The first house project is completely finished. I waited until now to post about it because I wanted to show the complete time line from start to finish. Oh yeah, and their is that whole thing about remodeling a kitchen taking up tons of time. The kitchen was the obvious place to start, as a house isn’t much of a house unless you have an operational kitchen. The kitchen was operational, however there was a lot we wanted to improve. I knew it would be the biggest project, so I wanted to get it finished before anything else was started.

Here is the kitchen before. What a sad thing it was. While I am actually a big fan of the color navy blue, it wasn’t quite what we had in mind for the ideal kitchen. We really were turned off by how awkward the kitchen layout was. After Sara and I decided on a new layout (along with the help of my uncle) we started to move cabinets and take out counter-tops. I found a date on our brown sink from 1968. I think it was time for an upgrade.

We maximized the room in the kitchen by moving both the location of the refrigerator and the oven to the opposite wall where a long sliding door shelf and counter-top used to be. This allowed us to have a counter-top that went all the way across one wall, instead of a segmented one. My uncle also built us a shelf for our microwave to clear up more space on the counter. We were able to fit a dishwasher in where the refrigerator used to be and we also added a tiny cabinet on the other side of the dishwasher to brace the counter and to add a little more storage space. If I would have had more money, I would have added an L to one side of the cabinets, but it wasn’t worth the extra cost (lazy-susan + another cabinet = expensive). We managed to salvage all the cabinets but one. Luckily, we didn’t have plans for it.

We did run into a couple of bumps along the way while running a couple of pain in the butt electrical lines and accidentally cutting one of the water lines for the sink. It was actually a good thing that we cut the water line, because now the plumbing is completely redone and leak free. Some of the ceiling cabinets were hard to brace as well because of the wide spacing of the studs in this old house.

We primed over the blue after removing all of the doors and counter-top, then we called in the professional. Sara’s father did a lot of professional painting in his younger years so he applied two coats are our red paint, as we were told it is HARD to make it look good. We used a grey primer to make the red more successful. After squeezing in the couter-top and putting in the sink along with our new space for our dishwasher, there was only one thing left to do. We put all of our cabinet doors back on and painted the trim.

We are very happy with our kitchen now. The whole project we very affordable coming in under $1000. Now we have the other rooms to address.¬? The dining room almost took care of itself as we painted it at the same time as the kitchen. The living room is coming along to, I am sure you will be hearing about that pretty soon.

American’s love coffee. Could this be the reason the cup-o-coffee is such a common design element? While perusing through many sites, I have come across a hot beverages as design elements, all to often. While this may be fitting for sites like Tazo, what is the importance for design firm sites, or other genres that have nothing to do with warm caffeinated beverages?

I will be the first to admit that it is a great, generic design element. The problem with that statement is in the need for the element. Many sites would probably still work, maybe even better at times, with just the space. I guess I am addressing the idea that every element in a design should serve a purpose.

Coding Monkeys is a design studio. They have layed out their site in a way, that portrays their service as an everyday need. What a great idea. The thought that everything could have a good design is so compelling to people who like to look at things. And last time I checked, this would included most everyone. The cup fits in their design because most people can relate to a cup of coffee, as with an iPod, mouse, or micro-recorder. (Please excuse their apparent apple bias.)

GNV & Partners is another design firm that thought coffee would trigger some curiosity. This cup has been place to compliment the desk feel. I think this says the company is calm and easy going. It suggests this workplace will work on your project from morning till night.

I am not sure that I have an answer for the cup of coffee or any other design element that simply fills space. While many objects say something, I am not sure every object is needed to convey a company’s message. My fear, as is with many sites, is the cup of coffee has been added simply because it looks good. Design should go beyond just looking good. Design really says something more then “my, what a beautiful collage of elements.” The web seems all to often to be a collage of elements. Well designed sites take it farther then that.

As I was trying to fall asleep last night, I thought to myself, “when was the last time I slept in a bed with a box spring?” To my dismay, I couldn’t think of a time that lasted for longer then a night or two. When I was a child I have a trumble bed with no box spring. Then when I went to college, I had a bunk bed. Now I sleep in a bed with drawers underneath. Guess what? No box spring.

