Not to take away from this very important discussion, but can someone in charge "accidentally" delete this thread? I feel 10x dumber every time I look at it but it's like a train wreck that I can't take my eyes off of....
G'MORNING TC! I hope all you in the US had a relaxing 4th...
lars...that space is enormous- really neat...I'm very jealous!!!
As far as the loft vs house debate...it's kinda like are you a cat or a dog person- most people have a pretty strong opinion one way or another.
I know you lose some freedom living in a co-op (dealing with HOA's), but for me, HOA's = freedom cause I don't have to worry about a lot of the maintenance/problems that can come w/ single family homes. Being so busy, I can hardly get my dishes done, let alone maintain a yard or the exterior of the house, the roof, etc...
Also, having spent a large part of my youth in suburban hell, I may have an unfair aversion to single family homes. I want to be able to walk places and I don't want all my neighbors to be hummer driving, starbucks drinkin', soccer moms, etc.
I think it's also my age and lack of family/ commitments and I am perfectly willing to accept my opinion on this matter might change when I get older.
hahaha- when you google "soccer mom starbucks", there are 3 pics of hummers on the first images page...
in my 20s, I was a dedicated apartment/loft guy, now that I'm in my 30's having a garden is one of my priorities.
this pushes me towards some sort of private house+yard (no common space will give me the latitude to do what I want) . I could do a private roof terrace (if big enough), but most balconies don't satiate my desire to grow most of my own veggies. I'm not ready for my 40 acres and a mule exurban interim, 'cause I also value not having a 'Commute' that requires getting on a highway or takes more then a few minutes.
access to transit makes a huge difference to me these days.
From my loft experiences in LA & Brooklyn - original wood floors are nicest, but have the worst acoustic separation. make sure you have modern windows- those old beautiful steel industrial sashes are very very drafty. Also there are lots of shoebox layouts where you have 20' of exterior wall and 60 feet of depth - a shoebox that isn't very pleasant as a space. the better loft conversions have shallower floor plates and a greater window to floor ratio.
i'd love a loft space, i could walk to work, a big draw for me, and yes there is not much in st. paul, but there is enough. the problem's are the associations and their stability - don't need to have that headache of them going belly up, because the TC's are inundated with lofts right now. i can always get into a loft, it just maybe more difficult to get out of one right now...
the home thing in the TC's is much different than you think, many neighborhoods are walkable oasis, with parks and lakes, rivers and bike paths, it's one of the more beautiful regions in the country. the homes are nice, and a few i have driven by have my design brain spinning with ideas. the craftsman bungalows are very nice, with beautiful built-ins and great wood details, a little small, but nothing i can't fix. the tudors are nice too. the thing i dig the most are the alleys and the garage in the back.
I love the alleyway behind our house. It hides all of the support systems a neighboorhood needs, and keeps the Mexican roach coach parked in a driveway down the alley out of view from the front, so people can't see that two doors down is a strange, and possibly embarassing neighbor.
Also, on a completely different note... I just have to say...
I love Wendy's today! Being that I am somewhat picky about food due to my current situation (which I feel much better about by the way) I asked them for the spicy chicken sandwich, but on their Ciabbatta bread instead of the terrible roll they typically use, and I also wanted a frosty instead of soda, and to my suprise, they were totally cool with all of it, and didnt charge me extra! And if wendy's is ever on your menu, I definately suggest replacing with the ciabbatta.
glad you're acclimating to the situation, Sarah. My mother supposedly survived those nine months primarily on Wendy's singles, fries, and strawberries, so possibly Wendy's burgers are specially formulated for pregnant women or something?
___________________________
You know what makes this feel more like monday? Fucking toilet partition submittals. Which are NOT labled as to what room they belong to. I'm sorry, this project has about a dozen bathrooms- I need to know what room we're talking about before I can review. I've been looking around for fifteen minutes and absolutely cannot find any clump of toilet partitions that looks like what they've drawn here.
Vado, when you said cystaline, I thought you were going to refer to the windows that are typical on "tudor" houses. Why do they always seem to come with diamond shaped glass panes?
It is. I got excited cause I get to "design" a new room. I realise that its more "interiors" work, but you take what you can, right? So I picked out paint, and some furniture. And have ideas about space saving things since the room is like 10x8. Its a glorified closet really.
And we've been looking at the cool 'designed' toys out there. So while I may not be excited about a baby, and all the work, I am getting excited about all the new stuff I get to have, well it gets to have, but its MY house, so its MY stuff. Well, I guess I will share with my husband, since he does make more than I do with my measley intern salary.
