If you remember my video where I tore all the siding off the front of my house last month, you will remember that my front door is pretty drab. My friend is trying out a couple new door designs that he has and asked if he could come put one on my house to see what it would look like “in the wild”. I was amazed a what a difference it made on how our house looks! The pictures really don’t do the door justice (especially the bad photoshop work!). The door itself is made of solid core walnut with 1/2″ structural glass. The fit was perfect, it’s just too bad it was only a test and we had to send it home at the end of the day.

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When we first moved into our house, there were a lot of things that needed updating. The berber carpet and yellow paint were the first things to go. After that we knocked down a wall in our kitchen and added some new cabinetry. We’ve been here for over a year now, and the inside if finally looking fairly nice. The outside has been a different story. Our whole house is made of atlas block, a structural brick. Sometime between now and 1956 when it was built somebody thought it would be a nice idea to wrap the whole house in blue aluminum siding. It’s been an eyesore to us ever since we bought it, but we were afraid to start tearing it down because we didn’t know what kind of condition the exterior walls would be in. Last night a good friend stopped by to measure for a new door we are putting in (more on that later) and in the process we needed to peek behind the siding to be able to plan for the larger door. Once I started pulling that ugly blue down, I just couldn’t stop. The result is refreshing and wonderful. The original atlas block has never been painted and is in fairly good shape. The gabled section has some old wood lap siding that is painted a great dark pea green. It will need to be replaced eventually, but for now it looks wonderful compared to how it was. Best part about it is that it was absolutely free (in fact I’m sure we’ll make some money off the aluminum) and it is taking the house back to the way it was originally designed.

The bedroom remodel downstairs is moving along nicely with about 95% of the drywall being hung over the weekend. We hope to be painting in a week or two. While we have most of the details for the room figured out, one that has been lingering is the choice of door knobs. When it comes to looks, we definitely prefer levers, but knobs are much more childproof. So here is the challenge. Show us your favorite non-lever door knobs. You comments and links will be very much appreciated.

As an asides I noticed in my friends mid-century home he has some flush doorknobs that use a sort of recessed vertical lever to release the latchset. Has anyone ever seen something similar to this? So far my online searches have come up completely empty handed. I did find some pocket door latches (pictured above) but I don’t know that they would really work with our application.

If you remember a few weeks ago, I was looking for some good advice on how to get the clean modern flush door look. As far as hinges go, it looked like either a SOSS or a pivot hinge was going to work the best. In the end we went with a SOSS hinge and a custom jam that has the doorstop continue all the way to the edge. Because we have some serious time constraints (read my wife is 8+ months pregnant and wants the room done) we opted to have the door made locally instead of ordering online or attempting to build it ourselves. As far as I could tell ordering it online would have put us out around $750 and had a 4-6 week lead time. We were able to have it made locally for $400 a door with a lead time of just over a week. We did have to settle for a paint grade solid core instead of the solid fir that we wanted. The fir would have increased both the cost and lead time substantially.

We will have to wait for the drywall to be hung to see if the detail turned out the way we wanted, but first impressions are as follows. #1 I absolutely love the feel of the solid door compared to a normal hollow core. Besides feeling more substantial the doors also do a much better job of blocking sound. Definitely worth the extra money. #2 The SOSS hinges are very nice. Obviously the look of them is great, or rather the fact that you can’t see them. The feel of the hinge is also nice, although they do feel a little stiff so far.

I know the pictures are pretty lousy, I’ll snap some better ones as soon as the drywall gets hung, which hopefully should be by this weekend.

The reason I started Grassrootsmodern was because I was discouraged by the lack of affordability in modern architecture and interior design. My own personal quest lead me to buy a 700 square foot home and add 600 modern square feet off the back. (That story started here) Acting as general contractor we were able to pull it off for around $100 a square foot. The secret, sweat equity.

The folks over at Simplemodernhomes.com have taken it one step further. The owner Caleb had the advantage of being an architect fresh out of school. He and his wife designed and built the gorgeous 1400 square foot home shown above for only $70,000. The $50 a square foot price didn’t come without a lot of work, but it does prove that if you want something bad enough you can achieve it. When I asked Caleb the secret to affordable modern design, he said;

First, to be grassroots and affordable, you have to be willing to sweat a lot, and bleed some. Doing things ourselves is what makes us grassroots. People always used to build their own homes, and in the last century we’ve come to the mindset that “I can’t do that myself”, and “bigger is definitely better.” I believe that when thinking about affordable housing, design to your families needs, whether that’s 800 sf or 2000 sf. Use materials that are common and durable. Design with common dimensions in mind. Use materials that are easy to install, and always build for a hurricane. Andy Byrnes of The Construction Zone, LTD. in Phoenix said, “There is only one acceptable craft on any project, that is, the best you can possibly do.” I firmly believe that should hold true in affordable homes as well. Craft should not be more expensive than a half-job. Low budget projects should have the same level of detail and craft as a high-priced home.

