The pink was truly gross up close and I’m sorry I didn’t capture it better.

There were a lot of staples in these babies (aren’t there always?) so I made a magnetic sculpture out of them to amuse myself amid the drudgery of removing them.

These were in great shape structurally, so a little fresh batting and fabric was all that was needed. THAT makes a nice change.

We don’t need them, so I’ve listed these on Craigslist. I’m not putting them on e-bay for a few more days. While I haven’t seen any currently for sale by Keller in this particular style, I did see this Keller chair for sale:

Here on Etsy

I’m offering two for the price of her one!

Would you rather I perdiodically post the photos as a recap on the blog, or is the weekly tweet recap good enough? This is a poll, without my having to activate a poll plug-in, so I’ll be looking for some piping up from you fine people.

Here’s just a very little of what’s been going on…some have been on Instagram and some never quite made it.

We had another evening of treehouse glamping, where there might have been a jedi lightsaber show.

I don’t know anything about editing and resizing video, or I’d show you some moves, but the file is too big to upload here.

The lightcube glowing through the treehouse window was our nightlight.

Otto spent half an hour staring down this deer one day, and will watch them as long as they hang around. He seems cool with them, and doesn’t bark often. It’s the chipmunks that seem to piss him off.

These are two projects currently in progress.  The CC is building a firewood shelter/shed which will also hide our ugly air conditioning units when finished.

I am working on a pair of Keller chairs. The CC doesn’t think I am we are ready for the living room chairs yet, since the bottoms might be a bit complicated for newbies like us.

Otherwise it’s been cooking, digging, mulching, weeding and hanging by campfires. Y’know,  springtime stuff.

One of our favorite farmers markets opened today, so that makes us happy…but the humidity started to roll in this week, which makes us sad..and sweaty.

Don’t forget to let me know what you think about my attempts to integrate the different media. If you want to follow me on Instagram, I’m @modfrugal, same as Twitter.

Let’s take a step back to see where we started.

If you remember, the frame was broken, so the CC cobbled it back together like a pro.

How many celebrities have furry chair namesakes?

You’re welcome, David Beckham and Justin Bieber.

Becks

…and Bieber

Otto photobomb!

They are for sale here. Once it gets too hot to work outside much, we’ll get started on those other chairs.

UPDATE: I have heeded your advice and re-shot he chairs in the dining room…and raised the price to $300. It was a LOT of work, for the CC especially.

]]> http://modfrugal.com/2012/04/becks-and-bieber/feed/ 10 http://modfrugal.com/2012/04/hemloft/ http://modfrugal.com/2012/04/hemloft/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:41:10 +0000 ModFruGal http://modfrugal.com/?p=10048 As one who appreciates treehouses, I was reading about commando tree dweller Joel Allen in this article and then snooped around his website last night right before bed.

Amazing craftsmanship, and a great story…although I have a hunch it isn’t going to end well.

Despite all the wonders I saw of how he conceived and built this place, and the beauty of his secret, illegal location…all I could think about as I came in and out of sleep in my dreams last night was HOW DOES HE SLEEP THERE? NO ONE CAN SLEEP IN A CURVE ALL NIGHT. SURELY A HAMMOCK?!!?? This snapshot of crazy is why I don’t watch crime/police shows after 9pm…it gets into my head and then I’ll dream all night of the murdered kid on Criminal Minds…btw, there’s ALWAYS a kid involved somehow and I hate them for it.  I digress.

I looked at every photo and video, and while we can see he manages to cook there….NO SIGN OF SLEEPING. More importantly, why does it bother me so much? I’m sure there’s a simple answer, but last night, I NEEDED to know.

Go check it out and tell me how he AND his girlfriend can sleep in there.

WHAT?! More chairs? Ummm…Yes.

*holds head in shame*

As for rehab- it’s mostly surface rust, so I brought out my trusty and crusty friends to help.

Once I got to work, I found a few spots that required the cola treatment. Sigh. That just added another hour to the job. The not-leather, but pleather had only one tiny nick on the backside, so yeah for that!

They cleaned up pretty well!

Currently, they are in the dining room heading up the table. I’ve now got my Burke/Saarinen knock offs as side chairs ever since the galvanized ones have moved outside.

I’ve been hunting for the perfect set of 8 Baughman beauties for almost 2 years now, but those don’t come cheap, so patience is been a virtue I must pretend to have.

Have a great weekend!

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that while I was in Brimfield last Summer, I fell for a pair of these, but they were $495 for the pair.

Enough was enough and it was time to improve upon what had clearly been haphazardly slapped together 2 years ago. I wanted something that could be put up in minutes by one person, and could be tossed into the wash.

I thought I was SO clever getting a rubber backed drop cloth because it would be so durable, and the matte rubber would be a nice projection surface. We opened the package only to find 2 honkin’ SEAMS running through the middle. NO CAN DO. Scramble time and it’s Target to the rescue with a double sized sheet cut down and hemmed. Add grommets and bungees to affix to the trees and we’re done. No ladders, no drama, and if a bird poops on it…NO PROBLEM.

Sorry for the poor photos (again) my DSLR battery ran out, probably because I’ve been neglecting it so.

Turns out the canopy ties didn’t work-too small, so we used the regular kind of bungees. The canopy ties are great for fort building though, so we’ll keep those after all.

