Random thoughts... - by Tocky
mxleader on 19/8/2023 at 03:27
Quote Posted by Tocky
Did you burn the coal in the fireplace or in an iron stove? I remember my grandmothers iron stove glowing cherry red with a belly full of coal on a cold winter morning. And just look at that house. That is worth a draft or two. That has character and character is everything. Character is life.
My little house I built in the early eighties and though I built it for seven thousand and had it paid off in seven years I wish I had an old home to restore instead. Still, it was all I could do at the time and I had kids to raise. Compromise and compensations.
That is a cool old place though. Is it still in your family?
We did burn coal in the fireplace but not that often. We mostly burned wood that we were able to cut either from national forest land or from a relatives timberland property. The house was loads of fun to decorate for Halloween and Christmas. I have a great creepy photo of my sister sitting on the front porch holding a bunch of her Cabbage Patch dolls but it wasn't Halloween.
Unfortunately my parents sold the house a number of years ago and moved into something easier to maintain. Two sisters and their husbands bought the house and completely remodeled it very sensibly. They did a fantastic job making it less drafty but keeping as much as the original look inside and out as possible.
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Inline Image:
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Azaran on 22/8/2023 at 15:19
Charming place!
mxleader on 22/8/2023 at 23:14
Quote Posted by Azaran
Charming place!
It really is and was fun to grow up in. The house behind it on the corner is quite a bit bigger and was built using a fair amount of large timbers and other lumber from an old sailing freighter and has secret passageways between some of the rooms and floors.
heywood on 24/8/2023 at 12:31
That's an art piece, not a house. It looks totally unlivable. But it probably looks like a crystal growing out of the desert from an airplane.
Tocky on 24/8/2023 at 13:54
I guess if you are going to live at the base of a huge pile of boulders then having your house made out of steel isn't a bad idea but then to build it so any falling rock gets funneled to your living room? Madness.
Simply building at the bottom of a pile of rocks is madness. They could have made an energy efficient home underground with no pointless projections out of the same containers and many opportunities for secret passages.
mxleader on 24/8/2023 at 14:35
It's not uncommon to build at the base of piles of rocks in the desert so that doesn't surprise me or bother me. It's when the wealthy shave off the tops of desert hills to build their multi-million dollar houses that gets me riled up.
I bet that house is pretty amazing at night, but yeah, no secret passageways possible unless they are underground like a drug runner would build.
Also, I bet the labor to build the house and buy the glass was way more than the cost of the containers. Not too bad of an idea for the desert especially since it won't rust quickly and you don't have to worry much about termites.
Azaran on 24/8/2023 at 14:54
I still don't fully understand the logic behind obscenely large windows in modernist homes. I mean, they claim it's for extra natural light, but how will you sleep?
They didn't even put curtains there. It's like they want to erode peoples' privacy, and the limit between the home and the outside world.
I prefer homes with moderately sized windows, and real shutters. When you want to shut out the outside world, you can
Inline Image:
https://www.touristbee.com/photos/Italy/Venice-08_2011/images/venice-italy-20.jpgmxleader on 24/8/2023 at 15:18
Quote Posted by Azaran
I still don't fully understand the logic behind obscenely large windows in modernist homes. I mean, they claim it's for extra natural light, but how will you sleep?
They didn't even put curtains there. It's like they want to erode peoples' privacy, and the limit between the home and the outside world.
I prefer homes with moderately sized windows, and real shutters. When you want to shut out the outside world, you can
In the city reasonable sized windows with good shutters or curtains make a lot of sense. But way out in the desert southwest in the US you can buy large swaths of land and there isn't anyone around to see you swinging in the breeze. Also, there's no light pollution way out in the desert so sleeping at night isn't an issue. I live in the desert southwest but in the city so I have dark curtains to keep out all the street lights and crap. But venture out fifty miles at night and it's just you and the stars. Sometimes the moon is out but it's not so bright as to keep you awake at night unless you are really sensitive to that sort of thing.
heywood on 24/8/2023 at 16:16
@Tocky,
I looked up the architect and he's actually a sculptor, Lyman Whitaker. That makes sense. If it were a real working house, we'd probably never hear of it, because anyone who builds in the middle of the Mojave desert like that probably wants to get away. I used to spend time there back in my Air Force days. There were towns along the Antelope, Victor, and Yucca Valley, with bigger settlements closer to LA and San Bernardino. Outside of those pockets of civilization, the desert was weird. And not in a fun way. More like sketchy. I could tell a few stories. But basically, I can't imagine moving there unless I really wanted to minimize social contact.