Oh, and I'm excited about the 'announcment cards' I am making to tell the parents at 5 months. I know, thats a long time to wait, but the sister-in-law just had a baby, and I dont want to take away from her, and shes psycho, and would think I did this on purpose for that reason. Can we say "NUTJOB!" But Im going to paste the sonagram on the front, and in the inside of the card, which will fold from the top, I will put facial shots of my different moods, and a brief discription of what they missed so far. And then I will also put a picture of how I look at that point, showing, or just PHAT, and say some personal message. All in black and white. I wonder how mad they are going to be. Oh, and the sonagram is more just a way to state the obvious in a graphic manor. I'm not the type to frame a sonagram and put it on the wall. Thats weird to me.
Oh, and apparent side effect of Pregnancy...........Rambling.
hahahaha....Sarah...you get my "favorite person of the day" award! In fact, I'll give you the weeks title!!
I just saw knocked up a couple days ago (if you haven't already, don't see it until after you give birth) and it freaked me out. I love your honesty- it makes me feel not so abnormal in my complete fear of babies.
I always dreamed of telling my husband we were "expecting" by engraving a tiny wrench with something and giving it to him for father's day.
We saw "knocked-up" the week or so before I discovered I was. I had been having a bad week, very emotional, and falling apart, so he took me to dinner/drinks and a movie; during the week, very spur of the moment. I found the movie to be very emotional as well. I almost cried when they find out they are indeed with child. I don't cry in movies.
So I take the 'test' on Father's day of all days, while he is out of town. So I get to tell him on father's day as I always had dreamed, but with much the opposite of the planed excitement and happiness.
my wife actually stopped liking wendy's but all of the sudden became a sucker for krispy kreme donuts.
whattodo: not-loft doesn't necessarily equal suburban in the american midwest. we have some wonderful inner urban neighborhoods with a mixture of multi-unit and single-family houses. beta has some nice choices in the twin cities, many of which could spare him the suburban commuter lifestyle.
Yeah, I know single family does have to mean suburbia, but it's just my association based on where I grew up. It makes me want to have the polar opposite experience and fulfill that fantasy of loft living. I think it's also the stage in your life. I totally understand why it's more desirable to have a yard, a porch, a quiet neighborhood when you have kids. i also think the maintenance decision is a big factor. Do i have the time or desire to maintain a house? Not at all, but I do understand why people love that responsibility and greater feeling of "ownership".
you'll understand my aversion when you see I grew up in this wretched place ;)
I should clarify that. I think babies are great. I'm all about women having them and what not. And I tend to imagine that all of the babies that archinect produces are superior to non-arch babies, but I'm a snob like that.
But the dream was so real....like I woke up and suddenly I was pregnant but everything else was the same. And I was mortified that here I was, unmarried and going back to grad school, and I was going to pop out a baby. I can't describe to you how scared I was.
So, I have a little while before I'll be mentally ready to procreate, needless to say.
yeah, mine started with the husband having dreams where I was first pregnant, then I had a baby. He was suddenly fine with it when before he didn't ever want kids. So I blame him, his dreams, and his working sperm. Aren't drugs suppose to leave you sterile? Isn't that why you do them in high school?
And women having babies is much better than men having them, Im sure.
men would need to have some major alterations in our anatomy first- happy to leave this to women, even if I'm hppy with equality for everything else. there is a reason that i take out the trash , even if my wife also wears pants...
the aerial of WhatToDo's former hood made me think that i've never taken a look at my childhood home on google earth... here's the dendritic suburban hell that turned me into the urbanist that i am today...
this is jacksonville (former home of AP) and my hometown... this is the house that we lived in during highschool... luckily during my real formative years we lived near the beach rather than here... this was on the far west side in the middle of hickdom... the west side is the best side...
in a great novel but depressing novel i read about 15 yrs ago one of the characters posited that the first people had souls but that finite number of souls didn't necessarily increase as the population grew. small talk at a backyard cookout.
Steven, are you saying that there are say 100 souls, and only 100 souls so the rest of man-kind has to share, or just doesnt have one? Maybe thats what people are always fighting about.
