The Strife of Brian

This is the wall system I just built for my living room. It is the first real furniture I designed and built.

I made a couple of this type with the two black doors. I had a limited amount of the veneered stock so I chose to alternate the door and cabinet colors.

Here you can see how the doors pivot open.


This one is probably my favorite. It took me a long time to figure out the hinge layout.

The door folds down so you can use the back of it as a litte writing desk. It was really important to me that the back of the door was flush with the inside of the cabinet. This was dificult because I also wanted the door to be recessed into the cabinet when closed. I went back to Rockler a couple times looking for the right hinges.

This one was the hardest to deal with because it is so big. It is about 50″ across and is pretty heavy.

It opens basically the same way as the first cabinet.

Here is one of the drawer cabinets I made. This one is by my front door and has a place for all the stuff I can never find when it is time to leave the house.

This is basically the same design with only one drawer.

All the drawers are made using half blind dovetail joinery. They also have full extension drawer guides. They are pretty narrow front to back so they would be ussless without them.

I bought the pole hardware from Ikea. They are a bit more industrial looking than I wanted but they are pretty close and I think better than if I had made poles out of wood. I got all the Walnut or Teak veneer stock from recycling another piece of furniture my friend Bryan was throwing out. This limited me in the design phase but I ended up with plenty of finished cabinets. I refinished the venner with a tung oil rubbed finish which is appears identical to the original finish. All the black material is painted MDF. It took a couple weeks to get the paint to be the way I wanted it. Overall I am pleased with the result and it should help organize my stuff.

Technorati Tags: Cube, Danish Modern, Furniture, Furniture Design, Ikea, Mid Century Modern, Modern Furniture, MSM, Storage, Wall Unit

Leave a Reply

We have been redecorating my living room. Here I am sporting kind of a Rutger Hauer look showing off the curtains Jen made.

Leave a Reply

Jen and I carved some pumpkins. I think they turned out pretty good this year.

Cornelius helps to complete the Halloween mood in the upper right.

Spookie

Scarie!

Leave a Reply

This is the last day of our vacation. I tried to find at least one

thing I wanted to see in every state we visited. Farmount, Indiana is

apparently the hometown of fifties rebel icon James Dean. We visited

the small museum there and a very nice elderly lady showed us the

artifacts on display. We learned quite a lot about him. I was surprised

to learn how athletic he was. He lettered in several sports. He also

showed some ability in art and music. Jen found a letter he had written

to his young cousin discouraging him from drawing pictures of fighting

and war and encouraging him to look for the beauty in the world. That

told me a lot about his character. I wish more people in the world felt

this way.

We found the cemetary somewhat accidentally looking for the way out of

town. A lot of people had left little notes and gifts on the grave. I

was reminded of that Morrissey video in which he came

here and drove a tractor or some nonsense. The whole visting someone’s

grave thing is lost on me, especially someone you have never met, but I

have done it twice today. I guess our trip has to end someway I guess

it is fitting for the last site we visit to be a grave.

Technorati Tags: camper Van, camping, cross country, Grave site, James Dean, road trip, travel

One response so far, want to say something?

1. shane says:

   this is very cool amigo..i want to do this too, and i am not a James Dean freak like some people believe it or not lol, and i actually got here from Google Images with “Me at James Dean’s grave…” and presto, and i was spurred to do that after watching the YouTube video for Morrissey’s “SuedeHead” .. and i love that song and video. So did you feel any kind of energy there?? Was there a definite aura to being there?? And i am not a hardcore spiritualist either..lmao. And i DON’T feel the need to explain myself so much, although i do…and wow omg, do you think James Dean was as complicated as me?! And good day, i’m joking around on cup of coffee number 7 this morning here in Florida and wishing i could come there just once too Bless

   Oct 10, 2005, 8:48 am

Leave a Reply

At Sun Studios I was informed that the Stax museum was already closed

at that point int the day. I was also given directions which I promptly

forgot. I decided I had to try anyway since I am a huge fan of Stax

artists like Steve Cropper, Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, Al Green, etc,

etc.

After a bit of driving around I finally found it. I was really

surprised to find sucha big and recently built museum. It looks really

fantastic even though it is is a pretty rough neighborhood. Memphis had

some ghettos that make Detroit look good.

It really looks like a nice place. I was dissapointed we missed it. I

guess everyone gets out of there before the sun goes down. I should

have planned our visit out. I will have to come back another time.

Technorati Tags: camper Van, camping, cross country, memphis, road trip, soul music, stax records, travel

Leave a Reply

After the Graceland tour we looked for the Stax Records museum but got

lost and decided to go to Sun first since I knew where that was. This

is a shot of me standing inside the studio next to a giant photo of the

Million Dollar Quartet.

The tour included audio clips that told the story of the studio and the

groundbreaking music recorded there. It was pretty moving to hear the

records in the place they were recorded. Even though I consider myself

a big fan I learned a thing or two on the tour.

