Park Haus Addition

Steel chef's table

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Fri, 30 May 2008 00:17:00 +0000

I just purchased a steel table from a co-worker and I think I'm in love with it. It's a stainless steel chef's table from John Boos & Co. It's 40x24x40 48x24x40. I think I'm going to use it as a standing computer desk. Or for food prep. Or for just gazing at.
Right now I'm using it as a workbench for some projects, which is a horrible idea, as a conductive surface isn't the smartest thing to have when dealing with electronics. As soon as I build a new wood workbench in the garage all of my projects are moving out there. Then I can put this beauty to better use.

Media Rack

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:58:00 +0000

This is the Project Precita media rack. Wow. I'm trying hard not to run out to Norton Sales and buy a bunch of old NASA control panels to mount on the wall in our living room.

Fuselage

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:49:00 +0000

I'm going to post photos from the Telstar Logistics home remodel over the next few days. I'm in love with everything they've done.

Flush trim

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 03:25:00 +0000

This is the flush trim on our door. Its beauty makes me weep. All hail David and Christiane at Crestview Doors.

The door has arrived

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:27:00 +0000

Hurray! Here it is, waiting to be unpacked and ogled.

Mom! Dad! The Google Spy Van's here!!

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:46:00 +0000

I just noticed during my Google Map fest that we now have Street View. This means that the All-Seeing Google Van drove down our block merrily snapping photos of everything. Weird!

Current satellite photo

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:43:00 +0000

This one, from the much hipper Google, is up-to-date. You can see the solar panels doing their darnedest to save the planet.

Mid-construction photo

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:41:00 +0000

This satellite image from Microsoft's maps.live.com shows our place during construction. Notice all the piles of lumber in the driveway. Now notice how I'm starting to twitch just thinking about it.

Pre-construction photo from the air

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:36:00 +0000

This is what our house and lot looked like before we began.

jpixl . net blog

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 22:37:00 +0000

I've started a new site to post all of my MAKE Magazine related stuff, and other things that are non-house related. If you're interested, please check out JPIXL.net

Unleaded

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:04:00 +0000

Huge sigh of relief. Our daughter's lead level is absolutely normal. The more accurate blood draw test from the lab gave totally different results than the finger-prick test. Not sure why, but who cares. Whew.

Atlas office

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:20:00 +0000

My friend Tanja pointed me toward this lovely, Elfa-like (but seemingly higher quality) modular hanging office system. It's modular day here at Parkhaus!

Kithaus

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:01:00 +0000

I saw this in the New York Times today. It's a flatpacked, freestanding 9'x13' room for around $45,000. That works out to about $385 per sq. ft. Insulated and pre-wired for electricity, it's not a bad option for an extra bit of space. Not as cool as a renovated Airstream in your backyard, but definitely more subtle.

Elfa master closet

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:16:00 +0000

Here's some photos of my closet build. Please note my awesome hand drill (also a Christmas gift from Mom and Dad) and the little magnetic level I got at the hardware store. The beer is optional.

Our Burbank door

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:04:00 +0000

David, of Crestview Doors, has designed our door, and even named it the "Burbank"! We're ordering it, finally, and can't wait to get it on the front of the house.

Light tent

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:51:00 +0000

I shoot photos for my Make magazine articles, so I built this light tent using these instructions.

I used about $12 worth of PVC pipe, three $8 lights, and a $9 shower curtain liner from Target.

Onion art

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:48:00 +0000

I poured this latte art this morning. Not great, but an improvement over my usual blob.

Roasting coffee

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:45:00 +0000

I got some green coffee beans and a stovetop roaster from sweetmarias.com as a gift for Christmas from my Mom, as well as a book on home roasting from my sister Silvia. These are the fruits of my first labor -- I under roasted them, so I may actually try to see if you can bring them back up to temperature to darken them up just slightly.

Feeling guilty

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:16:00 +0000

Contains Lead by cindy47452

Our daughter, who's now 20 months, failed a lead screening. Even though we were out of the house for the worst dust, I have to think it's because of the demolition/construction, which encompassed the first 16 months of her life. Her finger-prick test was 17; the cut-off is ten. I'm taking her for a blood draw this week, which is a more accurate assessment. In the meantime, I'm trying to up her iron intake, and have ordered a HEPA-filter vacuum, because our current vacuum is old and dusty, no matter how new the bag is. In addition, I'm going to wipe down the walls and windowsills with disposable wipes and wash all the toys.

Out pediatrician says this isn't such a high level that we need to freak out. I'm crossing my fingers that this will resolve itself without too much fallout, but if I had to go back, I'd have bought a HEPA-filter vacuum before construction and used it frequently.

Elfa cafe

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:22:00 +0000

We've been waiting for the 30% Elfa sale at the Container Store to strike! Today we went down to the store in Pasadena and got a bunch of storage for the espresso machine, wall-mounted pull-out drawers in the pantry for each family member to stash their lunchboxes/bags/hats, and an entire master closet setup.

I picked the low-hanging fruit and assembled these two carts tonight. They're great -- Erin is wildly happy to have a drawer for all the paper Trader Joe's grocery bags, we put kitchen side towels in another, and I imagine I'll fill a couple with coffee related gear.

Workbenches from doors

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:03:00 +0000

I've got a two stage plan:
Stage one, clean out the garage in order to clear enough space for two large workbenches.
Stage two, build two workbenches from house addition scraps. The scraps are two solid core doors for the worktops and a bunch of original 8ft. long 2x4s from the 1939 part of the house.

Secret hollow book

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:15:00 +0000

This has nearly nothing to do with the house, but I wanted to share my secret hollow book. I made it as an enclosure for my Make Controller (a microcontroller board that can serve as the brains and input/output for robots and other fun creations). I was inspired to do it by Bre Pettis's Make Weekend Project video.

Prep for landscaping

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:43:00 +0000

Our landscaper came in and put some very nice, low maintenance stuff in the planter boxes next to the garage and behind the living room window. I haven't taken the "after" photos yet, so here's the "before".

1. next to the garage, 2. papyrus staging area, 3. kids watch the landscaping, 4. leaning tree, 5. planter box, 6. plants in waiting

Tile guys appeared

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:39:00 +0000

The tile guys returned today to patch up the border around the replaced shower glass. I haven't seen it yet, but their work is always flawless, so I can't wait to go home and check it out.
This means that we have just a few large-ish punchlist items remaining, and a bunch of tiny little ones. I still haven't had the energy to compile a list, but I'll try to get to it very soon.

No tile for us yet

noreply@blogger.com (John Edgar Park) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:34:00 +0000

For some reason our tile guy, Severio, never showed up to replace the tile around the shower glass wall. I haven't talked to J.D. yet to see when we can reschedule for, but we've just got a few small things like this left that we'd like to finish before the year 2008.