We didn’t return the drop cloth either, and instead used it underneath the brown picnic blankets to act as a moisture barrier so the blankets and pillows all stay dry from the dew.

There were 10 boys who didn’t care one bit about a new screen, but were just thrilled to kick back with some popcorn and enjoy the show.

Meet Pogo and He Who Must Still Be Named.

The leftover fabric from the chair project (more on that soon) was not to be wasted….there were trolls to make! He whipped these up in one afternoon given he is actually better on the sewing machine than I am. His scientific mind and patience trumps my arty impatience every time.

I really love them. You can’t even see their stubby little arms underneath all that hair!  Pogo is Thing 2′s friend, with the black eyes, and the red eyed He Who Must Still Be Named is Thing 1′s. Even though he says he’s too old for this stuff, I know he secretly likes him.

Not exactly an update, as much as an update on plans.  We had a family “meeting” in the treehouse this weekend to discuss next steps with the interior painting etc.. and some fun and interesting requests emerged.

1) Zip line access – We have a zip line in the front yard that we can move…this will be tricky to keep it safe, but we think it’s possible…

2) A chalkboard inside -  Easy Peasy! We can paint a few of the panels in the chalkboard paint.

3) A refrigerator – Um, no…this is a treehouse, not your college dorm room….next?

4) A TV – See #3….DUH.

5) The bottom bunker built – This is actually top of their wish list. We really wanted our big outdoor project to involve a deer proof vegetable garden this year, but we’re feeling some pressure here. Our answer was: “We’ll think about it.” Still thinking.

6) A poster/collage depicting Godzilla destroying a Minecraft city – COOL!!!! We are a family who geeks out over old 50′s-60′s Godzilla movies…we love them. The boys are also completely obsessed with Minecraft, so this marries their passions on what should be a super fun art project for us…

We’ll be looking to create a combination of these two.

via koyaanisqatsi degauss

PLUS

image via godzilla2012

= CHAOS!

While looking for images, I can across these great vintage Polish and Czech Godzilla movie posters from the 70′s, I love these and I can’t wait to show the boys and see what they think of them.

images via Monsterbrains

We concluded our planning session up there with snacks and a round of Life, and I’m so happy that it is only in this game that I would have 3 weddings and both a set of twins AND a set of triplets…phew!

Oh, I almost forgot! I made a mini-tour of the treehouse so far so that new readers don’t have to slog through all those treehouse posts to see the progress of the building.

We forgot to take pics of the chairs before taking them down to the frames, so I tried to dig up a few snaps of them from days of yore.

They had button tufting on the back. Yikes… my dining room when we first moved in! Ew!

Terrible shots, but you get the idea…a pair of upholstered tufted klismos style chairs from the 40′s-50′s I’d guess. The only ones I found like them online are attributed to Parzinger, here.

So, the Things were a little rough with them, and the frame snapped on one, so up to the attic they went to await repair. I had planned to reupholster them anyway, but knew we’d have to fix the frame first. Once we got them stripped down, both frames actually needed some structural repair.

The CC likes the woodworking repair aspect…*yawn* and now that he’s almost done, it’s time for me to get to work and sand down the legs, paint them and start upholstering them. I’ve decided to go a little crazy, OK a LOT crazy with these chairs.

Behold what I plan to cover them with….

Scary, huh? That’s several yards of faux grey and white Mongolian fur, and if it ends up looking like a pair of ugly trolls, I can just redo it. THIS is the fun part of trying to tackle this on my own-the risks aren’t so risky. Would I do this if I were paying someone else to do it? Probably not, I’d go with something “safer”.

So that’s one of the many unfinished things happening around the house…I’m hoping for a full reveal sooner rather than later.

We are not experts, this is just what we did and we liked the result. It’s one of the easiest cheeses to make as long as you get the right ingredients.

1 Quart of half and half or other light cream…Pasteurized is fine, but NOT ultra-pasteurized.  If it’s UP, it will say so on the bottle/carton.  I found some at Fresh Market, I’m sure Whole Foods has it, and if you have a raw milk source…I’m sure that would be amazing..haven’t tried it yet. For the record, we did make a batch with half ultra-pasteurized whipping cream and half regular pasteurized milk, and it worked, but didn’t perform as well.

1/4 teaspoon of Tartaric Acid…NOT Cream of Tartar.  Locally, I’ve been told All Seasons Gardening and Brewing carries it.  We got ours from a cheesemaking kit we had forgotten about!  Some people like to make it with lemon juice, but we decided to stick with what our cheesemaking book told us.

So don’t you like how both of the ingredients involve me getting all bossy about what NOT to get? Do you know how easy it is to typo MasCRAPone? Yeah, I thought so. Moving on…..

Get a double boiler going and heat the cream until the temperature reaches 185°.  Add your Tartaric Acid, whisk, remove from the heat and pour into a sieve topped with moistened layers of fine cheesecloth or butter muslin. Let cool, and refrigerate covered for about 12 hours.  Best used within a week…Enjoy!!

Yum.  I added fresh mint to one batch and it was nice, but not as minty as I was expecting. The cheese overwhelmed it a bit. (Yes, I actually have mint right now..crazy).  Experiment with flavors you like and have fun.

2/10/12 UPDATE:  I had a batch recently that wasn’t as smooth in texture as I wanted, and by putting it in a small food processor (a stick blender might work too) the texture smoothed out and fixed it!