Barn Project Part I

A. Existing Barn Structure

As  architects, we don't yet have a consistent strategy for finding architectural projects/work, we both work full time jobs in practice and academia and in the past have basically have applied for some projects and gotten recurring work through some of these past clients, colleagues and acquaintances. This is normal in architecture especially for smaller firms; word of mouth and networking is really the norm but in general we treat every project with care and try to go above and beyond the clients requests so they come back when they need more work or refer us to others. 

B. Verifying measurements

Things slowed down over the winter and due to the economic status but once in a while we'll find a project that seems worth the extra effort and I think this might be one of those. We met with the client who is an artist and talked about how to convert this barn located in Highland NY into an artist space. The project would consist of various studio spaces and gallery space in a picturesque setting, alright so its not Italy but its a nice quiet location in upstate NY.  The project seems interesting enough and could be fun for us because of its size (pretty small) and what it entails. As usual the budget is small, at least for architectural services so we're doing it basically for free..or to be fair it may provide enough to pay for the baby's furniture (crib and dresser). Why would an architect work for free? Good questions..well we basically get the experience and the opportunity to work on something you think you may put a project you think is worth. 

So far we've been paid to survey the entire barn, do a code review (sort of) and produce drawings to describe a renovation of the exterior (clean, paint and restore original wood cladding) and interior (new concrete slab/grade beam, interior partitions, insulate and close walls, 'close' it (so its climate controlled not open to the environments) re-design and re-frame two roofs and add some fenestration. 

The first visit was for a quick meeting and survey so we brought our little one and she had a good time pretending to be an architect. It turned out she was pretty helpful in holding the other end of the tape measure until she lost interest! The worst part of surveying old buildings is the dirt and possible "other inhabitants" in the building, in this case there were some birds nests, cobwebs galore, a possible fox and small bugs but I've been surveyed a building where we walked in and there were squatters living (and relieving themselves) out in the open  in the building along with a host of dead animals etc..luckily this was not that bad. Anyway, when its done I'll post a part deux to show the outcome.

'I Think I Canvas Hamper' HACK

My 'Land Of Nod' I think I Canvas Hamper hack.

After the unfortunate demise of my daughters plastic laundry bin (long story..), we have been making due with piles and a hanging laundry bag to put all her dirty clothing in and for me to get them down to the basement where I do the laundry. It not only got to be annoying but also, its teaching her a bad habit..throwing her clothes on the floor because she couldn't reach where the bag hung. Although  I am still working on getting her putting her toys away but at least she was really into putting her clothing in a hamper at bath time and putting her shoes in her room in a nice neat line in the corner, and I saw that all starting to change.

It was partially my fault as well because I haven't been able to put away the laundry fast enough so she sees laundry piles in every room; me, being a 'good example' hasn't been so great. Anyway, after looking for some simple hampers and not really finding what I wanted, I gave in and decided I needed something..anything, I also needed one our new little one as well. So the project began..

I found one at PB kids which I almost ordered embroidered with their names but they got mediocre reviews,  then I found one I liked at Restoration Hardware but it seemed too rugged and it was $79, its a bit expensive at least for Laundry hamper, so I then found these beige (plain) canvas hampers at the Land of Nod for $16.95 and decided it may be fun to try to personalize them with some stencils and paint. It initially began as just wanting to put a standard stencil letter for each one but my lovely husband suggested actually spelling their names out on the hampers as well, sort of like the RH hampers. 

Land of Nod's I think I Canvas Hamper

Restoration Hardware's Salvaged Tarp Laundry Hamper

Process: 

Homemade stencil

We found 4" stencils at Michael's to spell their names out and I decided to make my own stencils for the bigger letters because they didn't have anything I liked or anything big enough at Michael's. I printed the letter on card stock and cut it out with an X-acto knife.

We decided to use a matte grey spray paint and some masking tape to basically try to achieve a slightly uneven, 'standard issue' type effect on each bag. 

Stencils from Michael's

Firstly we taped all the letters together spaced as tight as I wanted them to read, then taped them to a piece of scrap paper to keep the spray paint form getting all over the rest of the bag. At this point we discovered the text was a bit to big and wouldn't fit on the bag as 'Arielle' so since we call her 'Arie' quite a bit we cropped it to say 'Arie'. 

We then taped the entire template to the bag, laid it  down and just sprayed it. 

We did run into some problems because the bags weren't able to be completely flattened due to built in piping (good for making it stand up and bad for trying to mount a stencil).

Stencil after we sprayed the first hamper

Stencil taped to the hamper

Hamper after removing the stencil

I was a bit shocked by the result initially, the flatter the bag is, the more control you will have over the spread of the spray paint, the better (neater) it would have looked but once I got over the initial result, I actually liked the imperfections. It took about 20 minutes to dry and then we filpped it and did the other side with a big 'A'. We also made one for the baby but I won't show this until we have actually officially named her and shared the name with our family and everyone (currently only the three of us know what it is). Obviously, if we stick to the name we have, then she has a cool hamper but as of now you can see that it begins with the letter 'E', if we change it, we can always toss the hamper!