WhatToDo- that is the border between Phoenix, AZ and Glendale, AZ, which explains the general monochromatic look of it. I'm so looking forward to living somewhere that's green...
yeah, sarah, that's what the book was suggesting. i'll have to find it/remind myself what that book was. i remember being depressed for a month after reading it.
my childhood home. standard spec homes from the early seventies. while a little kid, we were still surrounded by horse and adiry farms...by the time i was in high school, none of the farms were operational...by the time i was in college they were mostly gobbled up by more spec developments.
there's still surprisingly large amounts of open space though...new jersey is weird like that. every county is classified as urban because of the overall pop'n, but there's quite a bit of forest and grassland.
my house was basically where the stream that intersects the forest meets the vertical street...on the left side of the central development in that shot. 10-12 acres of protected Green Acres adjoined our property...thankfully...and was my childhood playground.
the way they build in AZ really bugs me....Guess I should rant on the Green TC, but I hate how they use sloped roofs, when the native flat/parapeted roof would be better for indoor temps do to shading and such. Those slopes only absorb extra heat! And I HATE that they build "Adobe" style houses with stick framing. Can't they at least use cmu or some other product that would function as adobe does, mainly in compression?! AAAAA!!
...and no overhangs whatsoever. And no differentiation in windows or treatments between north vs. south sides of houses. The one thing they were pretty good at were carports. Someone there recognized that it's a big waste to build an integrated whole room onto your house just for cars, so most people there just have a carport that is basically (2) 8x8 posts and a bit of roof overhead.
Thread Central
Not to take away from this very important discussion, but can someone in charge "accidentally" delete this thread? I feel 10x dumber every time I look at it but it's like a train wreck that I can't take my eyes off of....
no. don't do it. the day after the 4th, and given this thread started on the 4th, people like Pimp-n-clm need to be exposed.
does anybody else get slightly grossed out by the name clamfan?
G'MORNING TC! I hope all you in the US had a relaxing 4th...
lars...that space is enormous- really neat...I'm very jealous!!!
As far as the loft vs house debate...it's kinda like are you a cat or a dog person- most people have a pretty strong opinion one way or another.
I know you lose some freedom living in a co-op (dealing with HOA's), but for me, HOA's = freedom cause I don't have to worry about a lot of the maintenance/problems that can come w/ single family homes. Being so busy, I can hardly get my dishes done, let alone maintain a yard or the exterior of the house, the roof, etc...
Also, having spent a large part of my youth in suburban hell, I may have an unfair aversion to single family homes. I want to be able to walk places and I don't want all my neighbors to be hummer driving, starbucks drinkin', soccer moms, etc.
I think it's also my age and lack of family/ commitments and I am perfectly willing to accept my opinion on this matter might change when I get older.
hahaha- when you google "soccer mom starbucks", there are 3 pics of hummers on the first images page...
in my 20s, I was a dedicated apartment/loft guy, now that I'm in my 30's having a garden is one of my priorities.
this pushes me towards some sort of private house+yard (no common space will give me the latitude to do what I want) . I could do a private roof terrace (if big enough), but most balconies don't satiate my desire to grow most of my own veggies. I'm not ready for my 40 acres and a mule exurban interim, 'cause I also value not having a 'Commute' that requires getting on a highway or takes more then a few minutes.
access to transit makes a huge difference to me these days.
From my loft experiences in LA & Brooklyn - original wood floors are nicest, but have the worst acoustic separation. make sure you have modern windows- those old beautiful steel industrial sashes are very very drafty. Also there are lots of shoebox layouts where you have 20' of exterior wall and 60 feet of depth - a shoebox that isn't very pleasant as a space. the better loft conversions have shallower floor plates and a greater window to floor ratio.
WonderK- that thread makes me feel the urge to have a Tourettes-like outburst. I look at it and my thoughts all turn to curse words.
i'd love a loft space, i could walk to work, a big draw for me, and yes there is not much in st. paul, but there is enough. the problem's are the associations and their stability - don't need to have that headache of them going belly up, because the TC's are inundated with lofts right now. i can always get into a loft, it just maybe more difficult to get out of one right now...
the home thing in the TC's is much different than you think, many neighborhoods are walkable oasis, with parks and lakes, rivers and bike paths, it's one of the more beautiful regions in the country. the homes are nice, and a few i have driven by have my design brain spinning with ideas. the craftsman bungalows are very nice, with beautiful built-ins and great wood details, a little small, but nothing i can't fix. the tudors are nice too. the thing i dig the most are the alleys and the garage in the back.
nyc east river fireworks for anyone that missed 'em...
whoops...here's the one that should've been on the bottom:
I love the alleyway behind our house. It hides all of the support systems a neighboorhood needs, and keeps the Mexican roach coach parked in a driveway down the alley out of view from the front, so people can't see that two doors down is a strange, and possibly embarassing neighbor.
