There pretty much nothing showing this this weekend (again) for Open Houses. I was hoping for a post holiday bump in listings but nothing came up of interest except some prices getting reset.
Last week, I mentioned that I was going to write up some notes on the house buying thing this week. This week just slipped by. Sorry about that.
Today I’ll kick it off with some background. We moved to Austin summer of 2005. It was at that time our 4th city in 4 years after a bit of whirlwind of Seattle to DC to Seattle to LA before coming to Austin. I started Modern Austin because we were looking around at places and learning the city and I thought, “since I am looking at all this already, may as well throw up listings and pictures and maybe others will find it useful as well.”
We were planning on renting for a while, learn the city and then buy. Of course, it didn’t work out that way and we were off to DC area again for about 20 months. In my mind, we still lived in Austin but in reality we lived on Capital Hill (Eastern Market Area). Keeping the site going was nice way to stay in touch with what was going on here. We moved back Labor Day weekend 2007. Hopefully for semi-good (I would love to find a way to spend the summer in a more temperate region).
Next post: Coming to terms with the realities of the market.
You may start to notice some changes to ModernAustin when it comes to the for sale postings, namely the listings will no longer go MLSFinder. I used MLSFinder (and an Avenue One log-in) because it was the best tool at time and AveOne didn’t kick me off. However, I don’t have any connection to AveOne so I don’t have strong motivation to give them free advertising.
However, I do know Ryan Brown (blog) and he recently released a pretty nifty search tool that focuses on modern listings around town. Check it out here. Read more about it here. Definitely send in your input.
With this new search tool available, I’ll probably cut down on some the MLS listings. I will still post up homes for sale, including FSBO & pre-MLS listings, though just not as many generic MLS listings. I’d rather do more profiles, photo sets, and other more informational stuff. We’ll see how it goes. Let me know if you have any request or suggestions.
I’ve been getting a bit killed by comment spam lately. Most of it gets deleted by me before it gets to the site. All really annoying.
Anyhow, you may notice two updates to the comments section. One is a simple captcha image. This just forces you to enter in a 6 character code before you can post. This tries to weed the humans from the spam bots.
The second change in comments is that you can now edit your own post inline (only your own). If you post and want to edit, just click on the comment and an edit box will appear.
Spent today building our gingerbread house for tomorrow’s Crafthaus. As I’ll be out of town, we had to do ours today. The Girl did the materials acquistion while I acted out the part of the prima donna architect. This is the first first gingerbread house I’ve ever built and I already want to do it again as I made some basic mistakes (forgetting to take material thickness into account, etc) and learned quite a bit. Plus it is fun.
If you go down to IF+D for tomorrow’s Crafthaus, you can build your own modern ginger bread house (differing designs).
My design was based on A. Quincy Jones’ Eichler home:
The fine folks at IF+D wish to offer modern austin readers a discount. Just print this coupon and take it with you (though if you forget the coupon, I doubt they’d run you off).
Click here for coupon only. Visit the IF+D Website for more information IF+D, catalog, location, hours, etc.
Two Upcoming IF+D events.
Armadillo Tears. Thursday, Dec 13th, 6:30pm - 9pm-ish
There are some fine gentlemen who have a great idea. No, I’m not talking about the Marx Brothers (Groucho, Harpo, and the funniest one Karl). Rather, I’m referring to ____ and ____, the two anonymous guys who have taken to customizing new tear-drop camper shells. They are decking these things out with wood paneling, contemporary lighting, and (most importantly) AC units. It’s like going on a road trip with Mies van der Rohe.
We will have two prototypes for you to explore, and we’ll cook up some s’mores over the hatchback galley.
Crafthaus. Monday, Dec 17th, 6pm - 8pm.
If there is anything we love more than mid century modern architecture, it’s gingerbread. So ginger-y! So very un-breadlike!
To that end, we are combining the two at our next Crafthaus. That’s right, we’ll be making gingerbread modern houses (the love children of Betty Crocker and Frank Lloyd Wright).
Admission is free and kids are, naturally, welcome.
Gingerbread sheets will be provided. Some supplies like icing and toppings will also be provided, but you are encouraged to bring your own supplies in order to realize your particular gingerbread house visions. Please RSVP to our Gingerbread House Project Manager, Adrienne Breaux at abreaux@ifdaustin.com so we can know how much gingerbread to make. Construction projects demand precise budgeting and supply allocations. With that in mind, we should mention that we are not licensed gingerbread architects. (Don’t tell anybody that, though).
Sadly, I’ll be out of town for both, but go forth and be merry!
Disclaimer: I get nothing for featuring this or the coupon offer. I don’t take listing or advertising money (even things like contextual google ads). I like the people at IF+D and what they are doing for the local community. If I can provide benefit to both you and people like IF+D through the site then I feel that is a win for everyone.
Kristen of IF+D invites you to the IF+D Dot Spot Party this Saturday, November 10th. IF+D is a lovely furniture store downtown that carries Gus Design and now the full line of Blu Dot.
Come on down and say hi. I’ll be there (find the quiet house nerd in the corner).
When
Saturday, Nov 10th
7:00 - 9:00ish
Where
IF+D
208 Colorado
It’s official : we are now a Dot Spot. “What’s a Dot Spot,” you ask? Well, that’s a silly question. It’s the most famous spot this side of Monica Lewinsky. To be more specific : a Dot Spot is a cohesive representation of pieces from the altogether fabulous Blu Dot furniture. There are a limited number of Dot Spots nationwide and we are lucky to be one (it’s as exclusive as the upper orders of the Masonic Lodge, but without nearly as many strange occult rituals).
In addition to the usual food, drink and general sense of well being that we always provide, we will also have
(1) a raffle for a Blu Dot Stella Chair
(2) unveiling of the Real Good Chair with a film showing how amazingly simple it is to build (even a lowly rodent can do it)
(3) Q&A with a Blu Dot founder, discussing the Blu Dot design process
(4) free squirrel costumes (this will make sense after you see the film).
