A few weeks ago we received a lovely little package.  What was in it you ask?  Well keep reading to see.  I anxiously jumped out of my desk chair as I could hear the UPS truck coming down the road and I immediately darted for the front door.  The UPS guy (also known as Cliff) loves to honk his horn obnoxiously when arriving at our place.  It’s an inside joke!!!  No really it is.  He swears up and down that when ever he just rings our doorbell that we don’t hear it…so instead he lets us know far in advance when he’s arriving.  He even does the ‘good bye’ honk as he’s pulling away.  Awwwww…gotta love it.  As I glanced at the return label I just knew it was Marcy & Tony’s MOD book!!! I have been sooooo excited to see this fully designed book that Eric created.  We’ve been wanting to construct a Couture|Book for quite sometime and when we told Marcy & Tony about our ideas they were totally onboard.  I LOVE OUR CLIENTS!!! It took much longer than expected on our end & we graciously thanked them for being so patient.  It was totally worth the wait!!!  Before handing off this unique 10×13 goodie to the new proud owners I just had to take images to post for all of you to see & drool over.  

For our past clients (new friends)…let us know if you’re interested in creating one from your fabulously funky flipside/me2 portrait session.

For our photographer peeps…let us know if you have any questions regarding Couture|Book & the design process.  They also have a branch/lab located in Phoenix, Arizona!!! We will gladly share our experience! They have so many yummy books to choose from.  We *heart* the EARTH COLLECTION.

 

Left image is the front of the book & right image is the back.  Love the little ‘peek-a-boo’ window of text. So fun!

 

 

Closer details of window & exterior ’see-through’ binding.  All hand sewn & stitched.

 

 

Interior binding & page detail.

 

 

 

It feels & looks like a modern artists’ sketch book only filled with a mixture of graphic design and hip photography!

 

 

We always put our signature nickel’d greeting inside the cover of all our books…adds a touch of whimsey.

 

 

A spin on the regular ‘table of contents/chapters’.  Just a cool little guide of each location we visited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paired next to our other fabulous MOD 10×10 hard cover book which has a completely different feel.  I’m going to do a blog post on those shortly as well.

 

 

To see their original blog post & a slideshow of the whole yummy album…click here!

IT’S OFFICIAL!!!  We didn’t wanna get our hopes up until there was a definite date for our interview…and now there is!!!  August 28th Friday @ 10 a.m. Mountain/Arizona time we’re getting our smack on with Kristen Kalp from Totally Rad Actions (you know the insanily-creative Boutwells). HOLY MOLY EXCITING. Kristen contacted us a few weeks ago saying that someone referred us (who still remains anonymous…YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE BUT WE DON’T…so just tell us already so we can give you a big OL’ HUG SANDWICH!)…honestly we don’t know who did such a lovely thing. ‘Is this a JOKE?’ That was my first reaction.  Kristen immediately sensed my excitement and disbelief from our initial email response and said ‘No REALLY you were indeed referred and suggested to be interviewed by TRA!.’ We’re still in shock.  And right now I’m subconsiously thinking ‘OMG…I hope I don’t say ‘LIKE’ like a million times throughout the live interview.’  I actually do have a bad habit of saying that stinkin word when describing things and telling random stories.  I’ll have to tack up a whole list of other words to use instead of ‘like’…LOL.  Any suggestions?  It would be kinda funny to deliberately come up with similar words as my crazy little evil plan to get around actually saying it! Don’t you think?

 

So obviously we are ecstatic & hope you can all tune in to catch our interview!!!  Click on the image to go to blogtalkradio and schedule a reminder. PRETTY PLEASE.

 

 

Happy Monday!  These totally made me giggle…don’t you agree?!.  I just had to snag a few whimsey coasters from the delightfully designed Bourbon Steakhouse restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona during an Editorial shoot last weekend with the fabulous Desert Living Magizine. Ever come up with a pick up line or had one thrown your way that just made you cringe?. I thankfully haven’t from a complete stranger but Eric does try them on me once in a while.  I in return roll my eyes and chuckle ‘that’s a good one…did you come up with that all by yourself?!’.  He then say’s ‘maybe.’ Ha. Gosh these are far more cheesy & greasy though!  We would LOVE to hear what’s your favorite pick up line you’ve heard or an attempt that’s gone horribly wrong.  I think everyone needs a GOOD OL’ LAUGH when it comes to Monday’s!!! Oh please do share…you know you wanna!!!

 

Well sort of!!!  I had told Eric back in June that all I wanted for my Birthday was to transform our spare bedroom a.k.a ‘the junker’ to a refreshing production office for purple nickel.  And that’s just what we did.  3 weeks ago we took off a Sunday & Monday and decided to dive in…literally!!! Just imagine the room jam packed full of plastic tubs on wheels stacked halfway up the height of the room.  YIKES.  Most of you know we’re remodeling our home completely (see previous blog post) & well this served as a great option to store all our perishable items such as photographs, DVD’s, candles…pretty much anything that would melt like lava in our mobile mini parked out front in this 100+ Arizona heat.  

