By now, you should all know that I am somewhat of a Craigslist junkie. I have to admit it is mostly out of necessity, as that is the only way we can afford to landscape and furnish our house affordably. I was lucky enough to come across this Japanese Maple a while ago for only $60. That's a great deal, and we had been wanting a japanese maple for a while now so I couldn't resist. The only catch was, I had to go and dig it up. Luckily for me, it had only been planted the year before, and most of the roots hadn't strayed far from the original root ball. We have had it in the ground for about a month now, and I am happy to say it likes it's new home. So do we.

I am a big fan of cards, and while my wife and I usually make our own, we appreciate a good card. Good cards is what Modern Printed Matter is all about. Everything from modern furniture to tasty graphic design. There is something about the simplicity of this Barcelona chair card that I really like. It's printed on 80 lb cover stock in black ink and measures 4" x 5.5" (folds from the top). It comes with an A2 shimmery white metallic envelope (square flap) and is blank inside for your personal note. Sold as a set of six cards for $10. Available from the Modern Printed Matter Etsy shop.

When we ordered our siding we had to order a whole pallet because we were having it painted at the factory. We knew it was going to be more than we needed, and figured we could find something useful for the excess. This weekend we put it to good use. We put up around 24' of fencing on our side yard using the same detail as we did on our siding. It looks really nice compared to what used to be there, and best of all, it only cost us around $200 in cedar and concrete to do. Once we get the back done, I think it will really change our yard. I'm just trying to figure out the best gate to use so we can still park in our back yard if we need to. Any suggestions?

When it comes to affordable modern furniture, there is no better price than free. I've been lucky enough to come across some good free stuff lately. These Danish modern chairs I found sitting next to a dumpster and quickly snatched up. It's funny because just a couple of weeks before I saw almost the exact same chair on apartment therapy listed for $200. The LAKT tables were another craigslist freebie. Some of you might remember that we got half of our back yard sod free from craigslist a month or so ago. We love craigslist and frequently watch the free section. Unfortunately "free" is the only kind of furniture we can afford right now.

WIth the completion of our addition we have completely exhausted any available funds, and have found ourselves without any furniture. Luckily the one room we did manage to get furnished was our nursery. I previously featured our Ariel crib which we absolutely love, and the other favorite is our Storytime Rocker. We ended up getting an ecru microsuede with light ash legs. Just like the crib, the build quality of the rocker is top notch. It has been getting plenty of use, and it still looks good as new. While it may be hard to fork out that much money (retail is $800) it is worth it in the end. If you are not too picky on color, Sparkability has several colors on sale for $560, which is a heafty discount.Other choices for more affordable modern rockers; the classic Eames shell rocker for $349, or the LILLBERG rocking chair from Ikea for $139.

Boon is one of my favorite kids accessory companies. Not only do they make stylish and well thought out products, their price points tend to be quite competitive. That's why I was excited to see that they have lots of new products coming out soon. Everything from jewelry and clothes to feeding accessories. Shown above is "Fluid" their no spill Toddler cup. I love it's two handed design and simple organic lines. No idea on pricing yet, but it's due to come out in October, so we should know soon. Stop by their website and check out their clothes line too. They have some really great stuff.

A couple of weeks ago I was at the outdoor retailer show looking for cool new product designs. One of the products that I came across while I was there was a Stanley 16 oz vacuum drink bottle. They were kind enough to let me take one home for product testing, and I have to say I have been loving the design. It has a very convenient twist open top that you drink from. My favorite feature though is that all the pieces of the top actually come apart for cleaning. With my other pop top thermos I felt like I could never get that stuff as clean as I wanted to. Personally I that think it looks pretty good in matt green and orange. Available from Stanley for $30.

We haven't had a doorbell in a house since we have been married, and honestly with our dog I'm not sure we need one. He assumes it is his duty to bark at anyone who even thinks of approaching our house. If I were in the market for a new doorbell however, I would definitely have my eye on this wireless doorbell designed by Jacob Jensen. It's a classic example of hi tech meets Danish design, and it makes for one of the nicest looking doorbells around. It features 5 different polyphonic bell noises and can be wall mounted or freestanding. The range is 150 meters which should be plenty for just about everyone. The price is a little steep at $150, but good luck finding anything else that looks this good.

