"A Glorious Pigeon Coop and Rat Motel"

I love old stuff. I'm sure a lot of my appreciation comes from being a photographer -- the camera loves decay like Top Chef loves Padma's boobs. I also grew up in a turn of the century house, and my earliest, fondest memories are of peeling fabric wallcoverings, stained ceilings, and wood burning stoves. It's the stuff teary eyed nostalgia is made of. So when I saw this renovation of an early 1900s abandoned building, I could almost feel the paint chips dusting my eyelashes. Ah, memories.

Industrial designer David Hurlbut has spent the last 10 years renovating this 20,000 square foot building in Selma, Alabama. Purchased for the ridiculous sum of $100,000, Hurlbut has also spent an additional $150,000 in renovation costs.

Considering the size and previous condition of this beast, I'd say that's next to nothing. Apparently the home was in shambles when Hurlbut moved in; the pigeon offerings alone filled several dumpsters.

Much of the low renovation costs can be explained by his sense of preservation. Whenever possible, all of the original flooring, woodwork and walls were kept and simply cleaned.

Other finishings were bought second hand on the cheap, like these vintage light fixtures.

The refrigerator was purchased from a New Orleans jazz musician for $100. The story goes that Louis Armstrong also used the fridge a time or two.

A few items -- like the hand cast gargoyle above the bed in this room -- were made by Hurlbut himself, who is an industrial designer by trade.

In other cases Hurlbut kept and refurbished fixtures -- case in point, these original chandeliers.

More examples of frugality personified: the chair on the left was $3 and the working ham radio was a gift.

“It's a joke amongst my friends... If if's not big, old, heavy, and obsolete, David doesn't want it.”

I love it all, except the peeling paint looks like lead poisoning on a stick. Cover that with a clear satin finish, stat!

It's really a wonder that I'm not dead from some kind of toxic dust, considering that I spent 15 years living in an old house that was constantly under renovation. Still, I would do just about anything to live in a house like this again... anything except move to Alabama. Sorry 'Bama lovers.

Check out the beautifully photographed NY Times slide show here.

Books I Want: Visite Privee by Francois Halard

Francois Halard is perhaps the interiors photographer of which I am most jealous. He's the guy who takes the pictures that make me go, damn! I wish I had made that. It's not just that he's a gifted seer of light (the most important aspect of any good photograph), but that he also has taste and style. He takes interesting projects in interesting places, and renders them with a unique painterly touch. I can almost always spot his work without knowing beforehand who took the picture. Check out my favorite home from his new book, Visite Privee:

Carlo Mollino was a mid century architect, a photographer, a novelist, a furniture designer, and apparently a decorator. He worked on his home in Turin over the course of eight years, but he never even lived there.

Filled with antiques, an avant garde collection of photography (featuring works by Man Ray, among others), and decorated with a contemporary spin on classic design, it could easily pass for the current work of a very eclectic and talented designer.

Hello Stejnar chandelier, Japanese lanterns, and Saarinen dining set -- plus there is a giant clam on the wall. What's not to love?

And is the leopard wallcovering not insane (in a good way)? Other details include:

A peeping butterfly in a portal between rooms.

Wallpaper reminiscent of offerings by Zuber et Cie.

A Mollino designed chair set atop Italian ceramic tiles.

I want this book. Chock full of amazing homes occupied by extraordinary people -- Cy Twombly, Julian Schnabel, and Robert Rauschenberg, just to name a few -- it has a respect for the handmade that I find very refreshing.

Let me get arty on you for just a second (sorry in advance): famed philosopher Walter Benjamin pointed out that photography's most important quality was its mechanized reproducibility, its sameness, its democracy, but Halard appears to employ antique photographic processes to create images as intimate and one of a kind as Twombly's paintings.

Of course the only way to access the images is through the internet or the book, which takes us back to the whole reproduction issue, but that's besides the point. Mostly.

Forget the lecture and buy the book. It's pretty.

Look! New Kitchen Pictures (Because I Have Avoidance Issues)

I have been working so hard at avoiding Christmas shopping that I deep cleaned my range top rather than making a list and checking it twice. Sure, my family will cry cartoon sized tears of sadness when they realize Santa must have found them to be naughty rather than nice, but at least our kitchen is clean. And to further squander my precious (nearly non existent) free time, I took pictures of our new Ikea shelves and artwork.

You may recall that we completely remodeled our kitchen over a year ago, but if you'd like to check out the whole story, click here. We finished the bare minimum literally a week before Ike was born, so we didn't have time to accessorize or even install the shelves I had planned for. It looked pretty barren over by the sink:

My spice rack wasn't even full. But at least the paper towel holder was a klassy touch.

Too bad our kitchen has the worst. lighting. ever. Hunny Bunny caught me with my tripod in the kitchen making 10 second exposures and asked me why I was shooting in complete darkness. Maybe someday if I have an even BIGGER issue to avoid, I will actually whip out my light kit and make real pictures. Anyway, you get the idea. Shelves: check. Thrifted tchotchkes that will likely be rearranged on a daily basis according to the whims and vagaries of my highly mutable temperament: check. No more paper towel holder: check.

I was feeling the primary colors when I picked up that nifty cubist painting (must be a long lost Picasso, right?) at Round Top for $30. I snagged the vintage lithograph of the Roman forum at le thrift store for $2.99. Look, I filled my spice rack. Also, it is 1:02 pm.

I'm still on the fence about the brass light. Ok, I'm not even on the fence. I picked up a huge vintage round glass fixture with a black chain that will be perfectish kitchen over the sink, but I've been too lazy to install it... so far. Christmas isn't here yet, right? I'm liking the shelves, though. We used Ikea's Ekby series, and the finish matches our cabinets perfectly.

That's really all I have for you today, but I'm trying to squeeze in more time to photograph mini house updates. I created a new category on the right column called Erin's House, where you can track the evolution of our humble abode over the last two and a half years (good gravy, I've been blogging forever!). I made a category for Karly, too, but she'll have to file all her own projects when she returns after the new year...

I can't put off this Christmas shopping forever, you know.