Here is some more great mid-century modern love for all of you. This time it comes courtesy of an old favorite, Urban Outfitters. This simple side table has the look of a classic danish wenge piece of art, but at a price that won't break the bank. It doesn't appear that it is actually a solid wood piece, but laminated MDF stained chocolate. I would love to see it in person, but unfortunately it is available online only. The good thing is it is only $120 plus $15 shipping.

Available from Urban Outfitters for $120

If you are a big retro modern fan, you know just how cool wallpaper used to be. Back in the day there were all sorts of flavorful designs that ended up on peoples walls. Smitten Kitten, a Canadian based company is bringing back all that groovy love, but in a very tasteful way. They have great vintage wallpaper journals and notebooks, that feature an array of classic floral and geometric retro prints. Make sure you check out the website to see all the great prints, and to check out the purses and jewelry too.

Available from Smitten Kitten for $20 CAD.

I've been a long time fan of Modest Mouse, and have almost all of their albums. They recently released a new one that I haven't had an opportunity to listen to yet. It's called "We were dead before the ship even sank". I was wondering if there were any other Modest Mouse fans out there who had listened to it, and could give some feedback if it's worth buying or not? Modest Mouse - New Album - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank - Download It Now at iTunes

Part of Todd Oldhams La-Z-Boy collection the Snap Coffee Table has a nice blend of Mid-Century flair and clean simple modernism. The Snap table has four storage cubbies in its walnut wrapped top, and is suspended on four nickel finished hairpin legs. This table used to be at Target for $359, but is now out of stock there, and it has shown up at Overstock.com for $149, which is a screaming good deal. I'm starting to think that if I am patient enough, I can find almost all my furniture at overstock. Available from Overstock.com for $149.

Last Wednesday I got a call from our local Alumanline saying that our windows had arrived. They were nice enough to make some special arrangements to have them delivered on Friday so that I could put them in over the weekend. Unfortunately I found out on Friday that the glass sliders hadn't arrived yet. Saturday my Father and Brother in Law came down from Cache Valley to help out. Putting the windows in was a real breeze, I think it took us about 4 hours to get all 9 windows cut out, flashed and installed. It's amazing to see how much light the let in. I can't wait to get the sliders in, and the back door.

I'll give exact numbers later, but the cost for two glass sliders, 9 windows and two skylights was about $7,500. Definitely one of the bigger expenses in the whole project, but so worth it.

No, these aren't the new iPod Shuffles, they are magnetic clips. Refrigerator clips to be more specific. They are basically just a high powered magnet, wrapped in silicone. The shape of the clip allows it to rock back when you push on the button area, similar to a normal refrigerator clip. The good part is that there are no moving parts to ever wear out. That, and these little guys are strong. They hold up to one pound each. I'm not sure just what one pound objects I would ever need to attach to my frige, but hey, you never know. Available from Endo, 3 for $9.

Sorry for the late post, I'm a little under the weather today. Today Brady roofing finished up the last touches on our roof. The picture here is actually from yesterday when they still had some loose ends to take care of. Their crew did a great job and were great to work with. I got the original bid from them about 4 months ago, and they have been faithfully calling me every two weeks to say "looks like we have you scheduled for monday". Back when we didn't even have our excavation done it was pretty funny. I was glad to finally be ready for them to come. For those that are following pricing, the bid came in just over $6,000. It could have been less if we had made some different design choices, such as sloping the roof with the framing instead of having the roofers do it on top.

I think that I have mentioned before that my wife and I are not going to find out the sex of our baby before it's born. I always thought that the hard part would just be not knowing if I would have a son or a daughter. I now know that the hardest part is shopping for the kid when you don't know if it's a boy or a girl. The big things like strollers, cribs, carseats aren't too hard, but infant clothes have been a nightmare. It seems that no one makes infant size clothes in any color but pink or blue, with the occasional white, yellow or green. What ever happened to the rest of the colors? Thankfully Speesees not only brings fashion to the newborn world, but they also manage to do it with organic cotton manufactured under fair trade practices and principles. The prices may be a little higher than your normal baby clothes, but you are getting so much more. The sweet Pumpkin "Seehors" onesie sells for $24.

Available from Speesees for $24.

The framers finished up the last of the rough framing yesterday. Chris from Benchmark Renovation did a fabulous job framing in the skylights and the projected window. In fact, pretty much everything those guys did turned out real nice. They demoed out the back of our house where the addition connects on, and it is great to see those interior spaces finally connected. We had our framing inspection yesterday too, and apart from a few small things everything passed. So now we can start with the electrical. One surprise that we did find is that the bottom of the wall on our existing house was rotting. It sits too close to the sidewalk outside and is constantly moist. We ripped out the old wood and put new wood in, and this summer I will need to rip out that sidewalk and grade it for proper drainage.

I installed the roof drains last night as well. The hardest part was finding someone that could get me the right product. For some reason everyone looked at me like I was a complete idiot when I asked for a roof drain. I ended up having to contact the local Zurn rep, and figure out which product I needed and then special order it from one of the local dealers. The one I ended up with turned out to be very easy to install, and very solid. The only downside is for four drains it cost almost $500. Ouch. That was a cost that I had not planned on. The good news is now that I have them in, the roofers can get a roof on it.

Speaking of contests. I received an email from the folks over at RemodelingMySpace.com yesterday. It seems that they are having a remodeling/blogging contest with a $5,000 prize. They were kind enough to enter me into the contest. So far there are not a lot of entry's (only 2) but they hope to get over 100 before the contest ends in August. You can check out the current entries here. Also, feel free to check out the rest of the site, it looks like they have some good tools for anyone looking to do a remodel, everything from how to videos, to photo's and cost calculators.

