Who Has Built A House?

Another idea, space allowing, is doing an attached 2 car that is just normal sized, and then doing a standalone over sized 1 car on the opposite corner, that would be a little work shop.
We currently have 3 cars, mine, my wife's, and my current project. And I would like to have the ability (space) to pick up an additional project down the road.
Yeah but have you seen how much these new Sprinter vans can cost? haha.
Similar situation for us. Very nice neighborhood. House was built in the 20's. WOuld love to keep some of it but I just don't think that's realistic.
It is about 10-15 min from our current house that we will be able to stay in until the new one would be ready. We have 2 small ones currently (5 and 2.5) so being able to stay put for now is nice.
I have a buddy who actually does demo, and I was probably going to use him and help with some of that.

Meeting with the architect this AM had to get moved because one of said little ones came down with a stomach bug in the middle of the night last night.
Don't know why it always has to be in the MIDDLE of the night lol

Reminds me of some of my favorite books. There was a time when I wanted to be an architect, but could not handle the math. I also had an interest in filmaking (what my degree is in.) I took a lot of set design and fine arts classes. As well as architectural drawing classes. I also had a backup plan and took electronic classes.

I collected cathedrals. (Well the little paper models.) Even those took up a lot of space. One of the books is the archeological reports for the La Purisama mission. Since my cousins lived near by I would visit it often. In this state they used to teach about the missions and you would make one out of sugar cubes. Perhaps this is why I tend to like pipe organs. There is an old tale (now canceled.) about how the padres used a used crank organ to calm the natives. Playing 'the devils hornpipe.'

That old instrument still exists and probably close to 300 years old. I tracked it down once and it was in the back of a room. That mission was the subject of the film Vertigo. The two questions one hears a lot are. What happened to the tower? And 'Where is the bathroom?' Ironically the roof of the bathrooms can be seen outside the window in the trial scene. Hitchcock had a real sense of humor. Even more so as a lot of this was recreated on a sound stage.

There was a legend that the folder organ I have (which was used by the Nuns across the river) also came around the horn in a sailing ship. It really was used by the nuns, although it was made during WWI around 1914. There is a large navel base in that town. So It could have come by ship. I restored it as I always wanted a WWI chaplains organ. I have a WWII chaplains organ as well. Completes my collection and makes a nice table when folded.

The historic site I volunteered on still has an adobe. I think these date to the 1830s. Most of them have been extensively remodeled. Probably not the best materials for earthquake country, although the failure modes are well understood. Like a watch if maintained, they can last a couple hundred years.

Brick and stone construction is also not as common here. Mostly due to labor costs and the aversion to using the local natural resources. This town did have a brick kiln, so there is a bit of that sort of thing in town. A few years ago they made everyone retrofit the old buildings. So it does give a good anywhere USA vibe to the downtown. Other communities did the redevelopment thing, and the generic downtown Burbank strip mall look. Palm trees, really do not cut it 500 miles to the north.

I actually was re-plastering cracks in the wall this week. So I got interested in the old books on the Painter Vermeer. Was going to write that up but figured it was TMI and way off topic. There is a fun documentary on how someone was able to do this with mirrors done by Penn and Teller. Called 'Tim's Vermeer.' These old dutch paintings were done with lenses and mirrors, so computer graphics can replicate them easy. I always found this fascinating.

An interesting experiment in the technique for the curious: http://www.janepack.net/camera-obscura-project

Perhaps a bit off topic, but architecture is the queen of the arts, so still within scope.

Page 2 is when the threads start to drift as all arguments for or against are exhausted ...

As a bit of a Polymath (without the math.) It is all architecture. Since the thread is now in full drift territory we could drift off to musical instruments (whcih includes watches.) I got out some of my harpsichord books before bed last night. Vermeer like to paint Virginals (a form of Harpsichord associated with accomplished young women.)

The photo in the book though was not Vermeer. Instead it was attributed to Gabriel Metsu. Whom I had never heard of till I did an online search of. Turns out that before the 1870s he was considered the better artists. Known for his inclusion of cats and dogs into the still life scenes. Arguments seem to abound as the attribution of works of the two painters has swapped a bit over the centuries.

Here is the painting in question.



Always amazing that such pictures are painted with only 5 or so colors. Done with layering and transparent layers between so as to do additive color mixing (like the way slide cine film works with three colors.) These pictures also brighten in sunlight rather than fade (as do the modern petroleum waste byproduct organic based paints.)

The classical paints though are some pretty sketchy metal (mineral) oxides which are now considered some of the deadliest poisons.

