10 resolutions for 2016

We didn't make any resolutions last year; therefore, we didn't fail (a-har-har-har...). Nonetheless, we got our solar system running, started the Modern mavens series, found the worst shutters ever, built a stage/deck in the backyard, installed cameras, created a site dedicated to Schindler, and hands-down-your-pants flirted with the idea of building a mountain cabin. As far as hold overs from 2014, we finally had a garage sale, finally cleaned up the garage (although it still needs help...), and cleaned out our off-site storage.

But it's anew year! So here are ten architecty resolutions for 2016:

1. Visit Corbu, Reitveld, and Weissenhof in the Old Countries.

Amid other reasons to jump the pond, I'd love to stop in and say hello to several modern masterpieces in Paris, particularly Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye. Additionally, I would love to pop into Stuttgart, Germany, to visit the Weissenhof Estate's collection of modern houses (post coming soonish on the amazing Weissenhof...). Time (and bride...) permitting, I'd love to also stop in at the Reitveld-Schroder house. 

2. Build a Schindler Shed 



It doesn't seem to matter how big your garage is, there's never enough room for everything (especially when you work on cars). To create more room in our garage, I want to build a shed out back for yard stuff and seasonals. No, I do not plan on building the structure above (I wish!), but something inspired by Schindler's building style.

3. Dance with architecture in Palm Springs



Would love to take a four-day weekend and head to Palm Springs, California, to gawk at its Midcentury Modernism (as well as Schindler's Toole House shown above).

4. Dance with architecture in Miami


photo via free people

Would also love to stay and walk amidst the Art Deco delusions of Miami this year.

5. "Finish" the landscaping



I put "Finish" in quotes because I don't think landscaping is ever finished. Nonetheless, there are still several large projects to complete to take some large steps toward finishing, such as installing the large planters originally envisioned by the architects for the back patio along with several other smaller projects.

6. Dance with architecture in 12 state parks



We partook in a First Day Hike on the 1st and on made a resolution (supported by an impulse annual pass purchase) to visit at least 12 state parks this year.

7. Put together a list of architecture to see in Austin



I've not found a satisfying list of recommended architectural sites to see in Austin, so I plan to put one together this year for this site.

8. Put together a plan for building a cabin



I'm not sure where this is going to go, but we are strongly resolved to make a cabin a reality, whether in the near or far future.

9. Keep the blogs going





So far, so good, although my resolve wained a wee bit this past year with various other projects pulling me away for other things. I've started a new series of posts called "cool modern stuff" that I hope to continue through this year. I also want to continue to refine and expand  The (R.M.) Schindler List blog (and upgrade the Wikipedia page on Schindler).

10. Write a book on building a Modern house



This is the stretch goal, and one I've had (and failed at thus far) for awhiles now. The market seems limited, but with self-publishing it seems quite doable (although daunting...).

I've got to have at least one push goal!

As I navigated the day yesterday, I came up with a couple more:

11. Cut the cable

Sick of paying $200 a month for a TV we don't watch.

12. Finish upgrading the plugs

I've been a slug on this...

top ten posts of 2015

Since this is the time of end-of-the-year top ten posts, I figured I might as well throw in. Here are my top ten traffic-inducing posts of 2015!

1. dancing with architecture: Denver

A long-weekend trip to Denver greeted us with great weather, great architecture, and fantastic street art.

2. a tour of St. Martin's Church, Austin, Texas

I toured this gorgeous Austin Modern church and then, mere weeks later, this House of God was under threat of demolition. This country eats its old...

3. haiku for the book "Lilly Reich: Designer and Architect" by MoMA

Glad to see that this little review of Lilly Reich got some attention. She is well deserving and needs her day in the sun.

4. Memorial Day Flood 2015 at Casa Cubed

Truth be told this post probably got a number of hits because of the Memorial Day Flood, but I like to think that perhaps the crazy cloud photos pulled 'em in...

5. dancing with architecture: Tulsa (with a side of Catoosa)

I was really impressed with Tulsa for several reasons, one of which was all the Bruce Goffs.

6. modern maven: peter behrens

One of my series on Modern mavens was a top click getter. That reminds me: I need to get back working on these!