Finished 

SURPRISE! Baby Shower

The sweets table (handcrafted sweets..personalized favors)

Today we celebrated the baby with a beautiful baby shower hosted by my sister, she must have planned most of this with my mom and other sister without letting it out of the bag once because it was a surprise for a while until a certain somebody said "see you next week, at the shower!". Anyway, I'm not a good receiver of surprises but I realize that even though I had an idea there was an event, the surprise became more about the extent to which she went to to make it really quite beautiful for us (me and the little one inside). It was that, that made it a great surprise, every detail was thought of to match my personality (I love orange..my daughters room is partially orange, my wedding was partially orange..) and I was afraid I was fading to beige.

I love throwing parties because I like themes, decorating and making little gifts but on the other had I dislike parties because I get stressed out about if people can make it or not, if they find it to be important enough take the time out to attend. I will say that we found out over the last few years that May is an awfully busy month for celebrations especially the first weekend of month of May is graduation and First Holy Communion but we also know quite a few people with birthdays at this time as well and then theres sports..people seem to think their kids will become the next Michael Phelps or something so they dare not miss one practice game or it might profoundly impact or alter their kids future stardom. 

Anyway, The party yesterday, had enough people there, people that came to support us because they genuinely care about us and that was just enough for me. My mother, 2 sisters (one of which is also expecting her first baby!) and nieces were there, my cousin (close like a sister), her husband and three little boys came from DC, my father in-law, sister in law with her two little boys, my neighbors Carli and Daisy came along with their sons..and more. It was really nice. 

Cake and cookies (handcrafted by my sister!)

Every detail complemented the party, the sweets table had a lovely cake (vanillas with chocolate filling) with buttercream frosting, with matching heart-shaped sugar cookies, white chocolate morsels, cream/orange M&M candies and fruit bowl. It also had these adorable little favors, personalized with my name and shower date and a cute little elephant etched into it. She also made these adorable little flower arrangements with Gerbera daisies. 

The lunch/dinner table had a variety of salads, rice, baked scallops with mango salsa, bbq and jerk chicken, lasagna, little toast with the crust cut off ( love!) and lots more. It was really great to catch up with everyone, and the kids had great time too. Arielle was so happy to have all her cousins in one place at the same time and since the party was at my moms house, they were all right at home on the playground and playing football with the dads at the party!

We also played a diapering game which was really funny, we discovered my sisters husband (whose about to be a daddy..) has no idea how to diaper babies or in this case rabbits, dolls etc. and that my husband seems to be a speed diaperer! He won a $25 gift card for diapering the most dolls in 45 seconds. It was rather comical but he takes these kinds of things seriously.

We received so many gifts for this little girl; I thought we had all we needed but the gifts (mostly from a registry I set up but intended as a wish list of sorts for myself to buy along the way) were all really great, we received a beautiful moses basket, baby monitor, babycook, Organic towels, first aid kits, tons of onsies, little colorful summer outfits, two car seats and more. Arielle even got some gifts which really made her feel great. At the end of the night, after everyone had gone home, the kids fell asleep watching the Smurfs movie. I am really thankful to my sister for hosting the party, it was a  really nice  thing to do and  allowed me to really celebrate the fact that in a few weeks we (the three of us) will have a new little person in our house but also that this little one has a place within a much larger and very loving family. she's an extremely lucky little girl and we cant wait to meet her.   

Week 32

My baby girl at 31weeks 3 days (chubby cheeks!)

Today I had a doctors appointment with Dr. Keith Lescale, one of the best maternal-fetal medicine specialist in Westchester. I am technically (31 weeks 5 days) 8 weeks 3 days away from my due date, its an important day because, I (and Dr. Lescale) have been a bit worried about a the whole possible C-Section issue for the last 11 weeks since Dr. Lescale mentioned it at 23 weeks, so today was the day to finally see what the little girl was doing in there. I got in a bit late (of course) but the doc wasn't even there which was strange but the very friendly and enthusiastic technician came in and began scanning my belly. 

The bitter sweet of being considered "special" case, is that although you've got to go through a few more tests than you'd like to, you also get to see the baby a lot. I was just saying to my husband the other day how I feel I have become a more relaxed person because during my first pregnancy I was calling the doctor at night if for some reason i felt the baby wasn't moving enough (she was probably sleeping), I was furious they wouldn't let me have an ultrasound after the 20 week, I was so paranoid that something would happen to the baby before we got to the end point..and I was on vacation so not really doing anything strenuous at all! This time, I have postponed seeing Dr.Lescale who does the ultrasound twice already; he wanted me to come in every 4 weeks since week 23 but I decided to wait until she (the baby) was bigger and I was closer to delivery! Who skips ultrasounds..especially in 4D?

Anyway,  its kind of a really great moment to get a rare glimpse into the innards of your own body, its even better when the tech does it in 4D so we get a really 'real' image of the baby just to make us smile. So without getting completely into detail the facts are in, the baby is very very cute..I expected her to be cute but she looks so adorable in there I almost want to be at 40 weeks right now! The tech pulled up the 4D image and we all were quite amazed at how chubby her cheeks already are at 32 weeks, she's 4lbs 2 ounces, heartbeat at 139 and she's not breech! yay.

After all the fun, the doc came in and basically said I am still in the clear for a natural (non surgical) delivery for now and to return in 5 weeks when the baby is full term to take one last look. They still seem rather concerned but not without optimism. Anyway, here I am and here she is.