A peek at the doodle house part deux
October 31st, 2011 § 6 Comments
We’ve only been officially inhabiting the new casa for 10 days, and there are many changes and upgrades we have planned for down the road. But in the mean time, enjoy a few peeks of our first stab at home ownership.
Adventures in Handiness
October 28th, 2011 § 3 Comments
Ladies of the world, heed my words. Marry not for riches but instead for handiness.
The move to doodlehouse 2.0 (working title), fabulous though it may be, has brought to light how helpless I am and how handy the mister is. I’ve shared tales of Heath’s handiness before, but things are getting a little out of hand. Heath has been taking do-it-yourself projects to an extreme level. Pretty soon we may even decide to forgo paying the city to run electricity to our house and instead elect to develop a system in which our house is powered with a rowboat manned by talking Guinea pigs.
In one week of home ownership, Heath has:
• Replaced 3 light fixtures
• Installed our washer/dryer
• Installed a dryer vent
• Installed bathroom shelving
• Replaced a shower head
• Upped the water pressure
• Unclogged the bathroom sink
• Hooked up the ice maker
• Installed a lock and deadbolt
All done in under a week. And lets not forget about the bed, book shelves, study bench, chicken coop, and media consul all built from the ground up by Handy McBuildson.
Renting a moving truck— $40
Cost to dine out daily while waiting for your new fridge to be delivered—$2380423525
Marrying a champion do-it-yourself Wunderkind–priceless.
Glass bottle border
October 17th, 2011 § 3 Comments
I’m sure the neighbors hate the steadily growing mountain of used wine bottles that sits to the side of the house. But believe it not, they are part of a master plan that will soon be able to come to fruition. Once we move, those bottles will finally take their place aside tomatoes and peppers as a fancy and functional border to a vegetable garden.
Just another reason to enjoy a glass of wine.
Austin Place to Love: Buck Moore Feed and Pet Supply
October 14th, 2011 § 1 Comment
Often friends will ask me where it is we get out chickens and I answer with the enthusiasm of a TV game show contestant, “BUCK MOORE FEED STORE!”
Buck Moore Feed and Pet Supply is what happens when an old fashioned Mom and Pop business meets the “weird” Austin culture.
Here’s what I mean by that—the place hasn’t been updated since the family biz first got off the ground in 1972. It’s got basically the same old signage, the same hand-built, no frills wooden shelving and random knick-knack laden walls of its past. But, by design or not, the outdated decor sets a mood for the store that just works. Perfectly. No hoity-toity dog biscuits or cat outfits here, just high-quality animal feed and customer service. REAL customer service. The kind where they ring you up and carry your bag out to your car for you. They keep a small but knowledgable staff who can tell you everything you wanted to know and more about chickens, dogs, livestock and the like.
That’s the old-fashioned, traditional side. Then there’s the quirky side. The side that hosts the city’s annual Funky Chicken Coop Tour and makes sure it stays stocked with local products like John Dromgoole’s Lady Bug garden products. The side that, despite originating in the early 1970s, continues to use technology from far preceding decades: the cash register is from 1923, their feed scale is a 1930 IBM model and the Coke dispenser is possibly one of the first ever built. Quirky indeed.
The marriage between quirky and traditional may seem like an unlikely one, but it’s a relationship that has worked very well for Buck Moore’s store–the only place in town I go to for good [dog] food and good-looking chicks.
Modern Eclectic
October 13th, 2011 § 4 Comments
And the answer we were looking for folks was “modern eclectic.” Yes, “modern eclectic” is the correct answer.
In the past couple of weeks I have become somewhat of an expert at performing google image searches. (It’s a very difficult process. Needless to say, many of you will never be able to master the art.) The primary objective of said searches is to find interior design inspiration for *ahem* someone’s upcoming relocation project. Yep, we are buying our first home and I’m needing some decoration guidance without having to actually READ anything or put in any intellectual research.
Finding the key words that get you to the most applicable images the fastest really might be some kind of a weird talent, and it took me a long time to find the right mix of random interior design-ish adjectives to produce photos of scenes I can realistically imitate. Like Goldy Locks, I combed through the internet searching for those key phrases that would get me to to inspiration images that were “just right.”
“Mid Century Modern” turned up some awesome shots that ultimately were too minimalistic or ridiculously unattainable. ”Colorful Interiors” lead me to images of what appear to be fun-houses. And a slew of other randomly placed together words got me close, but not quite there.
Enter MODERN ECLECTIC—the term vague enough to encompass all things modern, traditional and in between. The wishy-washy, bi-polar, ADD wannabe designers like myself finally have a designated style to call their own. Modern Eclectic it shall be. Behold the fruits of my labor.
That last one is a real-life inspiration from my friend Maggie. Check her place out on airbnb.
Cheers to Modern Eclectic, and hopefully soon you’ll be seeing real photos of the doodlehouse 2.0….
CultureMap
October 10th, 2011 § 1 Comment
My mom says I gravitate toward any party where free eats and drinks are abundant, and I can’t necessarily disagree with her. But who really wants to turn down unlimited food, spicy margaritas and free petting zoos anyway? Case in point, the CultureMap launch party last Thursday.
The Eastside fiesta at Pine Street Station (home of favorite SXSW destination Fader Fort and in SXSW off season, Hope Farmer’s Market) celebrated the launch (albiet a little tardy) of the Austin portion of CultureMap, a news/lifestyle website that greets visitors with a clean and trendy interface chock-full of Austin-themed stories on topics spanning music, film, fitness, design, sports and innovation. The party, like the website, was diverse in its attractions.
Like FDPs of the past, this one included live music, a photobooth and refreshments out the wazoo, but unlike others I’ve frequented, it also featured a petting zoo by Tiny Tails to You (complete with hedgehogs, bunnies and baby ducks), and performance by Sky Candy Aerial Arts. If animals and acrobatics become the next trend in party throwing, I should just give up right now.
Check out pics from the event here.
And while you’re at it, maybe give the entire CultureMap website a glance too.
Hot Chicks
October 5th, 2011 § 2 Comments
Meet some new hot chicks.
Those of us at the doodle house were feeling the pain of losing our beloved Marion recently. So, like any grieving chicken parents, we picked up some new ladies recently to help us:
1) ease our wounds
2) give eventual company to surviving Francis Sue
3) provide us with blogging material.
Clearly, points 1 and 2 are the most important. Point 3 is just a lucky perk. Meet the new ladies.
Keeping in step with our naming-chickens-after-grandparents theme, this little lady has been dubbed Patsy. She is the leader of the 2 youngest chicks. She’s a hot blonde with a lot of attitude. Welcome to the family.
Elouise, here, is a soft-spoken gentle soul who gets along swimmingly with all her fellow chicks.
This is Chick. We picked up Chick before the other two babes, and we bonded with her instantly. We never gave her an official name, but she doesn’t really need one. She comes when you call and loves humans to an unusual degree–she is more like a dog when you get right down to business.
So there it is. The hot new chicks of the doodle house. Stay tuned for more developments.
