A cold and blustery weekend at the lake

We spent part of the weekend at the lake and I posted a couple of photos over at my weblog here and Jordon has posted some photos and a couple videos over at Flickr.

Northshore by Hut Architecture

Since we are posting about Hut Architecture.  Here is Northshore

A Runner-Up in the competition to develop a riverside site in Stockton-on-Tees and re-invent the Family House, the site is designed as a huge shared garden. The houses form part of the garden; acting as retaining walls, terraces, flower beds and stepping stones along the riverside. Homes are designed for personality, flexibility and extend-ability - each has a river view and private outdoor space- there are six generic types of home in the plan- catering for different family sizes.

Hut on a Roof by Hut Architecture

While there isn’t a lot of skyscrapers at Arlington Beach (or in Saskatoon), here is a quick post for those of you who live in urban areas and are looking for an urban retreat, right on their top floor.Not sure if I like the rough hewn siding but I love the idea and the interior of the retreat.

House 205 By H Arquitectes

 Take a look at that library (and the retro iMac on the desk). 

With a relatively modest budget of 200,000 euros to hand, the decision was taken to use a wooden frame and panel construction system. Inside and out, Project 205 is a monumental piece of carpentry, a cosseting, warm environment formed from off-the-shelf laminated panels that form both walls and ceilings. The rectangular plan is simplicity itself, yet still manages to include three bedrooms and two studies alongside the main living area and kitchen. The double-height main study is especially impressive, with a wall of books concealing the wooden staircase that leads to the upper floor.

The overall effect is one of a modest modernism, the plain forms and satisfying proportions conveying an honesty of intention; ultimately the house could be demounted and almost entirely recycled, leaving little trace of its existence. With a well-detailed pine-clad façade, with flush wooden shutters and a concealed flat roof, Project 205 is perfectly at home in its forest surroundings, a low-key dwelling for minimal living.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater: a more Intimate Experience

Frank Lloyd Wright’s most iconic, and easily most popular home will now be available to select groups of overnight guests.  While regular visitors to Fallingwater pay $18 for a full tour of the property, a group of 8 visitors will be given an exclusive, extensive tour of the home with the premises entirely to themselves.  During the visit, the property will be closed to other guests, providing private access of the 5,300 square foot home.  For $1,195, these exclusive visitors will feel what living in Fallingwater is truly like, although they will sleep in a new Frank Lloyd Wright style home on the property grounds.

Visit Fallingwater.org for more details on this offer.

Technorati Tags: Fallingwater,Frank Lloyd Wright

Tiny Bunkhouse in the Woods

You can read more about this tiny bunkhouse in the woods over at the Tiny House blog.

Outfitting the Cabin :: The Kitchen

When we bought the cabin, the kitchen had an old propane powered stove and a fridge in it and some small appliances so it we had a lot of options available on what we wanted to have in it. 

Well we kept the fridge, the second thing we did was get rid of the oven and the propane tank but the cabin isn’t wired to handle a full sized stove so we had to improvise and come up with a substitute.

We looked around and decided on a convection toaster oven and a two grill electric range.

It works pretty good.  The toaster oven doesn’t replace a full sized oven but it does allow me to do some baking and it makes a decent plate of nachos on a cool night.  The range top does what I need it to do and it stores away for easy clean up.

We have a small microwave oven as well.  Looking back at it I would have thought we would use it a lot more than we did.  We use it a fair amount more at home but while up at the lake, it doesn’t get used a lot.

A lot of our cooking is done on our barbecue at the lake.  It’s right outside the front door.  Jordon works at the Salvation Army Community Centre and they get almost 100 Broil King Barbecue’s donated a year.  They are donated by a local company who takes them in on trade in, fixes them up and gives them to the Centre to be sold for a fundraiser.  We have purchased a couple over the last couple of years and we really enjoy having it up there.  Now when your nearest propane supply is almost 25 kilometers away, you need a barbecue tank gauge.  For $20, it is well worth it.

I have a big roaster for the barbecue that I bought used for $5.00.  It is perfect for corn on the cob.  We bought a vegetable grill from Dollarama for $1 but other than showing us that we like cooking grilled vegetables, it really served no purpose.  We bought a heavier duty one this fall when all of that stuff goes on clearance and it should last for years.

I have written about beer can chicken here before.  The holder we got was $5 at Wal-Mart and it works great with a vegetable grill holding your side vegetables underneath.

While it would be hard to cook a pizza on the toaster oven, our pizza barbecue grill does a great job of making pizza.  It keeps the heat outside the cabin and it’s pretty easy to do.  The pizza grill also works well with vegetables and chicken.

The kitchen has no storage.  My kitchen counter is a table that I bought at Value Village for $20 and refinished the top.  Underneath the table, we use some storage containers from Jysk.  They are amazing.  There are two sizes that we use, one is 2/3 shorter than the other so we use a total of five of them.  They have wheels on them which means the stack rolls out and in quite easily and stack nicely.  As an added touch, they seal up well which makes them great for storing all sorts of things.

Jordon added a couple of shelves for cutlery, cups, glasses, and plates.  Our main set of dishes came from XS Cargo.  While originally from Pier 1 Imports, they were overstock and we got them for next to nothing.  The glasses, canisters and other kitchen and cooking accessories came from both Jysk and others came from Dollarama.

We have enough plates, cutlery, and cups for four people.  The cabin isn’t designed for entertaining dozens of people so why keep stuff that is only going to get used once or twice a year.

