From The Kitchen @ Serafini Studios - A cooking blog by husband/wife team, Gabriel and Kristin Serafini. After living in their classic St. Louis area home for a few years, the Serafini’s undertook a massive kitchen remodel. There’s a window replaced with re-set brickwork, beams hidden, and the cabinetry and appliances entirely replaced and well photo-documented.
The granite countertop however, is the most unique piece of the project due to the royal blue river running through their countertop.
The blue river glows brilliantly due to the embedded fiber optic lighting system. Being in the St. Louis area, the river reflects a template of the nearby Mississippi River. How did they do this?
After selecting their granite, they took it to be cut by waterjet. I’d have been equally as impressed had they said the granite was cut little by little with a handsaw and a file. The waterjet, however, is a tool that shoots water at an ungodly PSI and offers the type of precision you can’t get with traditional saws, and thus a perfect choice for the Serafini’s hand-drawn river template.
With the void of the river ready, the Serafini’s found some blue bottles and crushed them down until they had small glass chips laid over and illuminated by fiber optic cable lighting.
Esquire’ is a men’s magazine, but certainly women can master these skills as well. Thing is, the main reason men are mastering these skills is to impress the ladies. Let us have that, huh?
There’s some quality home-related skills most of us should brush up on. If you haven’t learned them, it’s a great reminder.
It was time for a new list, as mine has grown stale (see below)
Understandably, some of us just won’t have the drive to take on the entire list, and some items you just wouldn’t care for anyhow. But here are some of the relevant entries I took note of.
14. Chop down a tree. Know your escape path. When the tree starts to fall, use it.
(Also, chop down a tree in good weather, My first experience was chopping down our xmas tree in 2 feet of snow. The trunk, was frozen, and halfway through I’d only wished that santa would bring me a chainsaw….right then)
15. Calculate square footage. Width times length.
(Perfectly useful if you’re measuring a rectilinear space. Not a useful explanation. Instead, find the floorplans and your tape measure, for more help, see the explanation here at about.com)
16. Tie a bow tie.
(There was an explanation with that one, but it’ll never happen, not with me, not without a tux. That’s one fashion don’t that’s about as dead as a hitler-esque moustache)
7. Cook meat somewhere other than the grill.
Buy The Way to Cook, by Julia Child. Try roasting. Braising. Broiling. Slow-cooking. Pan searing. Think ragouts, fricassees, stews. All of this will force you to understand the functionality of different cuts. In the end, grilling will be a choice rather than a chore, and your Weber will become a tool rather than a piece of weekend entertainment.
(Julia Child??? What century was this writer born in? Granted, a master grillmaster who can bend a vegan’s will is certainly bound for greatness. However, I haven’t seen a cookbook without Rachel Ray’s face plastered over it in years.)
I was looking at what they’re doing over at Transparent house with artistic concrete, and was impressed to that point where you start thinking “How did they do that?” They’re a 3D design and visualization studio with a nice portfolio of products, presentations and ideas. But taking a polished concrete floor and adding permanently etched artistic elements is quite impressive.
Now, that floor isn’t the best example of a polished concrete floor, in fact, it resembles a warehouse floor with it’s worn pits and cracks. Somehow, though, the addition of a little creativity and relief make it more of a conversation piece than eyesore. It looks like the same premise as the engraving kiosks at the mall, but they do cutesy dog tags and ipods. Not exactly the same scope as taking on your family room.
The example below, even though in darkness, is another great example of making one’s space their own. And think of all you’ll save by not have to buy area rugs! And if the next tenant isn’t thrilled with your design, tell ‘em to just grind it down. Which they’re certain to do if you etch a faux welcome mat in your entry with you last name all over it.
This has no educational or informative value at all, but it’s pretty hilarious as we all know that Japanese people are at the forefront of thinking outside the box of nonsensical craziness. Very awesome as well. Who needs base isolators on their high rise apartment building during an earthquake, when your building’s legs take the shock like a dog on a trampoline full of kids…
I wonder what the overnight guest policy is?
And since I’ve already mentioned it, and still have the Youtube tab open, here’s the obligatory video of a dog on a trampoline…
A Journalist for The Mirror UK, Julie McCaffrey recently spent some time with fellow Brit Richard Reynolds, the alpha guerrilla gardener, and owner of the website guerrillagardening.org. Sneaking around under the cover of night, Reynolds shirks the laws and regulations regarding cultivating public lands. And he’s not alone, since 2004, he’s collected more than 4000 members to his beautification movement.
Four years ago, after moving from Devon to the concrete carbuncle of Elephant and Castle, Richard grew tired of seeing the raised flower-bed at his front door neglected and overgrown.
“I love gardening,” he explains. “I missed it since I moved to London and decided I couldn’t wait for the council. So I got off my a**e, dug up the flowerbed myself and planted cuttings my mum gave me.”
A dark corner that used to reek of urine now ripples with a variety of different colours and wafts with the sweet smell of lavender and sage.
