Ben pointed me to this fascinating interview of Michael Cook, an urban explorer, on BLGBLOG today. ("Drains of Canada")
It's fascinating. Poke through some of the pictures -- I can't believe the urban drain system is this steampunk. Old brickworks -- rusty hydraulics -- arches -- pinpoints of light in the dark -- dirt and grime -- cogs and gears. Inspiring.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Robert Houston's Colonial Steampunk
I received an email from a gentleman by the name of Robert Houston last night:
A very good friend of mine just sent me a link to your blog a week or so ago, this after I mentioned to him that my living room (I'm slowly but steadily remodeling my entire house) was shaping up in the mode of an English gentleman's club.
Remember -- I'd love to see and share pictures of your homes, workshops, and home projects. You can always contact me as saracarl -at- gmail dot com.
A very good friend of mine just sent me a link to your blog a week or so ago, this after I mentioned to him that my living room (I'm slowly but steadily remodeling my entire house) was shaping up in the mode of an English gentleman's club.
I must admit that I have never heard of steampunk before, a deficit in my knowledge of contemporary culture. I was quite taken with what I read on your blog and did some subsequent exploring. I myself am an artist (sculptor and painter) and a punk rocker from the 80's.
I was amused by Robert's realization that his living room might be steampunk, because I've had the same conversation many times, most recently with the Edison Bar's Andrew Meieran. (It's this experience of knowing what you want your house to look and feel like, having someone introduce you to steampunk, and saying "so that's what you call it!"
Robert sent along some pictures of his living room, which I've dubbed "Colonial Steampunk":
After all, not many gentleman's club's of the 1890s would have yellow bookcases and saltillo tiles -- unless you happened to be in Mexico. I like how it integrates the colors and materials of the new world with the furniture and styles of the old world.
It's still a work in progress -- he's finishing all the saltillo tiles by hand -- but I think it will be lovely when it is done. Do click on the above picture for a larger version, and zoom around the room for more details.
Robert also built his wife a fountain that is nicely colonial steampunk:
Its wood cast concrete and copper. Water drips from inside the roof down the wires holding the copper candle holders and over them. This is a steampunk object all the way even though I didn't know it....
Most of Robert's artwork is in more of a folk art tradition, but this unfolding hexagon box reminds me of something a Victorian magician would use:
He also has an intuitive grasp of the punk in steampunk:
I think that the real problem today is that mass production, plastic and the bottom line have not only homogenized our culture but have completely separated us from craft. Skilled labor barely exists now as manufacturing gets outsourced to the 3rd world... When I was looking at the steampunk sites I felt that what people are looking for here is a return to quality, a return to a way of living where 'how' your living is important. The punk attitude of rejecting convention and I do as I please is a perfect fit as modern culture continues its race to the bottom for everyone who is not a multi multi millionaire.
Welcome to steampunk, Robert!
I was amused by Robert's realization that his living room might be steampunk, because I've had the same conversation many times, most recently with the Edison Bar's Andrew Meieran. (It's this experience of knowing what you want your house to look and feel like, having someone introduce you to steampunk, and saying "so that's what you call it!"
Robert sent along some pictures of his living room, which I've dubbed "Colonial Steampunk":
After all, not many gentleman's club's of the 1890s would have yellow bookcases and saltillo tiles -- unless you happened to be in Mexico. I like how it integrates the colors and materials of the new world with the furniture and styles of the old world.
It's still a work in progress -- he's finishing all the saltillo tiles by hand -- but I think it will be lovely when it is done. Do click on the above picture for a larger version, and zoom around the room for more details.
Robert also built his wife a fountain that is nicely colonial steampunk:
Its wood cast concrete and copper. Water drips from inside the roof down the wires holding the copper candle holders and over them. This is a steampunk object all the way even though I didn't know it....
Most of Robert's artwork is in more of a folk art tradition, but this unfolding hexagon box reminds me of something a Victorian magician would use:
He also has an intuitive grasp of the punk in steampunk:
I think that the real problem today is that mass production, plastic and the bottom line have not only homogenized our culture but have completely separated us from craft. Skilled labor barely exists now as manufacturing gets outsourced to the 3rd world... When I was looking at the steampunk sites I felt that what people are looking for here is a return to quality, a return to a way of living where 'how' your living is important. The punk attitude of rejecting convention and I do as I please is a perfect fit as modern culture continues its race to the bottom for everyone who is not a multi multi millionaire.