Apparently this is the drum kit that U2 used when they recorded there. Fascinating.

Technorati Tags: camper Van, camping, cross country, elvis, johnny cash, memphis, Million Dollar Quartet, road trip, rock & roll music, sun studios, travel

Leave a Reply

We went to Graceland and took the platinum tour. I didn’t get very good photos because they do not allow flash photography.

This is Elvis’white living room.

This is my favorite The Jungle Room. During the tour a set of headphones gave us information about the King’s life.

More jungle room. Jen liked the green shag carpet. I think it was on the ceiling as well.

Here is a shot of a monkey on the coffee table in the TV room. The TV

room had three TVs in the wall because he heard the president watched

all three nightly news broadcasts each night. It was yellow and dark

blue with a lot of mirror panels.

I guess this crazy fur bed was in his dressing or was it undressing

room. I could only think how hard it would be to clean this thing. It

had a stereo built in and I think more mirrors.

Some of his weapons were on display including his turquoise handled Colt 45.

His Karate outfit was also on display and a video told us about his

respect for the artform as well as his pursuit of other aggressive

sports.

This piano is in his racquetball house. The tour told us he played here for a few friends on the morning of the day he died.

Here I am standing by his grave. I actually got a little choked up

during this tour. I always liked Elvis but wasn’t sure if I was a real

fan or sort of kidding.

After the tour of the house we saw a collection of some of his cars.

For some reason they had a Nascar and a funnycar on display here too. I

guess Elvis might like Nascar if he was alive. I can tell you I don’t.

This is the car most people associate with Elvis, the Pink Cadillac. He called it his mother’s car although she never drove.

This car was once owned by Elvis. I guess he only owned it a short

time. A fan eventually bought it and was restoring it at great expense

to give to him as a gift but he died before it was completed.

This car was never owned by The King. It was however once used as a salad bar.

Here I am below the tail of his jet named Lisa Marie.

The bathroom of the jet had a gold plated sink.

Jen and I enjoying some peanut butter and banana sandwiches. We had a

harder time finding a place that made these than I thought we would.

Technorati Tags: camper Van, camping, cross country, elvis, graceland, johnny cash, memphis, Million Dollar Quartet, road trip, rock & roll music, travel

Leave a Reply

We went to Bealle Street. I have always been a fan of the Blues and

thought this should be a stop on our tour. Like a lot of the places we

have been it was different than I imagined. It was pretty

commercialized as I imagined but had fewer attractions than I thought

it would. I thought it would be more of a Branson,MO for blues music.

Although I have never been to Branson. It was ironic that all we saw was

tons of white folks in an area that was famous for black

music. Everywhere else we looked they were pretty hard to find.

We ate ribs at the Blues City Cafe. They were pretty good.

Here is a shot of the cook and part of the dining room.

Later we watched Dr Feelgood something or other. He was good but it

made me sad to watch him play for tourists who didn’t know anything

about the blues.

Jen and I laughed and laughed about this guys car. The Praying for You

Haterz looked ridiculous to us. The car was also taxi cab yellow with

22″ chrome rims.

We also thought this street name was funny. It seems we are 12 years old.

Technorati Tags: barbeque, bealle street, blues, camper Van, camping, cross country, elvis, graceland, johnny cash, memphis, Million Dollar Quartet, ribs, road trip, rock & roll music, travel

Leave a Reply

On the way out of Amarillo we went to the Cadillac Ranch.

It was pretty far off the road and we were surprised to see it was unsupervised and had no gift shop.

People paint there name and whatever on the Cadillacs then someone

paints over the whole thing and the process starts again. We found a

couple cans of paint that where not empty. It was super windy so we had

a hard time leaving our mark.

This was the best I could do. See the heart and BH?

Me giving up. I also painted some anti Bush stuff, which I thought

would be fun since we were in Texas, but I only had blue left and it

got lost in all the other stuff. We did get to redraw a peace symbol

that some a-hole had crossed out.

Here jen proves she is a super tagger.

Based on this pose I apparently thought I was trying out for some sort of musical.

Technorati Tags: cadillac ranch, camper Van, camping, cross country, pink cadillac, road trip, texas, travel

Leave a Reply

As we drove through the Texas panhandle I thought it would be funny to

go to the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo. This is the place where if

you eat the 72 ounce steak they give it to you for free. We did chose

not to take on this challenge and ordered 12 ounce steaks unstead.

That’s mine under all those mushrooms. As you might be able to see from

the photos this is a real gourmet restaurant.

What they lack in quality is made up for in quantity and atmosphere. Here I am enjoying some atmosphere and a 32 ounce beer.

Later we ate this enormous sunday thing. I think Jen liked it.

They had a big chair for all the rubes to sit in. We had a good time.

It was after closing time when we left.

Technorati Tags: big texan, camper Van, camping, cross country, giant steak, road trip, texas, travel

Leave a Reply