I know I have featured quite a few different kids prints here on Grassrootsmodern before, but for some reason when I see this bunny I just can't resist. Yoon Kids has several different prints available, all of which are very customizable. You can choose your background, your Yoonie (Bunny, Bear, Giraffe, Dog), and even add text. If you aren't feeling creative you can pick from a whole bunch of different pre-configured prints. They are available in 9 x 12 or 18 x 18 prints. Prices start around $80.

Available from Yoon Kids, starting at $80.

Benchmark Renovation is in charge of doing all the framing and siding. Yesterday they had three guys at our house, and they started framing up all the walls. They pretty much got all the walls up except the connecting corridor. The picture above is from the corner of the patio looking at our bedroom. The big opening is where the 8' slider goes. You can also see where all the windows will go to the right of the sliding door.It's really crazy to actually see it with walls up. No matter how good a drawing is, it's hard to really visualize what the space is going to feel like.

We ordered our back door yesterday. We really should have ordered it some time ago, but I guess better late than never. We got it through a local company called Quality Doors, and it is actually being made at a local mill. The picture to the left is not exactly what it will look like, but it's a pretty good representation. We got a full light maple door with square sticking. That means that it has the big window, is made out of solid maple, and doesn't have any weird trim pieces around the glass, just nice and square. I think that the maple will match the baltic birch that we are using for our cabinetry closer than a birch door, plus it was a little cheaper. Total price built, and pre-hung on a maple jam with satin hinges was $600. Not too shabby at all. I will have to put a spar urethane on it myself to protect it, but that will be easy. Perhaps the best part of it is that they are only 4 weeks out, which is a lot better than some of the other options that we were looking at.

It is hard to find affordable modern outdoor furniture. Most of the stuff is either way too expensive, or would never hold up to the elements. The Sophie Table isn't exactly advertised as an outdoor table, but with it's solid wood slat top, and cast aluminum base, I bet it would hold up as good as anything outside. Whether you want to use it inside or out, it's still a great deal at $169, especially with the free shipping.

Available from Mod Abode for $169.

Ralph, one of our faithful readers pointed out this great deal from Eurway. Above and to the left you see the Bantam Sofa from Design Within Reach for the not so reachable price of $1398. To the left you see the Vandyke Sofa from Eurway for a much more affordable $849. That is almost $550 dollars cheaper for basically the same couch. Having never seen either in person, who knows if the quality is exactly the same but it does raise an interesting question. Would you buy a knock off? Personally I would, and have. My arco lamp is a great example. But on some things I would want the original, like an Eames Lounger. Why, just silly I guess, but for some reason it just wouldn't be the same to sit in anything else. So, how about you?

Some time ago I did a little wright up on Voss water. I had come to the conclusion that it wasn't worth all the money for the water, but the bottle was worth every penny. Recently though we did have a comment that stated they felt the water was far superior to the others.Voss has recently ventured into the energy drink market, and is taking a typical Voss approach to it. It's all about the image. They were nice enough to send me a couple of samples of their new G Pure Energy Drink. Their press packaging was beautiful, I felt more like I was opening a box of perfume, not an energy drink. The bottles are quite a bit smaller than even the smallest Voss water bottle. The 200 ml bottle had a nice shape to it and fit in the hand nice. At $2.99 a bottle it's not really more expensive than any of the other energy drinks, you just get a little less. As far as taste, maybe my taste buds are not quite refined enough, but I think I prefer a Rockstar. Still, you just cant beat G for looks.

G Pure Energy Website.

I started tiling our bathroom last week. I set the floor tile on Wednesday night and grouted it on Friday. Let me just say for the record, that grout is a wonderful thing. It makes a not so hot tile job look pretty darn good. On Saturday I put up the rest of the dura rock (minus one side of the tub that I was still clamping and gluing) and started on the wall tile. My stepdad and father in law both stopped by Saturday night and helped with all the wall tile. It was a huge help too. I never could have gotten so much done without them. I ended up getting close to half the bathroom done, and we are getting very close to being able to shower. We can hardly wait!

The Gritt Chair with it's wide corduroy upholstery is definitely a kick back to the 60's mid century modern. It's generally pretty hard to pull off a good looking corduroy chair, but the Gritt Chair manages to do it well. It has nice clean geometric lines, and the sleek chrome base balances out the slightly frumpy top. Perhaps the best thing about the chair though is the price. At $169 for the chair and $69 for the ottoman, it's mid century style that you can afford. Available from Eurway for $169.

I have to admit, Dwell Magazine has been a love hate relationship for me. When I first discovered it several years ago, I was thrilled to see that there were like minded people out there. I read it religiously every month, and then.... Well things changed. The houses got more expensive and it felt like they were loosing their sense of direction. I even went as far as to write the editor to ask what happened to the ideals of the fruit bowl manifesto. I got no response and my subscription lapsed. Yesterday while I was at Lowes picking up some stuff to tile our bathroom, I saw the new copy of Dwell, and the cutline caught my attention. Modern Living on a Budget. That sounds more like it. The story turns out to be a good one, about a Austin couple who managed to stumble into a 1200+ square foot newly built modern home for $110,000. That includes the land. The story actually inspired me to wander over to Dwell's new website to see what was new. There is a bunch going on like a podcast, a daily video (but no video podcast, who knows why) a blog, and the big surprise was a forum/community area called Dwell Connect. I took the time to sign up, and wasn't completely impressed, but it is at least a step in the right direction.

Its hard enough to make a chair that looks good all by itself, throw in the challenge of looking good, and being able to stack on top of each other for storage and it gets even harder. The Lela chair not only does it well, but it also throws in a couple technical extras. Take for example the fact that it is the first stackable chair to fulfill the requirements of German fire-safety norm B1, and it can hold up to the weather outdoors. All technical parts aside, I just think it looks good. Available exclusively from Topdeq for $159.