7. haiku for the book "The Perfect $100,000 House" by Karrie Jacobs

Although an older book about seeking to build an affordable Modern home, it's still quite relevant today.

8. Iceland over Christmas

We took a holiday trip to Iceland that was simply FANTASTIC! Yes, there was some architecture there.

9. dancing with architecture: Bartlesville, Oklahoma (with a side of Dewey)

This was a fun little trip with a Frank Lloyd Wright to see as well as a herd of Bruce Goffs.

10. boardwalk Austin

We finally made it down to the Lady Bird Lake boardwalk!

thanks to Element 5 Architecture!

Our architects (architects are like herpes: once you build something with them, they are yours forever...), the good folks over at Element 5 Architecture, said Austin Cubed is one of their fave architecture blogs!

 And thanks for the tip on Studio MM. We're already fans of the others, all great sites.

100,000 visitors

Das right, das right: 100,000 hits on this humble site as of last Friday! Das a lot of hits!!!

Where are these hits coming from?

Not surprisingly, the United States. As compared to way back when when we had 50,000 hits, France is now outpacing Germany, and Ukraine knocked Poland out of the 10th spot. Come on Poland: we're looking at you!

The Mies-is-miserable post (if it bleeds, it leads...) is still pulling the most hits. And a recent post about the Bethlehem Baptist Church, due to links from others, has entered the top 10 quite quickly. Outside of those two, it's hard to tell why one post pulls a lot of hits and another one doesn't.

Thanks again for reading!

and the hits keep coming! 50,000 (some of them human)

I was on the plane recently with a newspaper I picked up at the hotel, and hidden among the pages was an article that claimed half of all internet traffic was robots (did the singularity happen while I was researching doorknobs?). So although Austin Cubed has now achieved 50,000 hits, perhaps only half are legitimate carbon-based lifeforms.

Nonetheless: Wow! A whopping 50,000 hits! Whodathunkit, and with less posting even!

My frequency of posting lately has decreased due to (1) life and (2) house time being dedicated to solving house problems (we're building a house after all). And the posts I've posted lately aren't exactly traffic generators (week 31, y'all!). If I was truly a ho for traffic, I'd have more informative, catchy titles titles. But alas, my main goal ain't to get traffic (a little goes a long way: I have [literally] two dedicated readers on my artesian well postcard blog that keeps me going [notice that subtle advertising? didn't think so...]).

I've made 403 posts on this blog not including the 52 draft blog posts in the system that I need to finalize and post (some of which are finalized and I haven't posted yet [it sucks being forgetful]).

Here's the traffic-with-time chart.

I tell folks who are considering blogging to keep at it, even if initial traffic is low. As your content increases (and folks realize you're keeping after it) you'll get more readers (unless your blog is dedicated to artesian well postcards... [but even there, after a newspaper article about the blog, random traffic to the site {robots?} increased considerably]). Key things that picked up traffic here was getting picked up by livemodern.com as regular content and then getting linked by modernaustin.com.

Traffic source by country remains the same. Still no Iceland, but the map (as The Green House Lady noted last time) just shows the top 10 countries (come on, Iceland: You can do it!).

As far as popular posts are concerned, the top ten remains the same as at the 30,000 hit point, but the order has changed:

That Mies post (with the [ahem] clever title) still pulls 'em in (looking for nastiness, I'm sure...). Baseboards are a big pull as is de Stijl architecture and neoplastic furniture. The modern homes page (not technically a post) is the largest pull, and for good reason: It's rather awesome despite still being rather incomplete. Given that these are the traffic-getters, I check on them to make sure they are updated and/or have the latest info. In case you were wondering...

Earnings are up to $12.14, so that's cool! Still making less than minimum wage... And now Google wants tax info from me to get paid. hmmm.... I hope this blog doesn't cause the IRS to come after me.

Thanks for reading, my beauties and bots!

why blog?

Several folks have asked: Why do you blog? (perhaps what they're really asking is: Why do you blog so darn much!). There are many reasons, most of them selfish. First and foremost, I love to research and I love to write, so I love to do this blog. If I didn't love it, I wouldn't do it. I also started the blog to write more regularly, something that's important to improve writing. Writing regularly makes it easier to write regularly. Yep. It's true (and it works!).

