New Collaborator’s for Moosicorn!

I can’t tell you how excited Alex and I are to have gained help from some Webster University (St. Louis – Missouri) students!  (class pictured above) I apologize for not having all their names – perhaps they will see the post and tell us who they are in the comments.  But… they have all taken a look through the site and provided us with a ton of feedback as part of a class project.

We had for sometime been hoping to re-design our website and who better to help with that effort than exactly the sort of folks we hope would get involved/inspired/engaged by what we’re doing at Moosicorn.  After reading through all of their papers we understood what we were doing better than we ever had before.  They discussed the voice of the site, layout, navigation, content, and helped point out many shortcomings.  Some of which we were aware of, but some we had never even considered.  This feedback will go along way as we work on the new site and we owe them many thanks!

One disturbing trend I noticed in their comments however was a call for video on the site… while I totally agree that videos are a great way of engaging people, they require me to be on camera.  Eeek!  Not an idea I’m overly comfortable with, so we’ll see how that goes.  Alex and I have begun looking into video cameras that will serve our purposes if we go that direction though.

Thank you so much to Erin Bullerdieck (old college buddy of mine) and her class.  I hope we can find new ways to collaborate with Webster students.  There are also a couple of universities fairly close to the property in Spokane.  Perhaps we’ll also be able to use these efforts as an outreach to those students to get involved as well.  Eventually we would like to have the agriculture students consult on our organic gardens.   We intend on hosting a design/build competition to develop sustainable cottages on the property at some stage as well, something I feel would be a great fit for architecture and engineering students.  Then there’s the art!  So many opportunities!

We’ll keep you posted as the new site progresses.  We hope to have it up in early January.  Thank you so much!  Talk to you soon.

Smelling the Roses… and Keeping to Our Vision.

Typically Alex and I post pics of progress on the property.  We love sharing the gorgeous scenery, shots of furry woodland visitors, and construction updates for the Barn/House.  We love doing these, and we’re going to keep them coming, but they don’t really get to the heart of what all of this is about.  We’ve had some very trying times and some very exciting times along our path so far, but we’ve noticed we’ve had very little time to reflect (which to a degree is what this is all about, a slower more tuned in life).

In all of our efforts to get things done as efficiently as possible, we feel as though we weren’t taking enough time along the journey for ourselves.  Not enough time to plan prudently, or enough time to allow us to share effectively. For example: It is our intention to be as transparent as possible with this project, yet we haven’t had time to organize and upload all of the construction invoices so far.  We’ve also faced struggles with contractors and deliveries and debates over materials and finishes all of which paint a much broader and more interesting picture of what’s going on, and are things we’d like to be sharing.  (Did you know we went with Marmoleum flooring?  We did.  And, did so for some really cool reasons.  Yeah, we’d like to share that too.)

So we’ve come to a very large decision… we’re not putting things on hold, but we are going to be slowing them down quite a bit for the following reasons.

1. Pushing through construction during winter would be a brutal exercise that would require more resources than waiting for spring.
2. We need time to get the web site caught up, including a planned re-design, 100’s of updates and new functionality.
3. A slower pace will allow us to collaborate more fully with all of the wonderful people that are assisting us with this project.  And hopefully with their permission allow us the time to highlight them and their efforts on the site as well (they deserve it).
4. Using the next few months to design the crucial mechanical systems more fully will help our efficiencies with regards to man-power and eventually electrical consumption.
5. Peace of mind.

So, there we are.  Things are going to be moving forward, just a bit more prudently and with more time to reflect.  We hope to talk more about the ins and outs of the important decisions to come.  Share with you the struggles and highlights more effectively and keep our sanity as we do it all.  Talk to you soon,

Scott and Alex

Special Devilery for Moosicorn

So how do 3 guys get 2 500 lb. slabs of Caesarstone off the back of a truck?  Not so easily.

We ended up building a makeshift ramp… strapping it to the truck.  Breaking out the tractor and creating a sling with tie-down straps.  After a lot of sweat (thanks Rocky and Todd!), some rather tense moments and some very mediocre tractor handling on my part; we managed to get the slabs off the truck in one piece and stored away until they are installed sometime in the spring.

We camped out in the barn over the weekend (our first time not in the camper/gypsy camp together) and our new sleeping bags handled the 30 degree evenings like champs.

Also pictured below is the barn on a beautiful autumn day. Me, eating a great breakfast on the deck of the barn.  And, Sadie, wonder-dog extraordinaire and head foreman for the slab moving operation. Unfortunately no pics of Alex from the weekend… It’s a darn shame the one behind the camera is the most photogenic…

Moosicorn Photo to Be Published

This  photo of our site prep will be appearing in the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s Architecture Handbook. We were very honored when the Foundation (CAF) contacted us on Flickr about our image, “Measuring Building Site”.  Here’s a link to Moosicorn’s Fickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/moosicorn/

CAF is a non-profit organization “dedicated to advancing public interest and education in architecture and related design” (CAF). The Architecture Handbook, which will be released in the Fall of 2010, is an interactive web-based curriculum for high school students and their educators. The photo will appear in the building and land dimensions segment.

To learn more about CAF, visit their website: http://www.architecture.org/

Kitchen Layout

We taped out the layout of the kitchen to get a feel for its livability and functionality. We made a few minor changes in the kitchen and planned our cabinets in the pantry too. It was comforting to walk through our virtual kitchen before we purchased the products. We’ve got good triangulation and enough room to walk past someone at the sink or stove. Can’t wait to see it in! Oh wait…we still need to install the floor, electrical, plumbing, insulation, dry wall…one thing at at a time…

Next Page »