Tudor Houses are Awesome

Anyone who knows me knows my love of all things English-y. I have a particular adoration of wonky Tudor houses. They are also called half-timbered houses or timber frame, but to me they are just Tudor ala King Henry.
We in America have a version of these....they have it in England too....that is called Tudor revival. Drive through some fancy neighborhoods-and even some not so fancy ones-and you will see the decorative trim that is on gables that is a throwback to the real thing. These houses are not authentically timbered but have trim styled like they are--there is no relation from inside to outside of the house. I am not hating on these...they are cute and I like them fine, but that is not what I am talking about here.

In true, ancient half timbered houses, the entire house was made with a timber frame. There are no studs inside the walls like modern construction. The builder made a giant frame for the house out of big heavy timbers and pegged them together. In between the beams the space was filled with rocks, bricks, rubble, sticks or anything they could come up with to fill in the space and then they "stuccoed" over the filler. The walls were as thick as the beams they made them out of and the beams were exposed on the inside and outside of the house. This is what an authentic wall was filled with....minus the glass frame, obviously....


There is modern timber framing....I live in a modern timber framed house. Kinda the same as the authentic, but not really. The whole "filling the walls with junk and stuccoing over it" thing is not very modernly energy efficient. This is what a modern timber frame looks like while being built....this is mine....

All smallest upright in that frame is 6X6 inches....some are bigger than that. But now, instead of filling in between them, we attached SIPs to the outside of the frame. This means you can see the beams on the inside of our house, but not the outside....so we faked it on the outside.
Inside....
Outside..

Enough of all that construction talk....THIS is why I love them. We took these on our awesome trip to London that we just got back from....click on any of these to go to the photo-set and see all of the ones we took.






And finally, here is a funny story. We were walking through Hampstead Heath and happened upon the most picturesque, perfect little cottage in the woods. It looked like something out of Hansel and Gretel and before we even got up to it we had discussed how lucky the resident was and wondered how they lucked up and got the gig that got them living in the cutest house ever in the middle of this awesome park, etc, etc.... This is the house....



Okay, now wait for it.....



It was the park bathroom....i would still live there forever....

Unveiling the New Play Kichen

My baby girl, until today, had my 20 something year old sister's hand me down play kitchen. Her big sister and brother had it before her...well, her big brother liked tractors better, but you get the point. Vintage Fisher Price with the original toaster and everything. See....

There is nothing actually wrong with this kitchen....except that I LOATHE it. I never liked it when we had it out 10 years ago and I dont like it now. It is an "in the round" type kitchen for lack of a better description. All that means is that it has to sit smack in the middle of the floor if you want to play sink AND stove. All the doors perpetually hang open and nothing fits inside it. I have a big ugly rubbermaid box next to it to hold all the accessories and that is just tacky. It is sitting in our living room for heaven's sake....along with 10 million other things so another rubbermaid box is the last thing we need.
So, last week I was inspired by some kitchens I saw here. I would be more specific, but there were many, many inspirations--mostly ones based off Ikea shelving and found objects. Do a search and you will see many. May I also say that I have an unnatural love for that website. Beautiful ideas abound so check it out.
Anyway, I decided we could do this on the cheap and have something I dont mind walking past when I head to the living room. We were standing in the basement and I drew a little plan on some scrap paper and put measurements of the approximate size I wanted. We stood there and figured out how much wood we would need and headed to Lowes.
In the end we spent $22 on two MDF stair tread things for the sides, a piece of pegboard for the back--both revisions (improvements) of my plan by the dude who has to build the thing--and a clearance handle that turned into a towel rack. I went to Michael's and Walmart the next day and got all the little odds and ends that I wanted for the top (I had a vision, dontcha know) and the baskets for storage. That I think was about $30 with the baskets. The butcher block counter top was a scrap from my parent's new kitchen.
It was definitely a joint project. Chris was responsible for the structure of the thing, shelf building, etc. I did the sanding and painting, designed all the little knobs and burners and actually ended up making the faucet and knobs since I couldnt find a real faucet anywhere for less than $30. Oh, and I made the curtain too. I was going all black except the countertop, but Chris suggested the red back--good choice. I love it. The fabric that I had mentioned earlier turned out as adorable as I had hoped. Here is hoping it stays in place.
This is the NEW kitchen...

The top of it with all the knobs and gadgets looks like this...

All the accessories are now organized into cutie little baskets instead of big ugly plastic...

And then everything fits INSIDE the kitchen and behind the cute little curtain...

I am very, very happy with it. I have some more pegboard hooks I am painting for the back and I am making her an apron and a couple pot holders to match the curtain but other than that, this project is FINIS!! Total price a hair under $60. If you click on the pics it will take you to Flickr and you can see lots more of the pictures.
Now, oh sister of mine, what do you want me to do with YOUR kitchen?!