I've also used blogging to document the research I've done, which has made putting my fingers on it through keywords and search so much easier. In general, writing helps me to organize my thoughts and identify any information or logic gaps. Also, because my bride travels a lot for her job in the electric-industry shoulder seasons (spring and fall), she can review thoughts and potential design choices where-ever she's at (she's like The President: she yields a mighty veto pen). The "Chosen Ones" tab has been very useful in spec'ing the house and talking to vendors (and working with the interior designer). And the social aspect of blogging is neat because we've gotten great feedback and suggestions from our three (maybe four?) dedicated readers, one right around the corner. A hearty thanks for truly making our house and our experience better.

Altruistically, I hope that somebody considering designing and building a house might stumble upon this humble blog and learn something from our experience. Most build blogs I've found and books I've read focus on the building bit, so I thought there might be a somewhat unique (if mind numbing...) contribution if we focused on the whole process start to finish (and who knew that there would be so much drama, at least early on...). And hopefully folks will learn (and be inspired?) by the green and efficiency aspects of the house. Maybe more folks will be inspired to build Modern!

Finally, perhaps this blog will serve as fodder for a book (I can dream, can't I?). Several years ago we were on a plane leaving Albuquerque that hit a flock (that's right, I said "flock") of geese over the Sandia Mountains at 10,000 feet. The collision with 8 to 10 of those birds knocked out one of the engines, ripped two holes in the fuselage, damaged the vertical stabilizer, and sprayed the whole front of the plane with rosy red bird guts (technical term: snarge). Instead of smelling like Christmas dinner, the inside of the plane smelled like burning wires and electronics.

When weird stuff happens on planes, I always watch the flight attendants for clues on how worried I need to be. When ours came out of the cockpit in tears, I got worried. Real worried.

I had a bit of time to contemplate things (big things) before the fire-truck lined emergency landing back in Q-town. Looking back on my life at that time I'm happy to report that I didn't have too many regrets, but one was having not published a book (the novel I wrote in four weeks for NaNoWriMo notwithstanding...). In fact, those birds deserve some credit for us building this house. They introduced a little bit of risk-taking in our lives that we really didn't have before.

Life is meant for living.

the hits keep coming: 30,000!

Sometime this past Sunday evening this humble blog crossed the 30,000 visits mark:

Wh00p! Wh00p! Here's the monthly hit rate since the beginning (the drop at the end is a new month and not a drop in traffic due to my riveting Vision 2020 post):

Something caused a big jump in traffic last month. Not sure what it was. I've been trying to be more careful about, commas, so perhaps, that's, it.

Most hits come from the good ole US of A, but Russia (with love) is numero 2:

Sadly, no one from Iceland, our favorite foreign country, has stopped by yet for a visit. May need to do a dancing with architecture post on Iceland.

That Mies post with the clever (and attention getting name) continues to disappoint visitors with the modern homes tab being the biggest overall hit getter, which makes me happy. I've put in a lot of time on that page, and I think it's illuminating to see all that architecture develop over time.

Modern Austin is our biggest referring URL with Google our biggest referring site. "austin cubed" are the most common key words used to find the site. "horse vet" is number 3 (!!!!!).

And total earnings are up! Again, can't quite quit the day job yet...

These last 10,000 hits came in about 3 months. The previous 10,000 came in about 4 months. The first 10,000 took 36 months. Those first 10,000 were also the most profitable, bringing in $3.28. The last 20,000 hits combined didn't bring that in. Must of had better quality control in the old days....

20,000 hits!

Hit 20,000 pageviews yesterday (wh00p! wh00p!). Here are stats similar to the 10,000 hits! (wh00p! wh00p!) post back yonder in April:

The most popular post continues to be "the miserable truth of Mies van der Rohe" (lots of Mies haters out there...) with "dirty deeds (done dirt cheap)", "neoplastic furniture" (a personal fave of mine) and "haiku for the book 'Gropius'" breaking into the top ten.