Also, on a completely different note... I just have to say...
I love Wendy's today! Being that I am somewhat picky about food due to my current situation (which I feel much better about by the way) I asked them for the spicy chicken sandwich, but on their Ciabbatta bread instead of the terrible roll they typically use, and I also wanted a frosty instead of soda, and to my suprise, they were totally cool with all of it, and didnt charge me extra! And if wendy's is ever on your menu, I definately suggest replacing with the ciabbatta.
beta i suggest a nice mock tudor with a daniel leepskin addition. something jagged to pay homage to the crystalline rock formations of minnesota.
glad you're acclimating to the situation, Sarah. My mother supposedly survived those nine months primarily on Wendy's singles, fries, and strawberries, so possibly Wendy's burgers are specially formulated for pregnant women or something?
___________________________
You know what makes this feel more like monday? Fucking toilet partition submittals. Which are NOT labled as to what room they belong to. I'm sorry, this project has about a dozen bathrooms- I need to know what room we're talking about before I can review. I've been looking around for fifteen minutes and absolutely cannot find any clump of toilet partitions that looks like what they've drawn here.
REJECTED.
vado, i'm down wit dat. but i was thinking perhaps a craftsman and a PJ glass hiz-ous add-on, all built wit Craftsmen tools...
Vado, when you said cystaline, I thought you were going to refer to the windows that are typical on "tudor" houses. Why do they always seem to come with diamond shaped glass panes?
Oh, and I feel really sick now, so maybe you all should ignore my suggestion of wendy's for lunch.
Ugh.
It is. I got excited cause I get to "design" a new room. I realise that its more "interiors" work, but you take what you can, right? So I picked out paint, and some furniture. And have ideas about space saving things since the room is like 10x8. Its a glorified closet really.
And we've been looking at the cool 'designed' toys out there. So while I may not be excited about a baby, and all the work, I am getting excited about all the new stuff I get to have, well it gets to have, but its MY house, so its MY stuff. Well, I guess I will share with my husband, since he does make more than I do with my measley intern salary.
Oh, and I'm excited about the 'announcment cards' I am making to tell the parents at 5 months. I know, thats a long time to wait, but the sister-in-law just had a baby, and I dont want to take away from her, and shes psycho, and would think I did this on purpose for that reason. Can we say "NUTJOB!" But Im going to paste the sonagram on the front, and in the inside of the card, which will fold from the top, I will put facial shots of my different moods, and a brief discription of what they missed so far. And then I will also put a picture of how I look at that point, showing, or just PHAT, and say some personal message. All in black and white. I wonder how mad they are going to be. Oh, and the sonagram is more just a way to state the obvious in a graphic manor. I'm not the type to frame a sonagram and put it on the wall. Thats weird to me.
Oh, and apparent side effect of Pregnancy...........Rambling.
hahahaha....Sarah...you get my "favorite person of the day" award! In fact, I'll give you the weeks title!!
I just saw knocked up a couple days ago (if you haven't already, don't see it until after you give birth) and it freaked me out. I love your honesty- it makes me feel not so abnormal in my complete fear of babies.
btw, two modern baby stuff sites I remember reading about...
http://www.modernmini.com/
http://www.allmodernbaby.com/
Irony lesson....
I always dreamed of telling my husband we were "expecting" by engraving a tiny wrench with something and giving it to him for father's day.
We saw "knocked-up" the week or so before I discovered I was. I had been having a bad week, very emotional, and falling apart, so he took me to dinner/drinks and a movie; during the week, very spur of the moment. I found the movie to be very emotional as well. I almost cried when they find out they are indeed with child. I don't cry in movies.
So I take the 'test' on Father's day of all days, while he is out of town. So I get to tell him on father's day as I always had dreamed, but with much the opposite of the planed excitement and happiness.
my wife actually stopped liking wendy's but all of the sudden became a sucker for krispy kreme donuts.
whattodo: not-loft doesn't necessarily equal suburban in the american midwest. we have some wonderful inner urban neighborhoods with a mixture of multi-unit and single-family houses. beta has some nice choices in the twin cities, many of which could spare him the suburban commuter lifestyle.
Yeah, I know single family does have to mean suburbia, but it's just my association based on where I grew up. It makes me want to have the polar opposite experience and fulfill that fantasy of loft living. I think it's also the stage in your life. I totally understand why it's more desirable to have a yard, a porch, a quiet neighborhood when you have kids. i also think the maintenance decision is a big factor. Do i have the time or desire to maintain a house? Not at all, but I do understand why people love that responsibility and greater feeling of "ownership".
you'll understand my aversion when you see I grew up in this wretched place ;)
wait, that could be anywhere!
oh, nevermind....................