The story goes on further to highlight frequent times that Reynolds and his crew almost get arrested, yet usually let off with a warning. After all, who wants to be the cop that ensures public safety and welfare by getting a gardener off the streets, keeping the world safe, one rogue gardener at a time. The neighbors are happy about the volunteer work being put into the neighborhood, and it gives a group of people a sense of accomplishment. The only downside however is the law. Cultivating public lands doesn’t seem so bad until you consider that, if not maintained, some of these pet projects may wither and die, leaving a weed-infested mess, and your local municipality on the hook to re-plant. Or, perhaps, on a more ridiculous scale, how about a nice field of corn in the middle of your favorite park. Everyone loves corn right?
So I was relieved to see this picture on Reynolds’ site, highlighting an improvement over the course of 2 years.
Only question I have is, what is a 30 year old man doing out at all hours of the night gardening? Shouldn’t he be at the local pub? And what fuels his jolly band of volunteers to get their hands in the dirt in pitch darkness? My guess would be meth.
I doubt this’ll catch on here in the states though, and here’s why…
Anyone referring to themselves as a “Guerrilla” with 4000 followers breaking the law under the cover of night would possibly find themselves tending to the gardens of guantanamo bay.
Immigrants. Right now they have the landscaping market cornered as a low-paying job that most of us don’t want. But if you’re out there, doing it for free, for your own self-gratification, and in the cool night air instead of the scorching heat of summer…. you may spend the rest of your days ever suspicious that there’s a thirty year old pickup truck laden with rakes in your rear view mirror.
An online petition is web-circulating from angryrenter.com, adding “signatures” of those who oppose the federal housing bailout. Their issue, of course, is having to foot the bill via taxes to bail out reckless lenders and homebuyers.
But did you know that renters are 32 percent of American households? And that homes in foreclosure are less than 2 percent?
So why is Congress rushing to bailout high-flying borrowers and their lenders with our tax dollars?
Unfortunately, renters aren’t as good at politics as the small minority of homeowners (and their bankers) who are in trouble. We don’t have lobbyists in Washington, DC. We don’t get a tax deduction for our rent and we don’t get sweetheart government loans.
First, the lender writes down the principal to 90% of appraised value. That’s the amount the FHA would guarantee - that is, the amount that the government would pay the lender if the borrower defaults on the new loan.
So, in the example above, the new loan would be written down to $180,000.
The remaining $20,000 - 10% of appraised value - would be the borrower’s equity stake.
In addition, the lender must pay the FHA 3% of the loan amount ($5,400) to participate and up to 2% in closing costs ($3,600). So on top of forfeiting $20,000 in equity to the borrower, the lender pays $9,000 to the government up front.
The $29,000 the lender forfeits is 14.5% of the appraised value of the home, which means the lender is accepting in essence payment for no more than 85.5% of the home’s value. In addition the lender has agreed to forgive the $20,000 in additional debt above appraised value from the original $220,000 loan.
For their part, while borrowers will get a 10% equity stake in their homes, they will have to pay for their participation in the program as well.
If the interest rate on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage is 6.50%, the borrower in this example will have a monthly mortgage payment of $1,138.
On top of that he will also have to pay a 1.5% annual premium to the FHA based on the principal balance of the loan, which will decline over time. That computes to $225 a month extra in the first year since his initial loan balance is $180,000.
Add to that property taxes (we assumed $167 per month) and home insurance (we assumed $50 per month), and his total housing payment every month would be $1,580.
The borrower will also be on the hook for an exit fee when he sells his home. The exit fee would be equal to the greater of 3% of the original FHA loan amount or a declining percentage of the net proceeds from the sale of the home. The percentage is 100% in the first year and falls to 50% by the fourth year and beyond.
Let’s assume he sells the house after five years for $200,000. He would have paid down his principal balance to $168,500, leaving $31,500 for disbursement.
But he’s not keeping the whole $31,500. He owes an exit fee to the FHA - in this case 50% of his net proceeds or $10,000. Since the house in this example sold for the same amount as its appraisal value five years earlier, the only net proceed is the borrower’s 10% equity stake, or $20,000. So the borrower would pay half that to the FHA and walk away with as much as $21,500.
If the borrower sells his house below the appraised amount, he would still owe the FHA at least 3% of the original FHA-insured principal, or $5,400.
And this plan, they’re estimating it to only apply to 28% of at-risk homeowners. Everything that’s been hitting the fan, will continue to hit the fan for a lot of people. Doesn’t seem as if there’s a happy medium for homeowners, lenders, renters and the economy.
But it seems as if taxes are raised, many renters who’ve been reluctant to gamble with creative mortgages, and homeowners without mortgages are going to be very upset by having to pay for the bailout.
And not often are we seeing the term “Accountability” thrown around enough.
The homebuyers - You knew what you were getting into with a creative mortgage, if taking a huge hit from the bailout means you get to keep your home and don’t have the stain of foreclosure on your record, consider yourself lucky.
The lenders - They bought the loans, they knew what they were, yet the housing market always goes up right. Well, it stopped. Deal with it. Take the hit. This bailout may take a big chunk of their profits, but backs up the difference. And the lenders, well, the economy needs them to make the whole world go ’round, so expect them to get traditional mortgages back in style pretty soon
The loan writers - For the most part, good hardworking people, same as you and I. But there’s also many who are also good and hardworking, yet wrote bad loans that they either knew or suspected were bad loans. Time to find a new career. Some people were getting home loans that couldn’t even qualify to purchase an automobile. Time to put and end to that and the ‘honor’ system of reported income.
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