 Although "miserable" continues to be the higher post, the "modern homes" page has blown past it in terms of hits.

Financially, I still have a ways to go before I can quit my day job:

In fact the earnings per hit have decreased substantially since 10,000 hits. This won't quite buy a bathroom tile yet (sigh...).

Thanks for tuning in!

remote blogging

The bride and I scoopdoodled out to Los Angeles for a short architecture-themed vacation that turned out to be fantastic (she's always worried about my themed trips...). I'm still here (yapping about water...), but with the blogging itch and no desktop. Let's see if this blog app I downloaded called blogsy is worth a hoot. I hope it has a hoot. I have so many things to show you...

10,000 hits!

Last night Austin Cubed crossed 10,000 hits! Not that I'm a hit-whore or anything, but truth be told, I wouldn't keep writing if no one was reading, so extra special thanks to the folks who have posted comments to let me know all those hits weren't hairypalmers looking for bunny porn (or something).

I loves me some data, so it's kinda cool to (ahem) look at the data, something Blogger (ne Google) helpfully provides. The plot below shows hits per month:

The hits were slowing growing as the content grew (more content to pop up in search engines, I reckon), but the hits really took off after the good folks at Modern Austin listed Austin Cubed as one of their fave local build blogs (thanks Modern Austin!). Also, our page of "modern home design to 1950" dropped about then as well, adding quite a bit of traffic. (Note that the dive there at the end isn't [ahem] a drop in our popularity: It's the first day of April [or at least I hope so!]).

Not surprisingly, most folks that visit this site are from the U S of A. Thankfully no one from Africa has visited (where they have third-world problems, not the first-world problems we have ["We're destined to be stuck with a sucky hob! WHAT WILL WE DO!!!"]).

The most popular posts are as follows:

There's nothing remarkable about that Mies van der Rohe post except the title. That's why headline writers are important, I reckon! The fir tree and Usonian posts corral in the Frank Lloyd Wright fans. The rest? Yadda-yadda-yadda... And look at "modern home design to 1950", my monument to my Modern home fixation. It hasn't been up long, yet it's fixin' to bypass "miserable truth" any day now. The drama is killing me!

When I figured out we could monetize our posts, I thought "What the hell!" I always wanted to be a professional writer. Let's see how we're doing:

$3.28. So let's see, 155 posts (156 counting this one), divide this by that, and (drum roll): 2.1 cents per post. Sadly, that sounds about right as far as value per post. We'll try to do better...

But seriously, if you are a regular reader or just passing through, thanks for tuning in. Most importantly, this site has allowed us to make some new friends (and a few enemies...) and is, oddly, a great stress reliever and organizer.

Now click those ads!!!

my kiss-and-tell manifesto...

When I first started this blog, I made a conscious decision to not name names. And then I thought, why not? My three readers want to know those names! And so I named names. That’s all fine and dandy when the days are always sunny and the breezes smell of rose petals, but when the storm clouds collect and the wind knocks over the porta-potty, it’s ultimately best not to publicly kiss (or, more accurately, kiss off) and tell. So I took the names off. Nonetheless, some people, the good people, deserve to get named.

So here’s my kiss-and-tell manifesto:

1.    If someone does a great job and said job is complete (that is, they are no longer needed on the project [which means the builder, the architect, and the wife are not eligible for naming until the whole she-bang is done]), I will name that someone. The good-uns deserve recognition. I should note that getting named doesn’t mean perfection (although it helps greatly). There will be errors. But how those errors are dealt with will determine whether or not names get named (unless the errors turn into a comedy of errors). Note that, similar to a mutual fund, past performance does not guarantee future results. The buyer still needs to beware.

2.    If someone does a crappy job, they ain’t getting named, but by Jove, I’m gonna write about it. I might reveal the who-dat’s in private conversation depending on the inquisitor and the number of cocktails I’ve imbibed (just as a non-blogger would do), but I won’t on this blog. Sorry. Perhaps they were incompetent, perhaps they had a bad day, or perhaps they had a one-out-every-one-hundred customers brain fart. Nonetheless, I honestly hope they learn something from the experience, change their evil ways, and become capable of providing someone (anyone?) great service.