Welcome to steampunk, Robert!
Remember -- I'd love to see and share pictures of your homes, workshops, and home projects. You can always contact me as saracarl -at- gmail dot com.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Kitchen Cabinets
While out refrigerator shopping today, the question under discussion was "how do you make it work in our kitchen?"
Now, my house was built in the late 1960s. The solid wood cabinets, brass "bamboo" looking hardware, and white speckled formica are original, although the cabinets were painted white before we bought it. A couple of years ago we had a yellow and white checkerboard linoleum tile floor installed, which I still love. "Not so steampunk", I hear you thinking, and you are right!
So what to do? I've dreamed about steampunk kitchens before -- all marble countertops and custom wood cabinets, sigh. Fundamentally, though, I am too cheap to get custom cabinets made, yet find most of the cabinets on the market today of an inferior quality to the solid wood ones that are currently in the house.
The best option I've come up with is to paint the existing cabinets. We happened to drop by some friends' today, and they were having their kitchen cabinets painted for around $500 (plus materials). This seems quite economical to me, and we wouldn't even have to do it ourselves.
The color I was thinking of was black. I'm a bit color shy, and black is definitely dramatic, so I went looking for some pictures of other's black cabinets to see how it might look. Here's what I found:
Nice, huh? I think the trick to keeping this looking good is the light colored countertops, walls and floor.
Probably more like what my cabinets would look like... not horrible, but not great. I think the key would be to stay away from a high gloss paint. (But maybe not???)
I found the above at a designer's site, and Ben loved it. Instead of going for light colored countertops, the designer opted for black countertops and light colored doors. An interesting idea, for sure.
In addition to just painting the cabinets, I thought that a painted/stenciled "frame" around each door might be nice. (The doors are entirely flat.) One possible design:
If we painted the cabinets black, I think I'd do this is a warm metallic -- aged brass, bronze, gold, copper -- to match the hardware.
To get something like the last kitchen picture above, we could paint the cabinet frames black, and then stencil the doors in brown or black on an antiqued background. (Ralph Lauren Paint has 4 different aging tints; wonder if that would work over our existing white paint?) Black formica or Corian countertops would complete the look, without blowing the budget.
I'd love feedback on this idea -- are black cabinets crazy? What about two tone ones? How hard is stenciling? Aging?
Bonus: This Old House has an article on painting kitchen cabinets.
Now, my house was built in the late 1960s. The solid wood cabinets, brass "bamboo" looking hardware, and white speckled formica are original, although the cabinets were painted white before we bought it. A couple of years ago we had a yellow and white checkerboard linoleum tile floor installed, which I still love. "Not so steampunk", I hear you thinking, and you are right!
So what to do? I've dreamed about steampunk kitchens before -- all marble countertops and custom wood cabinets, sigh. Fundamentally, though, I am too cheap to get custom cabinets made, yet find most of the cabinets on the market today of an inferior quality to the solid wood ones that are currently in the house.
The best option I've come up with is to paint the existing cabinets. We happened to drop by some friends' today, and they were having their kitchen cabinets painted for around $500 (plus materials). This seems quite economical to me, and we wouldn't even have to do it ourselves.
The color I was thinking of was black. I'm a bit color shy, and black is definitely dramatic, so I went looking for some pictures of other's black cabinets to see how it might look. Here's what I found:
Nice, huh? I think the trick to keeping this looking good is the light colored countertops, walls and floor.
Probably more like what my cabinets would look like... not horrible, but not great. I think the key would be to stay away from a high gloss paint. (But maybe not???)
I found the above at a designer's site, and Ben loved it. Instead of going for light colored countertops, the designer opted for black countertops and light colored doors. An interesting idea, for sure.
In addition to just painting the cabinets, I thought that a painted/stenciled "frame" around each door might be nice. (The doors are entirely flat.) One possible design:
If we painted the cabinets black, I think I'd do this is a warm metallic -- aged brass, bronze, gold, copper -- to match the hardware.
To get something like the last kitchen picture above, we could paint the cabinet frames black, and then stencil the doors in brown or black on an antiqued background. (Ralph Lauren Paint has 4 different aging tints; wonder if that would work over our existing white paint?) Black formica or Corian countertops would complete the look, without blowing the budget.
