, so I never actually got around to seeing any full length shows. If you’re like me and missed it the first time around, head on over to Hulu where they have the first six episodes of season one. I sat down and watched one last night, and it was pretty good, especially for free TV.

Design e2 on Hulu.

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 love the old retro freestanding fireplaces. My grandparents have one in their A frame cabin up in the mountains of Colorado, and I have fond memory’s of sitting around it listening to the fire crackle. I figured that they were either gone with the 70’s or too expensive or hard to source, but the fine folks over at shelterrific have proven me wrong. Malm fireplaces continues to make a variety of funky freestanding wood burning and gas fireplaces. Prices are surprisingly affordable starting at around $1,000 and going up from there. They have a few different models, with only a few shown here, and are available in a variety of colors. They even do custom designs if you have something special in mind.

Available from Malm Fireplaces starting at $1000.

Hopefully you have been following the 100k house blog where chad has been working on building a modern, green home in Philly for 100k. I have been crossing my fingers hoping they would meet their budget, and so far they are right on track. In a twist of events Chad will actually be keeping the home for himself instead of selling it, but they do have another project that is for sale, the 120k house. The actual sell prices is 250k, the difference being the cost of the land and the fact that they still have to make some sort of profit on the thing. That’s still an amazing price for a modern, platinum certified home in Philly. If you are interested, or know someone who is, head over to the 100k house website for more details.

120k house

Check out the for sale video after the jump.

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