I suppose it always comes down to whomever has the best marketing department as to which are beneficial and which are cheats sold by the competition as inferior products.

When I started to reply, I was going in a different direction, but forgot what it was. Crazy week. Getting and infected bug bite is not fun. Especially when one has to keep juggling all the other distractions like home maintenance. At least the cracks are patched. The garden beds are a bit more ready for planting, And more watches to work on (when I should be working on electronics.)

... and look at the pretty pictures ...

I got into Vermeer when once came to SF in the 1970s. I used it in my final for my theater arts final. Such are truly amazing in person. Reproductions do not due them justice. Although they do reproduce well.

Actually what I wanted to be in high school was a museum curator. Sadly in the 1970s this job was basically a sinecure. I did volunteer at the local national park (historic house monument) and was on the board of the local society. When I went to interview for the job at the academy of sciences/ de young. I was told I was too young. Just out of high school. (would have been fun to have organized the king tut exhibit.)

Later I discovered van Meegeren. (when researching enameled watches and dial painting.) Since everything is suspect I only have second and third hand exposure. Everything Vermeer before WWII is suspect. van Meegeren faked provenience and sales records. Part of the forger modus operandi. There was a whole section in the library related to art forgery.

Penniless is a relative term. Technically I am penniless. (well I have a few and have accidentally thrown some out.) What I do not have is cash flow. Any cash I get flows out to watches (or what ever else I fancy, like trips to European museums, where I can see stuff first hand.) As I said above, some of the rules are a form of bullying. A way to keep people in their places.

Wish they would display the mona lisa (La Giacanda) so one could see the back of the wooden panel it is on and all the prior ownership marking. As much as I would love to see the exhibition in Amsterdam. Seeing the works behind glass would be a bit of a letdown. Sadly they can not be shown any other way. At least when I was in Dresden I could see it in situ. Although that painting has been extensively 'cleaned' and no longer the painting I fell in love with. Someone did think that the putti was pornographic and over painted it. Actually most of these painting of domestic scenes were considered titillating and could cause arousal in the sexually repressed. The so called Vermeer died during a war that was fought over puritanism and representations (idolatry) of the human form. Some are itching for a rematch...

I always got a kick out of driving by the person who put stolen solar panels on the top of their homeless encampment. Gorden Moore (Moore's law) died this week. Defiantly not penniless he gave away as much of of his fortune as physically possible.

Leeuwenhoek was arguably the executor of Vermeer's estate. (If the will is not a forgery.) The mother in law owned the tavern. Fiction books make the wife into a bitch. But that is the way a lot of people are who want adulation and live through others.

I once made a comment on the Voynich manuscript (probably a forgery.) This got all sorts of attention and I was interviewed for a Canadian documentary because my comment supported someone's argument. My argument was that hairstyles on the nude figures can often date art within a decade as hair is the hardest thing to fake. Ironically some of the same players in Dutch and Prague courts of the 17th century are used in the study of the paintings they paid for. I am suspecting Kepler created a time machine and gave the keys to Einstein to keep anyone else from using it.

Mozart also died penniless. His wife did everything possible to create the myth. But what of his sister Nannerel? Edison also had a good PR department. Most people can not tell the difference between Mozart and Salieri using double blind comparison. Ironically the only thing Edison invented was the gramophone. And that by accident when the clock spring broke and the telegraph recorder played at double speed. Edison was also bit deaf as often happens to older people. Which is a bit ironic.

This week I have also been reading the book about the history of watchmaking in Japan. A lot of it seems to be about failures. This topic started with the question of building ones own home. Which is not exactly what is done. Ironically only the homeless build their own 'home.' Most of the rest of us tend to build castles in the air. (I have a copy of the fairytale. It is not one of the better known ones. The actual title is 'the invisible kingdom.')

Structural engineering is something that takes multiple people to do. Like a barn raising. This involved the community.

I used to love staring at the model of a Japanese palace in the San Francisco cultural center. The juxtaposition of 1960 brutalist mall architecture, with a perfect miniature of the past in a glass cube. I would certainly not have wanted to live under the shogunate they did however create some wonderful art. Ironically inspired by 16th century western ideas (and food.) Tempura is a Portuguese word.

Cultural isolation is an illusion.

I wonder how many who do build their dream home died penniless or have children who do not give a (colorful expletive used in other threads) about it. The smart ones probably do rent it out, with deferred maintenance. Is extortion(usury) really illegal? Or simply another way of driving over the speed limit to get there five microseconds sooner?