Pillow talk

One area where a Usonian saves space is in the bedroom. Frank Lloyd Wright didn't think big bedrooms were necessary to life. Just a place to sleep and that's about it. Strange thinking from a man who was notorious for running away with at least one married woman and having numerous other affairs.

Anyway, on a certain level we agree with that. Our country home we built during the girls pre-adolescent years and in anticipation of many nights of sleepovers and dates, had a large master bedroom with a television viewing area and large separate front porch so we could hide from them. It didn't work. Most times, the gang just followed us in there, and ate popcorn on my nice Bates bedspreads and generally brought the mess into our sanctuary.

Years of sleepless nights have taught us a couple of things. Frank was right. Bedrooms should only be used for three things: 1. Sleeping 2. Reading a soothing book, not too big so that when it hits you in the nose when you fall asleep it doesn't hurt too much and 3. another activity of your choice which should NOT include working on a laptop or watching TV as both of those static imaging screens really, really mess up your sleep patterns.

So, our usonian will have very small bedrooms, no TVs but nice storage places for books.

toe tags and body bags

Work stopped on our lot for a few minutes this week while we had a pet funeral. Our Speedo was killed instantly with a blow to the head by a hit and run driver. It just took a couple of minutes for the backhoe to dig an appropriate sized plot for the basset/lab mix who looked like a hairy sausage. Speedo had no vices except wanting to get out to eat the neighbor's cat food which was always just thrown on the ground. He was lured across the street by his cousin, Harvey and is now at peace in our new home, the first resident.

On a lighter note, we are in a contest with a young couple who are building their first home where as we are building what a friend calls our "toe tag" house. The winner, the first humans to get to live in their house, will buy the losers a cheap landscape plant. After all, the winners get the house first. The reason the plant has to be cheap is because the houses aren't.

So, this has injected a bit of gambling into the mix and we shall see. So far it appears they are winning, but I think once our slab is in place we'll catch up and get ahead. "The game is afoot!"

Speedo doing what he did best, babysitting.

9/11

Sad day.. that's it for now, will write more later on.

A plethora of plywood

The hardware store in Gibsonville, NC is wonderful. Wood from around the world is organized neatly in towering pallets. It is from here that we will purchase our interior wall siding. Sheetrock will be on the ceiling, but wood will be the walls.

The Pope-Leighey house is clad inside and out with cypress from the Everglades, which were being destroyed at that time to make way for southern Florida's housing boom. It was the cheapest wood available at the time.

We'll have to make do with domestic natural birch plywood. It has a little less "WOW" factor and a lot more ecological friendliness. We had looked at a whiter birch plywood with less grain, but this is an imported type. It is an American house designed by the quintessential American architect. We're going with the domestic brand.

Usonians should be built with local materials. Both Taliesins, the one in Wisconsin as well as Arizona were built with locale mud, stone and wood. Burlington used to have a brick factory but that is gone now. At least our appliances are from Sears and as far as we know Made in America.

Just below is the link for Taliesin (Shining Brow) in Wisconsin. This is the home Wright built as a refuge for Mamah Borthwick Cheney and himself after their initial scandalous elopement to Europe. The one on the website is the house Wright rebuilt after the servant went nuts, set fire to the house and murdered Mamah and her children. A so-so novel, LOVING FRANK, by Nancy Horan goes into this in detail.

http://www.taliesinpreservation.org/

Here is the link for Wright's second Taliesin in Arizona, a home for the stewpot of architectural students who came to study at the feet of the master.

http://www.franklloydwright.org/Home.html

For or Against?

For some reason, thinking about all these small organic houses makes me think of a hideously boring book I had to write a paper about at Ole Miss. AGAINST NATURE by Joris-Karl Huysmans was required reading in Dr. S___'s class.

There was probably more to it than what I remember but what sticks in my mind is this rich guy, decides he wants to play at being a monk. So he gets himself a cell, some monkish clothes, etc. But the cell, although it LOOKS like a monks cell is really a very luxurious room, his own bedroom in fact, made to look austere. He hangs expensive velvet curtains the color of stone to replicate monastery walls. His monk's robes, although they LOOK very scratchy and hairclothy are really very comfortable, soft, silken cashmere materials. He's pretending to be one thing, leading a spartan sort of life, set apart from the material world, whereas he's really taken all the goodies with him.

A Usonian is an honest sort of building. In the best of all worlds, it should be made with local natural materials by local craftsmen. It is different from AGAINST NATURE in that very simple things - simply by their arrangement- make for luxurious living. And, although the street sides of the houses are somewhat blocked from the world, step into any of the houses and you see all of nature, just on the other side of all those windows.

Here is a link to one of the most luxurious Usonians, Kentuck Knob which is in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania, home to Wright's most famous house, Fallingwater. O, what the hell, I'll go ahead and link to that one too, although technically that's too high cotton for this blog.

http://www.dgunning.org/architecture/Penn/hagan.htm

http://www.fallingwater.org/

No sweet tea for YOU!

The two pipes embedded in the wall are the conduits for the water to go through to heat the floor.

The mason who is building the concrete wall which will envelope the slab floor told me he liked the house.

I, of course was thrilled.

"I was riding a bike through Oberlin, Ohio and saw a little house that this one reminds me of," he continued. "And on a plaque it said it was a Frank Lloyd Wright House."

"OF COURSE," I was also thrilled that someone who didn't know, recognized this little house for what it is. And we had a nice talk about usonians and all that and by the end of the conversation, I think he forgave me for not bringing him biscuits and sweet tea.

http://www.oberlin.edu/amam/flwright.html

This house is very similar to the one we're building. I didn't think anything would induce me to return to N.E. Ohio, but this may do it..

Big Wheels Keep on Rollin'

The Mighty Machine landed today.

The fellows in the picture are working at the little bit of excavation we have to do.

although the house is on a slab of cement, chock full of stuff, there still have to be footers put in first to support the slab.

And because of Frank Lloyd Wright's theory of "compression and release," even though the site itself is perfect for the house, some dirt had to be moved to accommodate the lower level great room.

The compression and release theory is as follows. One enters the house into a rather low ceilinged area - the compression bit. One then walks down four steps into the great room , which has the same ceiling plane but due to the lower floor, there is a "release" into a greater seeming expanse. Compression and release... the sunken living rooms that we remember from those trendy movies of the sixties, I'm guessing are another way to achieve that. Don't raise the ceiling really, lower the floor. That's Pat walking in what will be the kitchen area, or it could be the dining room. Until the furniture is in there who really knows?

Happy Birthday B.B.