Coffee and tea is a big deal for Jordon and I.  We don’t store coffee up at the lake but we instead buy it fresh and grind it while we are there.  We occasionally bring up some Starbucks or a favorite Fair Trade brand.  We looked at a couple of storage containers but in the end, nothing beats fresh coffee.  For tea and occasionally coffee, we have a coffee/tea press and there is no better way to make tea in my opinion.

One of the things we added in retrospect are iced glasses.  For $1.47 each, having a frozen ice glass to pull out of the freezer is amazing on a hot day.  In the heat of July and August, we go through a lot of them and we have eight of them now.  The rule is drink, rinse, and put back in the freezer.

While the water at Arlington Beach is decent, we don’t have it into the cabin yet.  We haul water in a large five gallon water container for dishes and cooking but for drinking we use a couple of bottled water containers.  Instead of a water crock or a cooler, we use a water pump on top of the bottled water containers.

Well here is a little look at how we outfit the kitchen at the cabin.  Am I missing anything essential (other than a full sized over?)

The Hayloft

While walking down Avenue D North between where I live and where I work, I often wandered by an abandoned confectionary that used to be an old Safeway store built in 1933.  Over the last couple of years it has gone from being an eyesore to residence, home office, music studio, and and performance space.  The owners have kept a wonderful weblog of the transformation.  As the photos below show, it has also become one of the nicest homes in Saskatoon.

I thought I would post it here because it is such an amazing job of prairie mod architecture.


 
 
 
 

It’s also become another reason why Saskatoon is a great place to live in.

LED Paperclip Lights

A great idea from Unplgged

Have you ever wanted to have small LEDs? LEDs that you could place all over the place without worrying too much about wires? Look no further, because these little LED clips can be used in this fashion. You can put them anywhere and they don't have any wires since they are battery-powered. We thought that these lights could lead to a great bunch of home-grown designs for rooms and offices.

While you are feeling creative, here is a guide to the $3 makeover and some low cost decorating ideas from a German hotel chain that features amazing designs and a low price.

arkiboat by Drew Heath Architects

Again, some more house boat links.  As I have said before, I would love to spend all of my spring, summer, and fall days on a houseboat like this. This is the arkiboat by Drew Heath Architects.

The L.A. Times love tiny pre-fab buildings

From the L.A. Times

In recent years, prefab construction has generated plenty of buzz in magazines such as Dwell and at exhibitions such as one last year at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The original promise of prefab decades ago was savings of time and money that could be passed along to consumers in the form of inexpensive housing. But because most of the premier manufacturers today specialize in custom homes that can cost $250 a square foot and up, prefab has been far more popular in design blogs and at home expos than with actual buyers.

One exception has been scaled-down prefab construction -- not entire houses but stand-alone additions. According to Casper Mork-Ulnes, co-founder of San Francisco manufacturer Modern Cabana: "Small prefab modules make sense for anyone who might need a home office, a guest house, a meditation or yoga space or a cigar room that can open to the outdoors."

A rustic houseboat by the sea

The Ark, in Burnham Overy Staithe, near King's Lynn, Norfolk, measures just 16ft 5in (5m) by about 6ft (1.8m) and is owned by Dutch artist Lucas Kuys.

Built on a raft using reclaimed timber, driftwood and the roof of a grocery van, the cabin has space for two people to sleep and a small table and chairs.

Airship from Aero 11 Design

I have posted several house boats here in the past and here is another great one called Airship from Aero 11 Designs.

Creating outdoor living spaces

Here are two excellent features from This Old House.  The first one is called Room with a View and is a great gallery of photos by a homeowner who cut his yard into several outdoor rooms.  The second gallery is some suggestions on how to get a unique look for an outdoor room.

Home Office Cube in Chile

This home office is located in Chile and was designed by architects Claudio Labarca and Juan Ignacio Lopez. The interior space measures 5 by 7 meters is about 375 square feet.

Building your own shed/studio

Artist/gallery curator David "Netherland" van Alphen is in Chicago, Illinois. Pictured below is his under construction garden office, inspired initially by Readymade.

 
 
 

It’s based on a design from Modern Shed

Building it himself, saved him several thousand dollars less than ordering it from Modern Shed.  Wendy and I saw a similar designed one at Co-op for about $600 that included materials that I am thinking of as a bunkhouse/hermitage for Mark and Oliver. via

Bugatti Arm Chair

Wendy won’t let me buy a Bugatti Veyron despite the fact that I drive to the cabin faster than we could fly there. (If you don’t believe me, just watch the video)

Since I don’t have that kind of money, I am wondering if she will let me get a Bugatti Arm Chair for the cabin.  Not quite as fast but a lot cheaper.

A little over $1,000 for a chair that looks like it could be purchased for $15 this week at Canadian Tire.  It’s going to be a hard sell.

It kind of reminds me of the Acer Ferrari laptop.

Same laptop computer on the inside but you get to pay a lot more for that Ferrari badge on the outside.  You may not be able to own a Ferrari, but your notebook computer looks like it belongs in one.

Cordell House Shipping Container Architecture

The Cordell House is built upon a framework of four individual shipping containers– three 40′ units and one 20′ unit.  The large units house the bedrooms and living rooms of the home, while the 20′ unit is dedicated as a kitchen.  These pieces were fused on a 5,000 square foot lot, taking up 1,858 square feet for the living space itself.  This complex also features a guest house separated by an 800 square foot breezeway patio (shown below). 

Personally I becoming a bigger and bigger fan of shipping container architecture all of the time.  Done right, it could go a long ways in providing affordable housing to a city.  Done wrong and it turns into a ghetto within ten years is the other side of the equation.

One of a kind recycled furniture

A quick slideshow of creative reuse furniture from The Daily Green.