Here are some more interior shots of their home.

Simple Modern Homes is now sharing the lessons they’ve learned and helping other folks built affordable modern homes. The renderings below are some of the other projects they’ve designed. If you’re interested make sure you head over to their site and contact caleb.

  
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For the room that we are remodeling downstairs I want to do a nice flush vertical grain fir door. Unfortunately that is proving more difficult than I thought. No one in town seems to stock them and everyone wants to custom order them in for me with a lead time of 6 weeks. Since we really want to have them here when we do the door jambs before the drywall that doesn’t work for us. I have found one place locally, Stock Builiding Supply, that will custom build them for me with just a week turn around time. I should get the pricing for that today. It seems like it shouldn’t be that hard of a thing.

Does anyone know a good place to get a flush fir door?

As we are getting ready to redo a downstairs bedroom, I have been looking into the possibility of doing some clean flush mount doors. Luckily there are some pretty good resources online to help figure it all out. The doors shown above are from Modern Doors Direct, and besides having some nice looking doors (at around $700 a door plus installation) they also have some great architectural drawings of how the magic all happens. One of the key things to getting it done are a pair of invisible SOSS hinges. Since the hinges are readily available, I figure I pick up some up and do it myself.

SOSS has a handy chart to determine how many hinges you need based on your door width and weight as well as router guides to help get your hinges set just right. I figure I’ll be in it around $100 with hinges and a guide, and another $150 or so for a good solid wood door. With a little luck it will turn out as nice as the Direct Modern Doors ones at a fraction of the price. I admit the real hard part is going to be the jam detail, and I’m still trying to decide the best way to do that. My current plan is just to install a good paint grade jam over the rough opening and have the drywall return into the jam. The drywall edge will be finished off with a L bead to keep the line between the two clean.

Any other advice or thoughts?

Resources:

Discussion on flush mount doors on Livemodern.

Modern Doors Direct drawings

SOSS

When it comes to office furniture the two big companies Steelcase and Herman Miller come to mind. While Herman Miller actually has a really nice line of home furniture, for some reason I have never really thought of looking to Steelcase for something for my home. That perception is starting to change. Last month I was able to get my hands on one of their coffee tables designed and produced by Turnstone a Steelcase company and I have been really impressed. While the price certainly is out of Ikea territory, the Alight coffee table is priced at $449, which is fair value for the money considering the sturdy build.

We opted for the dark walnut finish which goes well with our brown KRAMFORS sofa and Avalisa rug. The only regret so far is having a glass top, which never stays free of fingerprints thanks to our son. Still it’s a good upgrade from our LAKT tables we got for for free off Craigslist.

Available from the Steelcase store for $449

I have been scouring Craigslist and other local online classifieds for a long time now to see if I could get any deals on kitchen appliances. As luck would have it, we were able to find what I think have been some pretty great deals. Most recently we found a built in GE Monogram refrigerator that was listed for $1,500 due to several dents and scratches put in it during a move. While that sounds like a lot for a dented fridge, retail is more like $6,000 so when I talked him down to $800 I knew I couldn’t pass it up. All the panels need replacing, and to buy them from GE would cost another $2,500, but I have a hunch the guys at Interior Renovation can do it for a lot less. I’m just glad we didn’t have to haul our old fridge back upstairs.

In our last kitchen we had a 30″ Bosch gas cooktop. We loved the gas, and swore that we would never have anything else. We do a lot of cooking at our house, and the two things that we didn’t like about our Bosch were having to remove the grills to clean up after a night of cooking, and the 30″ size. When we heard about induction cooktops, it seemed too good to be true. They are way more energy efficient than both gas and traditional electric, they have temperature control as good or better than a gas cooktop, and the glass top makes them easy to clean. The one downside is they are expensive. Our Bosch put us back $600, while the 36″ Gaggenau we chose for this kitchen cost a shocking $2400. It was the one big splurge for our kitchen and I think it was worth it. There are quite a few induction cooktops out there, but to me what sets the Gaggenau apart from the others is the removable puck. The big dial used to control the temperature just sits on top of the glass and stays in place by a magnet. Burners are selected by sliding the dial in their direction, and then twisting to get the temperature you want. I love the tactile feedback of turning a dial compared to a touch control for the temperature, and the fact that it just sits on the surface means it’s simple to remove for cleaning.

Check your local Gaggenau dealer for pricing (we got our for just over $2400)