cool blog: Houzz

Not exactly a blog, but kinda, Houzz is like an endless home design magazine where you can browse photos and then save the ones you like to your file or files. Rather than blogs, Houzz has ideabooks where hired ideabookers (or you!) can post and write about collections of photos. Professional kitchen designers, interior designers, landscape designers, architects, colorists, and others post informative idea books. We've been using Houzz from the get-go to compile ideas for all aspects of the house. Very useful! And if you love browsing design, be forewarned: major time sink ahead!

cool blog: Modern Austin

One of our "weeklies" (sites we check out weekly) is Modern Austin. This site is focused on Modern home listings in Austin; good for keeping an eye on the local Modern market and for gawking at what Austin has to offer.

We're also grateful that they gave us a call out several months ago! Thanks Modern Austin!

cool blog: red (in fred)

Just discovered that Red in Fred (Fredricksburg [Texas]), our favorite design store, expert purveyors of "shabby Modern", have a blog!

You can surf the goodness here:

http://redinfred.blogspot.com/

cool blog: Life of an Architect

As I wandered the interwebs in search of a deeper understanding of this critter known as "architect", I parted the sashes of the Serengeti to reveal a prime specimen: Bob Borson of the most excellent blog "Life of an Architect". While the title suggests a yawn-fest of barely-riveting tales of pencil sharpening and lost CAD files, Bob's blog is a hyperly pleasant mix of tech, goofiness, and insight. And he just so happens to live up the road in Dallas. Highly recommended!

cool blog: BUILD

I love love love this blog. Carefully tendered by an architectural shop out of Seattle, the good folks at BUILD, firm believers in open source architecture, share their design thoughts on everything from parapets to showers to tile. They also opine quite a bit on running a small-shop architecture firm. And while the blog is a just a wee bit pretentious (they are, after all, architects…), it’s well thought out, well written, and often funny as hell. And they are not above poking fun at themselves and architects in general, as demonstrated by a post by Annie Choi (“Dear Architects, I am sick of your shit”) and “Dress the Architect”. Plus, they respectfully and politely respond to comments and gently but firmly address detractors. If you have a bidness and blog, this is the way to do it and build your rep. And, to top it all off, they design and build wonderful (high end…) houses!

cool blog: Green House, Good Life

While considering making an offer on our lot, we walked and drove around the neighborhood, getting a feel for potential future environs. Besides the trees and nice streets and (generally) well kept lawns, we noticed a nice Craftsman-style house going in a few blocks away (a good sign, methinked).

In addition to walking the hood, I poured through the neighborhood newsletters to learn about issues and whatnot and was pleasantly surprised to find an article about the house and its various green amenities, especially its geothermal. "Hmmmm", I hmmmmed to myself, "I hope we get to meet these folks someday."

Then, a couple-few weeks ago, I got my first comment on this blog, and it was by Devon, one of the owners of that house! Because she's a blogger via Blogger (soon to be named something else [grrrrr...]), I was able to track her back to her blog, Green House Good Life, and lo and behold it was the same Green green house a few blocks away! I devoured the blog over the course of a long weekend (If you're building or thinking of building, it's a darn good read) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Well written, informative, and helpful. I highly recommend it. It's still an active build blog as Devon and her hubs continue to polish the house (solar anyone?) and work on the landscaping. And we're so fortunate to have nice folks right around the corner to learn from (and lean on?) as we embark on our own build.