I have never really had bed sores or had trouble sleeping, but I am curious about all the advertisements for beds. I know many people have back problems that occur later in life, but am I setting myself up for problems later on? One of the most common names is a Tempur-Pedic bed. I went researching on their website, to find the science behind their mattresses. I was dissapointed to find almost none. Even on the science section of their website, they basically suggest that when you sleep on their beds your spine is straight, and on other beds it is curved. Is this bad? I was surprised to find no research or evidence to back this up.

I sleep fine. I wasted 5 mins of sleep last night, wondering if I need to get a bed with a box spring. I am sure that their are different levels of comfort with different beds, but I am comfortable. Maybe I just need to go to a mattress store and spend the night on a couple and really give one of those expensive beds a try.

So, at my current job I get to look at a lot of websites for inspiration. After trudging through thousands of sites, I have noticed a reoccurring theme. Well, not so much a theme, but a single picture. What is it with this woman? I have not only run into this picture on many sites, but numerous other pictures that appear all over the internet on professional sites.

You could quickly blame the top stock photo sites like istockphoto and shutterstock for commonly feeding people the same images. These sites however, have hundreds of thousands of photos. If this is the case, you would think their would be plenty of pictures to choose from that fit the need.

My guess is that people are just lazy. Even when using a stockphoto site with lots of images we still search for generic terms like “woman” or “girl”. While I am a big advocate of making people smarter, technology is supposed to BE smarter. It should be simple and straight forward for the user. I may be asking for too much here, but wouldn’t it be great if once a photo was downloaded that it was somehow kicked back on the search list?

I know this poses many problems. The best photographer shouldn’t be punished because everyone wants to use his photos. Also, these sites may already do something like this, but with so many sites out their what are the chances really of someone picking the same picture for their homepage as you? I guess this is something that the internet is going to run into for these budget projects who cannot hire a professional photographer or buy a photo that can only be used by them. I am just sick of seeing this woman.

So, here it is! After 4 months of searching I closed on my new home. What an exciting adventure Sara and I have begun. I have been so stressed about everything and I have had a hard time concentrating, but I see some relief in sight. The closing only took about a half an hour and 30 pieces or so of paper later, I own a house. It was a relief to walk into this dirty place that we get to call our own.

Sara and I toured about 30 houses or so before we landed on this one. Working with my Realtor, we looked at all sorts of different houses in a pretty big price range. The day we actually saw this house, it already had an offer on it so we had dismissed it. We thought we might as well take a look at it however, just in case the offer fell through. Sure enough, it did, and we loved this place enough to put an offer on it.

The house has a two car garage, 3 bedrooms and one bath. The kitchen needs a big upgrade, so that is going to be the first adventure. I am so excited to start working on this. With a wedding only 3 months away, things are going to get very busy!

After a discussion at an hour long meeting about birthday’s, “we” decided to have a birthday rotation at work. The person who’s birthday came last, was inquired to make a cake for the next persons birthday. While some people we apprehensive to this idea and had the option of not participating, I opted in. Ofcourse, this was before we listed the order of birthdays. Much to my surprise, my birthday, which was two months prior, was the last birthday to occur. This set me up to bake the next cake. I had a decision to make. Go Betty Crocker or go home. Being I like to bake, I took my skills to the test in the kitchen.

After searching around my favorite recipe site allrecipies.com, I came across this beloved Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cake. After stopping by the store and picking up loads of Chocolate, I was off to the kitchen. Everything went great until I realized that I reached for the regular flour out of instinct even though the required cake flour was right next to me. While the cake seemed to bake fine, it is not quite as fluffy as I would have hoped.

Also, I ran into another problem with the recipe. Once I tried to frost it the next night, the frosting was so heavy it started dripping off the cake. While this created a cool effect, this isn’t exactly what a person expects when they see a triple layer chocolate cake. I scrapped the outer frosting off and added some confectioners sugar. I am not sure if I missed adding a whole cup or what, but it still wasn’t quite the consistency in the end that I desired.

I think I would try this recipe again. I will be able to tell if it is worth it today when I take a bite into it. Yum.

