Archive for 2009

Thrifty!

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

I picked up a few other thrifty things this weekend besides my Josef Albers lithograph. Including these three pieces of studio pottery above. I will own every sloppily made piece of amateur pottery I find!

I picked these four little containers for a $1. Shame, shame – I know my ignorance is showing, but what is going on above the words?

I also grabbed this creepy pair of salt and pepper cats. The salt/pepper comes out of their eyes and they have no limbs and rope tails – yikes. They also have a sticker that says ANVA.

Another quartz cluster…I’m repeating myself, but I love crazy minerals.

Vignetting for scale…whatever, I thought they where fun together. There’s no point to this picture.

And then I got some lamps…but you’ll have to wait ’cause I’m a lazy hoe.

Thrifty!

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

This score deserved it’s own Thrifty! post.

For all the crappy art I buy, and all the time I spent in art school, and all the time I spend working in art, finally – FINALLY, I found some actual art from an artist I was seriously lecturing about just a few weeks ago.

Welcome to The Brick House Josef Albers, White Line Square IV, 1966.

This is a three color lithograph, and is number 79 in an edition of 125. On the left bottom corner you can see the pencil marking it W L S – IV 79 – 125.

On the right bottom corner it’s signed and marked ’66.

Link
Then on the back it’s embossed with the Gemini G.E.L. ‘chop‘.

I found it at a very out-of-the-way Goodwill in a strip mall in Cathedral City. Framed in a awful gold frame but calling out to me in all it’s modernist glory – for how much? $4.99!

Holler.

One of the first gigs I got out of art school was working for a gallery/print workshop. I got to know a fair bit about printmaking and have a real appreciation for the process and people who do it. Gemini was founded in Los Angeles in 1966 and over the years have done some of the most amazing print projects including my new Albers litho, whose series friends are worth some $$$ dollars.

I’m pretty excited and can’t wait to find a nice safe place to hang it (out of the sun).

Driveway

Friday, November 20th, 2009


We got a refund out of our escrow account after our property taxes were reevaluated and lowered to reflect the actual purchase price of the house (actually a little lower due to the nosedive real estate market) instead of charging us the previous owners purchase price (which they have for a year and was WAY WAY WAY more than we paid). Another good aspect was that our mortgage payment was also lowered and now we are paying less for the house than we’ve ever paid in rent. So – good news overall.

The focus for using this little boon of cash has fallen on fixing up our crappy/weedy dirt driveway. Which is seriously Ghetto.

Here is a little layout map – and yes, our driveway is huge.

Driveway map

Here are some inspiration pictures I’ve been looking at to figure out what to do with the beast of a driveway.

maas_051109_02

PalmSprings3BedroomsSleeps6_11527090043571

ward-lawrence-house-exterior-driveway

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19 house side

The Boy wants the whole driveway done in 1″ gravel. I want rectangular cement slabs with gravel divisions.

Like everything, it’s all going to come down to those DOLLARS. We definitely don’t want to overspend as this town is awful and going overboard probably won’t ever pay off.

If we go all gravel, we could totally DIY the driveway. If there are cement slabs, we will need pro assistance. We could always install those big cement pavers to kind of fake the look, and I know cement will cost way more than we should spend (We actually got a quote for $15,000 to do what I want to the whole driveway. WTF – we got other more reasonable quotes but that one just seemed insane).

It’s going to cost :

-$872.50 (including tax and delivery) for all the gravel.
-$250 for a 24 hour tractor rental to level and grade the dirt.

Thats $1,122.50 to DIY a full on gravel driveway.

So, my question for all you fabulous DIYer’s is this – what’s a good, cheap driveway solution? Have any of you gorgeous, charming, and witty readers put a driveway in and what are your do’s and don’ts?