3.    If someone is peripheral to the whole operation (like those architects we interviewed and didn’t select), I don’t plan on naming ‘em on the blog (although they may be revealed later in the context of something else if all I have to say are nice things).

When I started this blog, my intent was to accurately portray the process in something I would have wanted to read before diving in myself. However, once Architect 1.0 became aware of this humble electronic tome, I needed to be careful about what I posted to prevent the blog from stressing the relationship. Unfortunately, from the standpoint of accurately portraying the (potential) drama in-bedded in the process from the perspective of the client, that calculus will still play a part in what I post here. However, just so you don’t think everything is sunshine and rose petals, here on out I will use the top-secret phrase “[muffled grunts]” when I’m frustrated that I “can’t” tell you the full story [muffled grunts] [Wow! So soon?!?!].

During the interview-a-herd-of-architects process, I was concerned this blog was going to prevent us from hiring someone (one architect dropped a major [vaguely critical] hint that he had read it). At one point, I thought of taking this sucker down lest we get stuck with a grey-haired dude armed with a pencil sharpener and a T-square grunting “Interwebs!!! I don’t need no stinkin’ interwebs!!! Now let me tell you about dog trots and outhouses…” Fortunately, it appears we’ll get a house with an indoor pooper. The blog is still here; the horizon before us…

that's a bunch of b$!!!!

I’m a little reluctant to get too detailed with cost on this blog. Maybe too much (personal) information? And I don’t want to seem like we’re “bragging”. If anything, I’m a little ashamed to be building in this economic climate while some are struggling. In some ways, it’s a little crazy to be building in this economic climate since who knows what could be happening to our own jobs. On the other hand, we’ve lived a financially conservative life, have no livestock (how a childless friend refers to children…), and hold a huge amount of home equity having lived in the same house for nearly 20 years. Now is our time, or so we believe. And if everything goes to Lubbock in a handbasket, we can carry the note on the lot for a good while if we need to.

I want to talk about money because that’s an important part of building a house. Therefore, I’ve come up with a way to talk about the bucks without talking about the specifics. We have a total budget for the project, but I’m not going to tell you what it is. So what I’ll do is “normalize” everything to that total budget. All that means is that whatever I’m talking about budget wise, I’ll divide it by our total budget (the normalization) and, to make things easier, multiply it by 100 (Bonus! This normalization also works as a percentage!). I will call these normalized dollars builder-bucks, or b$ for short. Yes, “bS” is intended. Draw your own conclusions.

So say, for example, our budget is $150,000. If the land cost us $50,000, the land would have cost us 33.33 builder-bucks, or b$33.33: $50,000 divided by $150,000 times 100. Got it? Great! You are now normal(ized). Let the b$ begin!

the back story

We've lived in Austin now for almost 20 years. Back in the latter part of last century circa 1992, we bought an old and adorable house in central Austin. The main part of the house, built in the 1890s by a fellow from New Orleans, is actually a board-and-batten shot gun shack, so named because you could shoot a shotgun clear through the house and not hit a wall. The house was expanded to its present 1,100 square-feet by 1910 or so. Eleven-foot tall ceilings, 10-foot tall windows, and bucketloads of quaint have made it a joyful place to live.

However, it is a little cozy (house guests = nope), closet space is at a premium (and not even the width of a modern day coat hanger), and, over the years, we've fallen cowboy hat over cowboy boots in love with blocky modern (is it the Italian in he and the German in she?).

This cube lust started over a decade ago with the new Jiffy Lube around the corner, a place to get your oil changed in a jiffy! It is very blocky, has storefront windows and doors (after all, it is a store...), has three bays for cars to roll in and out, and is crowned with a second story office adorned with dark square windows.

"Wow!" I said one day to my bride-to-be, "wouldn't it be cool to convert that place into a house and live there? Big open kitchen-dining-living open to all sides, a rooftop deck, big closets."

"Indeed!" she replied.

It was at that moment I realized that we were architecturally compatible. I married her.

It wasn't until years later, tempted by a subscription to Dwell and various home tours, that cube lust struck. This is our story...