So we got our game plan on bright and early that Sunday morning and immediately began transporting the plastic bins out into our living room. That was the easy part!  We soon realized that the walls were far more cracked than we had remembered from years of foundation settlement & that the old floor tiles were completely disgusting showing signs of old carpet water stains…YUCK! Not to mention the poorly installed baseboards and chipped tiles from the removal of carpet tacks years back. But we kept going.  

We made our home improvement shopping list and headed out.  There was so much prep involved that we didn’t even start painting until 10 p.m. Sunday night.  It would have been 9 p.m. but we totally had to take a 1 hour break and catch our favorite HBO show ‘TRUE BLOOD’…it was perfect timing and a much needed rest.  FYI…I’m so glad we got the primer & paint in 1!!!  A must have.  We decided to purchase the brightest white flat finish paint they had to offer & give a HUGE ol’ facelift to the dingy boring bland space.  Eric badly wanted to accent one wall in our reconizable lime color you see all over our site and photography branding.  *Lime POP*…that’s exactly what it’s called.  Ha.  At first I was apprehensive.  I suggested we try some solid thick stripes along the wall instead of the whole wall. Well that idea lasted about 2 seconds when Eric told me to just trust him.  And that I did.  Best thing ever I must say.  He’s usually right when it comes to design decisions and seeing the ‘whole picture’.  Can’t wait to see what he has instore for our home!!!  So when it was all said and done we finished late Monday evening and we’re completely exhausted. We currently have NO artwork up yet but have a million ideas from a large graphic mural sketched up on the lime wall, to 3D art installations of framed objects above the cozy MOD couch (which by the way hasn’t been uncovered from the plastic wrap in almost 2 years), and to a good ol’ flat screen t.v.  Stay tuned…

 

Take notice of the horrible cracked walls that were badly repaired years ago.  UGH.  If I remember correctly there used to be crappy wood ‘den-like’ paneling to hide them…this was before my sister removed the hideous planks from what was her old bedroom.  Eric & I decided to repair what we could with the knowledge that we would re-frame & re-floor once this room was part of the remodel. 

 

 

YAY…all walls & ceiling are a crisp clean WHITE!!!  Sure beats that rosey peach color wouldn’t you say?.  And I’m already LOVING the accent wall!  I guess Eric was right after all.  And NO we didn’t paint the whole wall with a brush…just the trim!  It took 4 coats of LIME before it was all evenly colored.

 

 

PRESTO!!!  I would have to say that this is freakin AH-MAZING.  What a transformation!!!  I’m inspired already.  And look…we were able to take apart our custom couch that used to be plastic wrapped in the living room and put it to good use!  We waited 3 months for that dang thing to be created (our wedding gift to ourselves) and then it just got covered up.  I was so sad to not have a simple couch to relax on…our close friends know this all too well.  Ummmm not anymore!!! YAY…I can’t even begin to tell you how much I have enjoyed the last 3 weeks in our new room. And it’s all THANKS to my thoughtful husband who I adore!!!

I knew I was organized before but now it’s a whole new level.  Next up is tacking up the bajillion electrical cords somehow & clearing out the closet for a custom place to organize all our product packaging, boxes/tags, equipment, and gaggets.  It’s gonna be so tiddy that we won’t even need the gold trimmed mirrored sliding doors anymore to hide the clutter!!! DARN.  Oh and of course ARTWORK needs to be created.  I’m so looking forward to this part. FUNNESS is about to happen…

 

 

Just some details…LOVING the white linear tables (ikea)…duh!

 

 

We would love to hear any ideas or suggestions as to what type of ART we should hang/create? Please comment below your thoughts…THANK YOU!  And don’t be shy.

So today I’ve decided to give you all a little insight on what Eric & I are going through on the home front!  As most of you have heard….we are still remodeling our home.  YES.  I know.  I hear you shouting right now ‘When are you gonna finish that dang thing?!!!!!’. Well…there’s good news! Actually fantastic news.  We are going full force again come August.  YAY!!!  We honestly we’re quite burnt out for awhile from all the demo & stress & pure clutter.  We are sooooooo crazy for living in this house while it gets put back together….so there may be times where we need to have a slumber party at your home to get away from the madness. Eventually we will have brand new plumbing and brand new electrical installed.  That’s when we’ll be bunking up with anyone…LOL.  Maybe we should just get a tent and camp in the dirt pit out back?. NOT!!!  Ok so I’ve been rambling on about our project and I need to show you exactly what we’ve been describing to ALL OF YOU these past months.  Prepare yourselves there’s a lot to look @…

 

Some quick facts:

We purchased the home in May 2005 from my mom Martha (Casia’s mom) & I’ve lived in the home since the 8th grade . 1995

Home square footage is around 1,140 (small and cozy)

Lot size is around 8,000 sq feet (HUGE for the neighborhood)

Built in 1954 out of slump block & thick ass plaster walls with a pitch roof

Original floor plan consisted of 3 bedrooms, 1 3/4’s bath, and a laundry room

We started the demo September of 2007!!!  YIKES…

 

This first image pretty much showcases the original layout of the main living area. I photographed this angle from our front door.  So what you’re observing is our living room (which is closest to the foreground), then the wall that used to separate the living & kitchen/dining area.  Off to the left is our carport door and then a laundry room door.  Off to the right is our 3rd smallest bedroom that we decided to expose to the newly open living area.  You can see the studs behind the tarped off area.  Also the most extreme change is the very low drop plaster ceiling.  We decided to expose the pitch roof!!!  Also notice the nasty grey clumps of insulation that was in our ceiling.  This image can’t even express what we went through while we had to dispose all that fiberglass crap!!!  I called it the ‘rats nest’…cause that’s basically what the texture consisted of. Luckily NO RATS were found!!!

