Mid Century Modern Curb Appeal - Spring Plantings

I tell you, it's all in the prepwork. Since we've moved in, we've been dying to get our hands dirty and personalize our landscape with a little MCM style. If only we were in Palm Springs or even Hawaii we'd have an xeriscape-fest and an easy go with chosing super appropriate arid plants that maintain themselves. Instead we're in the Midwest, climate 'transition' zone 8/9 and our soil is a little finicky, and our particular area we are planting is a somewhat sunny, somewhat shady area. Couple this with a husband and wife trying to select plants we BOTH like, this landscaping stuff isn't always the easiest.

The first two years we didn't plant anything, really we just ripped things out. and pondered, and started raising kids, I digress. We finally poured the landscape walls last year, planted a bunch of bulbs at the sunny end, and looked at the very lonely Magnolia, wondering what should keep it company. Along the road of decision making, we were able to narrow down our agreed approach. We wanted a lot of color from spring until frost, we planned to plant geometrically, two square beds in front of the porch and linear lines of plants in front of the studio. Prepping the existing soil was also a task we tackled last fall, tilling and adding plenty of compost and manure.

We started with the 'anchor' plant that will eventually grow to screen the front of the house, Azalea. We picked a sweet pinkish fuscia color and got five of them. In front of the Azalea we went with the tried and true Phlox, along the front wall of the landscape bed, it will eventually cascade over and stay low to allow us to layer to the taller Azalea. A couple weekends ago, we planted these two plants for round 1. Made sure to add some peat moss and compost with the soil on the Azaleas. Both of these plants are early spring bloomers and hold their flowers for around a month, before giving us some green foliage for the remainder of the summer.

In the first few photos some of the flowers of both plants are still hanging around. It's interesting how much the gray of the house becomes a background color to the bright flowers. We're totally going for plush color continuity. One thing to note about our linear approach is it makes it easy to lay the plants out and space them, then time to dig. I always overdig the holes for our plants and mix in some compost and adjacent soil as I plant.

The color of the Azelea is intense, the photo here doesn't do the color justice. Some new growth already kicking in.

We bought 6 flats of creeping Phlox to go along the wall. This Phlox is the same color as the stuff we've had in our gray planter for a few years, proven to do well so we can't go wrong.

End of round 1 ended with a soaking rain chasing
me along planting the Phlox, no worries as the plants were welcomed by a good soaking, finally a little color a greenery.

The width of the front of our house is our reference width to space the plants by, eventually the Azalea will become a hedge along the front of the house. I'm debating shaping them into a giant rectalinear block, I still have time to think about it as it will take several years for them to rise up and mature.

Two weeks later and many trips to the local gardening centers we started round 2 of planting today. After looking at books, researching online, checking stock of desired plants found online we were ready to pull the credit card out. We decided on a couple of flowering annuals, Torenia and Browallia, a dozen of each. Both plants have purpleish flowers that will flower through fall = maximum value + they will mound and fill in.

Having all the dirt prepped and ready makes it easy to plant. Our soil in the planting bed has been referred to as black gold, as it's very soft and potent, ready for plants. The Torenia is a little lower of plant so it goes in front of the taller Browallia. Both are in rows in front of the Azalea filling the gap in front of the bed.

Messing around as work progresses, we can't wait until these flowers really start to take off.

About 45 minutes after unloading the car, the new plants were in ground and watered. Wendy and I cranked out some work quickly while the kids rested. From the street we now have a complete 'green' line in the planting bed. We also planted some Impatients around the Magnolia that will mound and overflow the bed in a couple of months, they start off small.

Here's a view of the linear vision in full effect. Gotta keep everything nice and aligned. Our next step is to plant some ground covering behind the Azalea to cover the remaining blank area. The area is almost full shade so we'll have to look at our options.

Spring Fever 2010 Mid Century Modern Landscape Style

Spring is here, the grass is well, mostly green, and the flowers are blooming. Some of the fruits of our curb appeal labor from fall are starting to pay off. Its been awhile since posting much about the house, but things are moving steadily in the background. Over the course of the winter we discovered a roof leak in the studio space still left to be finished. The roof leak halted all efforts interior wise for some long term reassessment of what we're going to do.

Long story short, we have decided to do some major work to the house consisting of having our entire roof redone, like ripped down to the joists, insulate the entire roof cavity and put on a commercial grade level of roof that actually drains, I'm really tired of sweeping. We're also going to replace a bunch of glass with thermal glazing, redo the hardwood floors, and finish the studio . . finally. Previously we had left the house it was a Ben Dombar designed home, we have just confirmed our house is in fact a Abrom Dombar designed home, just gotta have my facts straight.

