Weekend Plans

1. Dallas Museum of Art has free admission all weekend. This is the last weekend to see their Summer Spotlight Exhibit.

2. Remember the Candleroom? Yes, it is still kicking around. Head on over to support your four legged friends by drinking margaritas. Proceeds support Paws in the City.

3. Go shopping this weekend at Fashion Industry Gallery for the FIG Finale sale.

David Garza sings Leonard Cohen

The NPR blog, All Songs Considered, has Irving born David Garza singing Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me to the End of Love." Song was recorded at this years SXSW music festival.

Listen and watch the video here.

What I have been reading lately

I am on the road this week for work, but here is what I have been reading up on:

1. The Woodall Rodgers Park Foundation announced that Thomas Phifer and Partners will be the architects for The Park's restaurant and performance pavilion. Phifer used to work with Richard Meier, who designed the Rachofsky House in Dallas. More info here.

2. One of the finalists of the Re:Vision Dallas competition (turning a parking lot into a sustainable mixed-use development) is on the shortlist to exhibit its competition entry at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona, Spain this November. Still trying to figure out if I should be proud of that or embarassed. Read about it here.

3. The Disney Streets and the people who live there - home to some beautiful MCMs - are still duking it out over whether there should be a conservation overlay. Read about the nastiness here.

Weekend Plans

1. Pour some sugar on me: Def Leppard, Poison, and Cheap Trick at Starplex, erm Superpages.com Center Friday night. Ticket info here.

2. The last late night block party at the DMA is this Friday.

3. Put your greek letters on had head on down to Lee Harvey's Saturday for their beer pong competition.

Calatrava Bridge Update

Today the Trinity River Trust launched its new website to stir up interest in the Santiago Calatrava designed Margaret Ray Hunt Bridge over the Trinity. If you have 150 bucks to spare, you can go party on September 25th with Gubernatorial candidate Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, Mayor Tom Leppert, and Santiago Calatrava.

Oh and if you have a severe case of insomnia, you can watch this You Tube video of the steel for the bridge winding its way through Dallas to the building site.

Home Renovation Pt. 1 Results

Part one of the living room home renovation is done. Part one involved replacing the old floors with stained concrete floors in the living room, dining room, hallway and bathroom. See the before here. The renovation is about 98% done. We need to put back the baseboards and paint them. Our goal is December because we be having a kick ass Christmas party! The picture to the left is of the living room. More pictures of the floors below.



The view from the dining room.


















Here we had the old tile floor removed, applied a skim coat of concrete and stained the floors to match the hallway and the floor. We skim coated the bathroom so the tile grout lines would not show through the stained floor.

The next project will be the floor to almost ceiling bookshelf behind the sofa. Stay tuned!

Rhett Miller on CNN

Old 97s frontman and former Dallasite, Rhett Miller, was on CNN earlier this week talking about his new solo album and playing a track off his new album, Rhett Miller.

Watch the interview and hear the song "Need to Know Where I Stand" here.

Weekend Plans

The Architect and I have been in Florida this week, but for those stuck in Dallas here are my suggestions:

1. 5 x 7 Opening Reception at the Dunn and Brown Contemporary: The tenth annual event, 5 x 7 On The Road: Dallas, benefits Arthouse’s free exhibitions and educational programs. The art is on 5 x 7 canvases. You don't know who the artist is until to purchase the piece you like. Each piece is 100 bucks.

2. Indulge in your inner geek at the Dallas Comic Con.

3. Mad Men Season 3 premieres on Sunday: head down to the Angelika Theater for a free screening and $7.50 classic cocktails.

Death of the McMansion?

Yes. No. Maybe. Treehugger has corralled the various opinions here.

Teco Art Pottery On Sale

On Saturday I stopped by the Aneita Fern store near the Galleria to browse around and ended up coming home with this lovely orange vase from Teco Pottery.

From the Teco website:

Teco (an abbreviation of TErra COtta) art pottery was originally produced from 1899 through 1920 by the American Terra Cotta and Ceramics Company, located in Terra Cotta, Illinois. W. D. Gates, a lawyer by training, founded the company in order to capitalize on the need for architectural terra cotta used in constructing fire-proof buildings following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

I have always loved these pieces but didn't want to shell out $100+ for a piece. Well good news, Aneita Fern currently has the entire collection for 50% off! If you can't find a color you like there, you can also find them on sale at the PrairieMod blog's store here.

Weekend Plans

1. Friday head down to the Sons of Hermann Hall for Art Consipracy's fundraiser SEED. There will be live music and an auction of artist designed lanterns. Money raised goes towards operational costs for the annual Art Conspiracy auction.

2. On Saturday head downtown to Swirll where they will be pairing sushi with sparkling wine.

3. Sunday go to House of Blues to see crooner Chris Isaak. Request his cover of "Solitary Man."

A hodge podge of stuff today...

I thought about individual posts on these subjects, but let's face it, it is Monday and I am feeling a bit lazy. So in no particular order, things I have been reading up on today:

1. For those of you who live in a historical district and looking for economical ways to landscape your lawn, AstroTurf/fake grass is verboten.

2. The steel has arrived on what some have said is Dallas' bridge to nowhere, aka the Calatrava Bridge. You know what that means? It's time to party!

3. The winner of the Shroud of Statler Hotel competition to be announced sometime this week, with postings of all the submissions to be released by August 17th.

4. A conservation district for the Disney Streets may or may not be in the works. These streets are a host to a bevy of MCM homes.

5. Some opinions on the future Dallas Convention Center Hotel. DMN architecture critique and interview with 5G Studio Collaborative, which designed the hotel here.

and finally,

6. The contractor has been selected for the Woodall Rodgers Deck Park. Groundbreaking ceremony scheduled for September 14.

H/T to DO's Unfair Park and D Magazine's FrontBurner blogs.

And the winner is...

Congratulations to Kristin, who is the winner of the mini Alvar Aalto bowl from All Modern!

Kristin - to claim your prize you will need to email me your mailing address to quadrilleblog [at] gmail [dot] com.

Thanks to all who entered!