I'd love feedback on this idea -- are black cabinets crazy? What about two tone ones? How hard is stenciling? Aging?
Bonus: This Old House has an article on painting kitchen cabinets.
Steampunk Refigerator, con't.
So I dragged the family to the suburbs today to check out the refrigerator I've been lusting over since the refrigerator post, the Elmira Stove Works Antique fridge:
Turns out it's a GE fridge that Elmira puts a fiberglass face on. (Slightly disappointing.) The price was just under $4000 US, and that was before a $500 charge for the nickel hardware. (There are a couple other models and different hardware types available, so prices vary. The picture above and what we saw are not the same fridge.)
I wrote down the model number and did some research. What we saw was a GE PSS25MGMBB, which is no longer for sale according to GE's website. The 2 alternatives GE suggested to me were both $1800, and a web search found someone who had bought one for $1500. (The web search also turned up some temperature control problems.) Hmmm....
As Ben said, would you mod a fridge for $3000?
So, scratch the Elmira Stove Works plan, and back to the drawing board. My new thought is one of the refrigerators you can install your own panels on:
GE has one for about $2600 (they are only charging about $200 above their basic model for giving you the privilege of putting your own face on). Surely for $1400 I can make, or find someone to make, a cool and interesting cabinet face for it.
Any sugestions on what, exactly I should do? I'm all ears.
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Turns out it's a GE fridge that Elmira puts a fiberglass face on. (Slightly disappointing.) The price was just under $4000 US, and that was before a $500 charge for the nickel hardware. (There are a couple other models and different hardware types available, so prices vary. The picture above and what we saw are not the same fridge.)
I wrote down the model number and did some research. What we saw was a GE PSS25MGMBB, which is no longer for sale according to GE's website. The 2 alternatives GE suggested to me were both $1800, and a web search found someone who had bought one for $1500. (The web search also turned up some temperature control problems.) Hmmm....
As Ben said, would you mod a fridge for $3000?
So, scratch the Elmira Stove Works plan, and back to the drawing board. My new thought is one of the refrigerators you can install your own panels on:
GE has one for about $2600 (they are only charging about $200 above their basic model for giving you the privilege of putting your own face on). Surely for $1400 I can make, or find someone to make, a cool and interesting cabinet face for it.
Any sugestions on what, exactly I should do? I'm all ears.
Friday, August 24, 2007
more hidden rooms
Just ran across this company, Hidden Passageway, that builds hidden doors and switches, whilst catching up on Brass Goggles Forum. A worthy follow up to my last post, no?
Hidden Rooms
Ben pointed me to a ruminative post on BLDG Blog about the fantasy of hidden rooms. This is an aspect I hadn't thought about, and while I can't think of a hidden room in the recent steampunk readings I've done (I'm sure you could think of some), it did remind me of the secret room Because We Can designed in the 3 Rings offices
So how could you use this idea in your home? I like the "bookshelves hiding a door" idea, like at the 3 Rings offices. We (well, mostly Ben, with some of my help), built shallow bookcases covering one wall of our guestbedroom:
I wonder if we could just extend them somehow to cover the door as well, giving the illusion of a room with no door? (Kind of missing the point, though, doesn't it, to have the hidden door on the *inside* of the room?)
Of course, there's always the hidden door at the back of a wardrobe.
Previous post on the 3 Rings Offices.
So how could you use this idea in your home? I like the "bookshelves hiding a door" idea, like at the 3 Rings offices. We (well, mostly Ben, with some of my help), built shallow bookcases covering one wall of our guestbedroom:
I wonder if we could just extend them somehow to cover the door as well, giving the illusion of a room with no door? (Kind of missing the point, though, doesn't it, to have the hidden door on the *inside* of the room?)
Of course, there's always the hidden door at the back of a wardrobe.
Previous post on the 3 Rings Offices.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
The Art of Amy Weber
These art cards by Amy Weber are the most colorful steampunk art. Only 2.5" x 3.5", they are cute in so many ways -- I can imagine them decorating a child's room.
My favorite was the elephant:
She has a whole series of Alice in Wonderland characters done in a steampunk style. Many of her other works also combine steampunk and folk art styles.
She has different artwork scattered across Ebay, Etsy, DeviantArt, and CafePress (all linked from her blog), so be sure to poke around -- I'm sure you'll see something you like.
Other art posts at The Steampunk Home.
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