All the reading I have had the time to do lately has been in Communication Arts. Right when I get the chance to get one done, another one comes in the mail. Of course, this lastest issue was the most article filled, so I had even more reading to do. As I read through this issue, I started to wish their articles were more about web design. I think this reaction was triggered because the web is where my passion lies, but it seems that even when they mention interactive design or the web it is very fundamental. I would even go as far as saying that many of the authors in Comm Arts seem out of touch with the web. I must search for a more web oriented periodical. I am not going to abandon my subscription with Comm Arts however, as it does have MUCH to offer a designer.

I was really intrigued this time by the fresh section that they put in every issue. They feature about 4 artists work every month, with a bio and some of the artist’s pieces of work. I love looking through this section because it features not just designer, but photographer and fine artists alike. I was really intrigued by David J. Turner, a professional photographer.

I was initially taken in by some pictures of dogs in the article and went searching on his website in hopes to find more. Sure enough, he had a whole gallery (he calls them web books) on his site dedicated to pictures of dogs that he has taken. What a great view of different dogs personalities. He not only captures these dogs from great angles, but he also captures a very unique personality of each one. From puppies to grown dogs, you will find great faces and moods in these pictures.

What I find most interesting about photography is how easy it has become to take a picture, but how their are still people that rise to the top. Yes, anyone can take a camera and click the button. They can even put it on their computer and do some amazing editing that would have not been possible ten years ago. However, you can still see the difference of a photographers thought out photo to an amateurs point and shoot or entry level camera.

It is great that as media is brought to the masses, people can appreciate all forms of art all the more, as they see how difficult it can be to get that good shot. I hope this happens with all forms of design. As it becomes easier to place elements on a page and print them out, I hope people will see that their is a lot more thought in that coke bottle design or even that grocery bag then what is seems on the surface. I think design is growing more important as people are taking the time to look at things more, and really gaining respect a good design as opposed to a bad one.

After recently seeing some pictures printed from an online store, I decided to do some research of my own and find a place to print my own. Being I am more of an artsy person, I get picky with things like photos, and paper, and style. The list goes on and on. After looking around a little bit I found out their is some correlation between photos and cutesy names.

I stumbled across sites like Shutterfly and Snap Fish, both of which I was referred to by others. What flies and fish have to do with photos, I am unsure. These two animals aren’t even photographed by the casual photographer all to often. I moved past those two services and still found myself finding sites like Winkflash. I guess this name took me a little closer to a logical name for a photo printing company, but winking still kinda wigs me out, especially if it were captured in a still. I finally landed on dotPhoto which seemed to sit most comfortably with me.

After I got past the naming schemes of these sites I thought I might take a look more seriously at what you might get from each service. While price was the most heavily weight reason for settling on a photo service, I think there are a couple of other things to look at as well. So, let throw the giants out the window (Walmart, Wallgreens, etc.) and lets move to these smaller sites.

Shutterfly

I have been recommended to Shutterfly numerous times and have seen some of their prints. They are a quality service. Coming in at 19¬¢ a print (for 4×6) they are tailing behind other printers. You can customize your prints right online by adding over 500 different borders. I didn’t see an option to get matte instead of glossy, but the highlight of this service for me, was they will store as many photos for free and you can even show a friend your collection online at any time in a nice gallery view. Shipping varies on how many prints you order, but for 24 prints it would be $2.49.

Winkflash

This service seems to be a bit of a baby amongst the others. While the site is okay and it has 12¬¢ a print, I am not sure about the quality of their product. While I am judging this simply by the design of their site, I think the quality of a site makes a big statement when you only have a web presence. I did see that you have an option for glossy or matte, but this service just doesn’t quite have as much to offer as some of the others. They also have a variable shipping cost ($1.99 to ship 24 prints).

Dot Photo

Dot photo comes comes in with a tie at 12¢ a print, though the site advertises lower then that throughout. There seems to be some membership you can join to get as low as 7.5¢ a print. There are limited options here and it is hard to find out about what they offer. While they have a great promotion (currently of 50 free prints) I have not tried this service. Shipping comes in at $3.99 for each order.