 

 

This is shot from the opposite side of the house.  I’m now standing in what was the dining area. Off to the left is our poor little kitchen.  Upper cabinets removed & dated lighting fixtures gone!  Down below is the southwestern-like ceramic tile my mom installed a long time ago which was a vast improvement from the retro shag orange carpet & grimy mustard yellow linoleum tile.  Not restorable!!!  So don’t get all bent out of shape since she removed something vintage.  It was ugly…trust me.  The only thing was that the linoleum tile pretty much made it impossible to rip up the tile all together.  In the living room it wasn’t there so that took about 1 hour to pull out and would pop up like a domino effect….stacking on top of each other in a row. But the kitchen/dining was glued together and rock solid since it now had 3 layers of history.  You can see in the middle of the photograph the tiny pieces of tile…that’s because it wouldn’t come up or break apart in big chucks.  SO FRUSTRATING YOU HAVE NO IDEA. We now have large divots in the concrete slab from the jack hammer.

 

 

Now back to the 1st view from the front door.  More plaster ceiling is striped away and so is the rats nest insulation!!!  Now exposed are the really cool cherry wood beams that held up the plaster ceiling…we recycled the wood into trusses (you’ll see Eric’s design shortly).  Oh and our lovely flat fire place…used to have a block edging/step up thing-a-ma-bobber around it.  Weird.

 

 

Pretty much the same view only a few feet over from the front door.  Now you can really see that 3rd bedroom we exposed to the new entertaining space & our pristine wood ceiling.  Shockingly there were no signs of water damage or roof tar that ever leaked through.  We contemplated on whether leaving the wood planks exposed since they were sooooo beautiful but then we would have had to sacrifice no insulation. Unless we did it on the exterior of the roof under a metal roof top?.  After viewing it for quite sometime we decided it was too much wood and it felt very cabin like instead of cozy MOD!  Don’t hate us.  I promise you’ll LOVE the solution.

 

 

View from the center of the house.  All tile is removed…you can sort of see the light vs. dark spots in the concrete slab…YEAH those are the divots I was telling you about from the jack hammer.  You can also see lighter grey lines in the slab where the base of the walls used to be.  And up top are those AWESOME ‘mouth dropping’ recycled cherry trusses.  Eric designed and built all of them while I stained the wood.  We used a mixture of pine & cherry wood.  The pine are the new vertical beams attached to the roof and the old cherry wood are the horizontal lines.  He also mixed in heavy duty industrial bolts/nuts/washers and a center metal suspension rod to square it all off.  Sort of gives it that old vs. new feel. By the way…we installed them OURSELVES!!!  The wooden platform in the distance is what Eric built so we could rest them on top as we lifted the trusses into place.  Talk about ‘back breaking labor’.  Plus it was really much hotter up there so close to the roof without insulation.  I wanna say 10-15 degrees difference from the floor level.  Also off to the further right is that 3rd bedroom that is clearly open to the living area. Now the whole area is HUGE!!!

Oh don’t cha just love all the taped up electrical wiring and exposed plumbing going on?  The old rectangular air duct going down the hallway is also getting a big make-over…think industrial warehouse circular ducting!!!  I believe it will also be raised up quite a few feet giving the hallway a more open feel instead of this dark closed off tunnel which it used to be.

 

 

A view from the kitchen of the newly opened space!

 

 

Welcome to our ‘Cotton Candy’ world!!!  Lovely insulation is installed and the temp is more controlled.  You can see where the old ceiling used to rest and how low it really was compared to the space.  We also flipped the insulation while installing since the wood plank ceiling kept grabbing/tearing the sheets as we slid them along the panels and in between the metal drywall brackets…normally you see the paper backing and the pink side is up towards the roof.  We had to do this only where the trusses existed.  There’s also our fabulous MOD couch that we never got to sit on.  Now it’s in the new office and is getting lots of attention…FINALLY.

Our next projects are finishing the house plans, framing, plumbing, electrical, drywall, and putting everything back together!!!  Oh also that dining room window next to the kitchen is transforming into either a piviting glass door or some sort of stacking door so we can completely open it up to the back yard!!!  Fabulous for parties.  Same is going to happen with the large front living room window to the front yard. YAY…can’t wait to keep you all up dated on our ENORMOUS remodel!  Wish us LUCK!!!