Archive for May, 2012

ascending order

Stairs. We trudge their boards daily. They are, however, more than necessary conveyance devices enabling you to go from level to level. On the contrary, stairs can be fluid, poetic gestures in the architectural landscape, waiting patiently to wisk you away. The act of ascending (or descending) stairs is really a vertical crossroads in the journey. Traversing to another viewpoint; a new perspective is added to the walk. Crawl atop to the catbird seat or lift the trapdoor and hide underneath the floor. Both are haunts of the voyeur. There you can observe, apart from life, yet a part of life. Invitation up or down bids you to a world yet undiscovered, or perhaps once known but forgotten. Either way, you are removed from the weighty familiarity of gravity and granted fresh sight. So seen, flights of stairs can become flights of fancy.

on finding home

I rest along the way in this beautifully set camp of my making

But it is only a marker of what I know now

it is not meant to hold

For I love to fall through water in the moments when rush parts

And brushes back to touch and accept and be with me

But I also love the lift out and pull away nakedness that a giles the next climb

These points of arrestment and assessment are the evidence I crave

Making physical these subtle fleeting truths is building me

I have no notion that I should possess the portrait only to enjoy it for a while

And search for its lesson

Read its screen and marvel at it temporanious plate as though I were an unvested visitor

Curious, amused, gathering, apprehensive, tentative and smart

I’ll take only what is good

This process

This distallation

Awakens me

Perhaps it’s just roughage

Does binging and purging bring about the light fantastic?

I had an old roommate that said

“I think the only reason I date these guys

is for the exhilarated feeing I get when I break up with them”

And so she cut her famous long hair each time

And was beautiful again

Things are expendable to me

So I’m kind of cocky in the acquisition of them

I revel in these choices knowing they are but sand castles

Temperal and important in the loss

There is a light and cumulative wealth

But then so would say

A gifted whore

Bobby McAlpine – “Finding Home” ©

Congratulations to Christina@greigedesign.com, who was the lucky winner of last week’s giveaway. The prize, a signed copy of our book “Finding Home” is on its way to you.

giveaway

We’ve had this blog going for a few months now and the response has been great – almost 10,000 views from over 50 countries! Thanks for being so interested in our ramblings, musings and images. To show gratitude to our readers, we’d like to welcome spring with our first giveaway. Everybody loves beautiful weather, budding life and free stuff.

The prize is our little book, “Finding Home” (uncoincidentally the name of this blog ). It’s a limited edition book we self-published a few years ago for our clients and friends. In its pages lie some of Bobby McAlpine’s poetry (which has been the focus of two posts on this blog) and sepia portraits of a bit of our work. We’ve only a handful of these gems left and we’d like to make one of the last copies available to one of our readers. To make the win even sweeter, the book will be personally autographed by Bobby.

For a chance at the prize, leave a comment, we’ll put the names in a stylish container and draw a winner. The contest is open for one week. Good luck and no pushing.

changing hands

Once a project is completed, we have the romantic notion that our clients will grow old there and, after a long, long life, pass their treasured possession along to an eager and loving heir. This is not the rule; it’s actually a rare exception. Over the past 30 years we’ve had hundreds of our houses trade hands and it’s always interesting to watch into whose hands they fall.

In the early 1990s, we designed a large, contemporary home for a couple on a difficult site outside of Atlanta, Georgia. We brought in John Saladino for the interior decorating and he did, as expected, a beautiful job furnishing the estate. The house was even featured in the now defunct (and sorely missed) magazine House and Garden. A few pages from the spread are featured below. The house was sold by our clients soon afterward and, over the years, we lost touch with the property and the subsequent chain of ownership.

A while back, I received the embedded video below from a friend. Now, we’ve been featured in the publishing world’s finest magazines and on some of the top decorating TV shows, but this was a first for us. It seems one of our designs was spotlighted on the show MTV Cribs, a show where rock stars give tours of their new-money-tricked-out mega-mansions. This was certainly not one of our usual press venues. Apparently, the Atlanta property we designed over 20 years ago is now owned by the rap superstar Akon. From the looks of it, he’s very proud of the estate and has maintained it beautifully.

As a clarification (and in our defense), the alligator pit was not original to our design…

redefining dining

“You can put the dining area in a more vulnerable setting than any other room, because when people gather around a table, their circle creates its own enclosure. They could sit down to eat in a busy intersection and make their own space.”
Bobby McAlpine – The Home Within Us

The dining room. It’s the space we were traditionally made to sit up straight and behave for a few excrutiating hours during holiday dinners. It’s also the room we couldn’t wait to leave. I think it’s because we seldom go in there; it’s simply not on our daily radar. Sometimes the neglected dining table becomes a vast slab of a desk destined for paying bills or organizing tax receipts. This hardly makes it a place of happy respite. Often, out of desperation, the ignored dining room is painted bright red, meant to induce warmth and conversation. I think this represents the hell awaiting when you are forced to enter its stale bowels.

When we design or renovate a home, we strive to make the dining experience a graceful part of everyday life. One way of accomplishing this is by locating the dining room or table in an untraditional location. Seating diners in the center of a grand salon, in the warmth of a book-lined library or nestled into a bay window breathes life into the once-staid experience. We’ve found, if your dining table is located in the path of your everyday walk, it eventually becomes accustomed. It’s no longer unapproachable and strange but a welcome member of the family. Meals are had. Homework is done. Sunday papers lie strewn.

If your dining table has fallen, neglected and dusty, out of favor, fall in love all over again: plop it down it in a favorite space in your home and rekindle its purpose. It’s just furniture; it doesn’t require the stigma of being in the “dining room”. Joyfully circle ’round with friends and family, reconnect and feed your soul.