Snapfish

Snapfish is a great service. At 9¬¢ a print they come in at the lowest. There are no strings attached and no deals to be made. Althought, you do get your first 20 prints free. They do have an option for a white border, a torn border, or no border, but currently they only offer glossy prints. They are backed by Meijer (I know I said lets avoid the big wigs) and they offer a solid service. While they don’t have a viewing option like Shutterfly for other to see, they give you good prints at a good price. Once again with variable pricing, you will get 24 prints shipped for $2.46.

I am not sure you need to stick with one photo service. Shutterfly seems to be the only site that really matters long term, but at 19¢ they are almost double the other services. If you like to have your photos stored somewhere and like being able to show them off to other people, Shutterfly seems like the way to go. Snapfish seems like the best if all you need are some prints. I doubt that any place really gives you a sub par print, as companies have gotten the printing of photos down pretty pat, but I hope to see these services grow more this year and really give the user more options and maybe even lower pricing.

So I received my almost daily Bacn from staples this morning and to my surprise, there was something that was of interest to me. Most of the offers in this e-mail are geared towards business and I am typically not enticed by them (envelopes, paper, etc.). I scanned through the e-mail and saw that they had a 24-pack of Poland Spring Water. This may not intrigue everyone, but it took me by surprise. Why would a business/technology store carry bottled water? Sure, people drink water at work as well as much as anywhere, but I found it amusing that they were advertising this misfit product.

Bottled water is interesting. So much so, that I decided to dig a little deeper and see what is really going on with bottled water in America. I quickly found that our Natural Resources Defense Council has already done a four year study on bottled water. You can find the complete documentation of it on their website. This study is a in depth look at whether bottled water is better for you then tap water. It seems it can sometimes be worse for you and isn’t really better for you.

According to our favorite site wikipedia, “In 2006, the US bottled water sales surpassed 8 Billion gallons of water.” Wow! I cannot even fathom how much that is. Bottled water is something many of us (at least in the U.S.) can live without. Is it not amazing that people would spend so much money on something they already have at their finger tips for virtually free?

I grab a bottle of water almost every morning out of my refrigerator and take it to work to drink. I usually fill it up a time or two at work and then at the days end, I throw away the bottle. My initial response as to why I perform this behavior would be for the sake of convince, but I have to goto the store, lug home a crate of water, and then put 5 or so in the refrigerator every week. Doesn’t just filling up the same water bottle everyday from the tap seem a lot easier? My next thought it I do it because the water is better for me. As the NRDC has already pointed out bottled water can actually be more harmful in some cases. Plus, I fill up the bottle after its original contents have been emptied with tap water.

I am not sure why Americans have become so accustomed to grabbing that plastic bottle of water and paying that $4 to $5 for a case. I do not have exact figures, but I know that the water bottle market is now over a 10 million dollar industry. With everyone becoming concerned with being green I thought I might do my part. This year is the year to start tapping the tap again.

I was recently sent a link to a youtube video. This is something that is becoming all to common, and I am almost to the point of not even watching it, because they are becoming mundane for me. I was struck at a moment of boredom however and decided to watch the movie. I was taken to a line drawing of slopes, turns and hills. A little person on a sled proceeded to ride along the lines as if being propelled down the slopes and turns by gravity. After 2:41 of this sledder falling he ended up at his original position.

My initial reaction was an all to common one. Why would you take so much time to do this? My usual thought to any youtube movie is why take the time? There are so many movies that intrigue people on youtube, but many of them seem like a waste of time. I love that people, especially younger kids, are learning how to use technology in new ways. I like that they are immersing themselves in the future of computing, learning how to do what was once a professionals job. After a little exploration I found that this movie was not one of a kind. In fact, this movie was created from a simple flash based website called Line Rider. This is one of those internet fad sites where you can create your own lines for the sledder to ride and then watch them ride down the slopes. This site has grown so big, they are releasing a retail version this year! This particular video that I saw must have taken hours to make!

My biggest concern is this. I am afraid that people aren’t really being innovative. I am afraid that most people are taking ideas or sites that already exist and they are simply using them for their own creation. There are some great youtube videos, but what percentage are good. There are some fun websites to explore, but how many really teach you something or make you think beyond putting a line down for a slider to ride. I am afraid technology is making us not to have to think, as opposed to enhancing the thinking process.