I had a nightmare 2 weeks ago that I was pregnant. Yes, it was a nightmare.
looks like irvine.
hahahaha vado...
ding ding ding
I should clarify that. I think babies are great. I'm all about women having them and what not. And I tend to imagine that all of the babies that archinect produces are superior to non-arch babies, but I'm a snob like that.
But the dream was so real....like I woke up and suddenly I was pregnant but everything else was the same. And I was mortified that here I was, unmarried and going back to grad school, and I was going to pop out a baby. I can't describe to you how scared I was.
So, I have a little while before I'll be mentally ready to procreate, needless to say.
yeah, mine started with the husband having dreams where I was first pregnant, then I had a baby. He was suddenly fine with it when before he didn't ever want kids. So I blame him, his dreams, and his working sperm. Aren't drugs suppose to leave you sterile? Isn't that why you do them in high school?
And women having babies is much better than men having them, Im sure.
men would need to have some major alterations in our anatomy first- happy to leave this to women, even if I'm hppy with equality for everything else. there is a reason that i take out the trash , even if my wife also wears pants...
true 'nuff.
are we there yet?
[/img]http://www.cureyourarthritis.com/I_Lost_120_Pounds_2.JPG width=300[/img]
d'oh!
the aerial of WhatToDo's former hood made me think that i've never taken a look at my childhood home on google earth... here's the dendritic suburban hell that turned me into the urbanist that i am today...
[img=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1052/729776027_91c58c928c.jpg width=400[/img]
this is jacksonville (former home of AP) and my hometown... this is the house that we lived in during highschool... luckily during my real formative years we lived near the beach rather than here... this was on the far west side in the middle of hickdom... the west side is the best side...
damnit!!! haven't done that in a while...
sadly, there are enough people on earth.
yep, I'm tired of sharing. How do we get rid of them?
now THIS is suburban hell....
and yes, I grew up there.
Well I hope you live'd in the pink roof houses, cause they are the only ones that stand out.
now we are
nope, I lived in the section at the top left, which I would say is worse. The culture of suburban hell, but even less dense.
wow...apparently my 'nector is delayed even though I hit refresh :(
where is that rationalist?
in a great novel but depressing novel i read about 15 yrs ago one of the characters posited that the first people had souls but that finite number of souls didn't necessarily increase as the population grew. small talk at a backyard cookout.
I grew up in the country, its still black and white on google earth I think. I won't post cause its pretty empty.
Steven, are you saying that there are say 100 souls, and only 100 souls so the rest of man-kind has to share, or just doesnt have one? Maybe thats what people are always fighting about.
I want my soul!
my hometown:pop. 500 or so
WhatToDo- that is the border between Phoenix, AZ and Glendale, AZ, which explains the general monochromatic look of it. I'm so looking forward to living somewhere that's green...
yeah, sarah, that's what the book was suggesting. i'll have to find it/remind myself what that book was. i remember being depressed for a month after reading it.
here ya' go.
my childhood home. standard spec homes from the early seventies. while a little kid, we were still surrounded by horse and adiry farms...by the time i was in high school, none of the farms were operational...by the time i was in college they were mostly gobbled up by more spec developments.
there's still surprisingly large amounts of open space though...new jersey is weird like that. every county is classified as urban because of the overall pop'n, but there's quite a bit of forest and grassland.
my house was basically where the stream that intersects the forest meets the vertical street...on the left side of the central development in that shot. 10-12 acres of protected Green Acres adjoined our property...thankfully...and was my childhood playground.
rationalist...I feel your pain. My neighborhood was green, artificially green...but at least it was only 10 minutes from the beach.
the way they build in AZ really bugs me....Guess I should rant on the Green TC, but I hate how they use sloped roofs, when the native flat/parapeted roof would be better for indoor temps do to shading and such. Those slopes only absorb extra heat! And I HATE that they build "Adobe" style houses with stick framing. Can't they at least use cmu or some other product that would function as adobe does, mainly in compression?! AAAAA!!
...and no overhangs whatsoever. And no differentiation in windows or treatments between north vs. south sides of houses. The one thing they were pretty good at were carports. Someone there recognized that it's a big waste to build an integrated whole room onto your house just for cars, so most people there just have a carport that is basically (2) 8x8 posts and a bit of roof overhead.
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