Available from Improvee for $150.

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. Over the next 6 months we started planning our addition, and doing as much work out of pocket as we could in preparation. Prior to the addition we tore our whole bathroom apart and moved the location of the shower, bathtub, and sink and toilet. Rearranged the bathroom walls, built a vanity with concrete countertop, installed a wall hung toilet, designed built and installed a custom ofuro tub. We also ripped out more walls in the front of the house including one that was load bearing. Moved our electrical panel to a different wall and wired in a updated panel. All these improvement probably cost us anywhere from $5,000 - $10,000. Sorry I don't have better numbers, but it was all out of pocket and we tried not to think about how much money were were dumping into a house that still didn't look all that great.

Our goal with our construction was to add two bedrooms for under $50,000, and we came pretty close. All the bids came in at $60,906. During construction, we did make some last minute changes. We had planned the kitchen remodel as phase two since it was not included in the original bid, and consisted of tearing out all our old cabinetry, moving our plumbing and framing in a $900 sliding door. We ultimately decided that to not add that extra sliding door out into the courtyard crippled the whole design. To afford the cost of that we ended up cutting all the cabinetry in the main hall. That extra $7,000 was quickly absorbed into the kitchen remodel and the unexpected increase cost of the siding labor.

In the end, we came in just a couple thousand over budget. $2,196.78 by our spreadsheet, but the reality is we paid for stuff out of pocket that isn't reflected there. Our loan to buy us out of our construction loan and original mortgage was for $172,000. With a new total square footage of 1,366 that puts it at $125 a square foot for the home and land. Our 600 square foot addition was built for $63,102 which puts it at $105 a square foot.

I estimate that we could probably spend another $5,000 - $10,000 in cabinetry and kitchen remodel before everything is really done inside and at around another $5,000 before all the landscaping is just how we want it. It's just nice to not be on a banks deadline anymore, and to have all the big projects done.

A big thanks to everyone for their encouragement and support, especially our close friends and family that came over and helped out during the last 6 months. We honestly couldn't have done it without you.

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

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.

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.

We received our much anticipated Ikea 2008 catalogue in the mail yesterday. I haven't even had much time to look through it yet, but I was wondering if anyone else got theirs, or had looked at it online yet and had some favorites? I also was at Ikea Draper last week very briefly and remember seeing the new Karlstad Sofa shown on the cover for only $599. It looks like they added quite a few new sofa's this year.

So what do you think about the new catalogue? Good? Bad? Boring?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

We have bought and received many blankets since our son was born, and I have learned to be a bit of a blanket snob. The ones that we like the best are nice and big, so it's easy to swaddle him, and not too thick, so he doesn't have a heat stroke. This Modern Blue Bunny Blanket (say that ten times fast) measures 30" x 36", which is a nice big size. It's made of a super soft cotton flannel, and double stitched to hold up to all the abuse a good blanket gets. Available in pink, or blue. Matching bib and burp cloth is also available. Available from Tadpolecreation's Etsy Shop for $26.

I have blogged about Lunar Lounge before, and some great affordable chairs and sofa's that they have but I never mentioned their kidney bean tables. Definitely retro in style, these tables will only run you $99, which is a pretty good deal. The tables stand 15" high by 34" long by 17" wide and come in primary Red, Citrus Orange, Midnight black, white and chocolate brown. All tables come with 14" flat black hair pin legs which I love, wood stiletto legs are available for an additional $25.00 Available from the Lunar Lounge Etsy shop for $99.

Many of you have been asking for more pics, so I put a short slideshow together. I should be uploading one with music and better quality soon. I updated the video, and it's a lot better. Just click on the picture to start playing it. For a reference, the first shots with the maple door are the back of our house. Our house looks almost exactly the same from the front. In the courtyard area was the only place where we put new siding on the old house. As you can see from the pictures, we still need to redo the fascia and soffit.

Enjoy!