Onward to the house and spring photos. So, in the first photo you can notice the salt damage on the curb were there is no grass, yet beyond, the colors of spring have started to contrast the grey color nicely, did I mention I love grey? We had planted over a 100 bulbs in the front long planter, many of which have come up and started to bloom. Our phlox is overflowing out of our gray planter just started blooming as well. The magnolia and cherry trees are already out of flowers.

This past weekend we got out our green thumbs and got to work on the small planter to the left of the front door. After moving the gray planter closer to the door, we have planted some blue hyacinths with some recycled iris, around our planter we've planted impatients, which will grow and overflow way out the planting bed in about a month, they grow well in this spot. We still have yet to repair the grass damage done around pouring the concrete planters, but seed is in place.

Next up we are starting to look at what to do in the long landscape bed. We have established that all of the plants will be placed in a linear format along the open front up to the Magnolia tree and we want a huge mix of seasonal color. To start we have got some azaleas to anchor the middle of the bed. We are going to do phlox along the front of the planter all the way down in front of the tree, more on our progress soon.

Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy Conference CF3 Kick Off Event

Spring is here, and so begins the CF3 event season. This Saturday, April 17th, CF3 members and fellow Cincinnati Wrightists will tour Frank Lloyd Wright's Boswell Residence in Indian Hill. The Boswell house is one of three in Cincinnati and one of Wright's largest completed houses. I have not seen the house in person, so we are looking very forward to the occassion, although we're still looking for a babysitter. An audio slideshow of the house can be found here, narrated by CF3 board member Chuck Lohre. Some other eye candy on the right starts with some exterior shots of the entry.

Cincinnati Modernation turns 1

Wow, one year, 36 posts, and several projects later, Cincinnati Modernation hits its one year mark as of the beginning of April. Thanks to all my readers for showing kind support as we navigate our way through the trials and errors of home renovation. The original post that began Cincinnati Modernation can be found here for your reading amusement. Let's look back at a throwback round of photos from when we first moved in, almost 5 years ago.

The always framed photo of Wendy and I, sans kids, posing in front of our first house. Note the fake green shutters on the windows and the full effect green on beige in the background.

This shot of our dining area directly reflects our small apartment contents struggling to fill the space. Sorry, these totally awesome, errrr 'Gened Up' ceiling fans are no longer available. Glass block railing, carpet in the entry, and no color in the white space yet.

Red and white furniture color scheme long gone, what the heck is that bronze fabric hanging on our window? We did have slat blinds when we moved in, and promptly removed them, Gene be gone.

This place looks lonely, no art or photos. Wendy looks pretty stressed, watching TV on the floor. The ceiling lights must be giving her a headache, they sure do give me one just looking at this picture, the improved installation looks much better.

Alas a few months in, art collection in effect, and a trip to Ikea later, we were well on our way to modern living. The door to and wall to the studio being gone really opens the living area up even more.

Danish Wall Units

Lately, in the wake of the modern show, I've been dreaming of a Danish Wall unit for our new studio space and/or living room. Of course, the current roof leak in the 'yet to begin actual work studio space' means let's buy large pieces of art and gawk at large expensive pieces of furniture you can't afford, yet sometimes its nice to dream. More on the roof later. Scouring through some Ebay and Craigslist listings, there's a wide range of options to wet the appetite.

Honestly, I'd like to have a couple of smaller units for the bedrooms down the road, a large Danish piece would be perfect to replace our current Ikea entertainment center. The first and only corner unit is the only one I've seen has plenty of storage. The classic wall unit by George Nelson for Herman Miller would require a loan from the bank to purchase, it does look nice either way. One thing to consider is whether the unit will be freestanding, mount floor to ceiling, or mount floor to wall, all options are could be considered in our case. Most of these photos are either Ebay or Google images. The folks over at Gresham Butte Rummer just installed a Craigslist find in their modern, perhaps I could be so lucky as to find a nice Danish wall unit within a 300 mile radius, yes I would drive that far for one.

Margaret Wenstrup Score

Starting with Charley Harper's work, we have slowly begun to evolve our taste in modern art as we oh so slowly collect when opportunity knocks. Recently a couple of local online auctions have shown me another world of optical art, 'op-art', in the works of Noel Martin and Margaret Wenstrup. Along with Charley Harper & other Mid Century Modern graphic artists, all these artists were products of the Art Academy of Cincinnati and helped lead a new era of vivid art. Margaret Wenstrup was the first female artist to win a Wilder Scholarship, and studied with another MCM art pioneer, Ralston Crawford in New York.

It was not coincidence that this auction coincided with last weeks 20th Century Cincinnati Show. So I bid on over a dozen pieces hoping to score at least a small piece. Most of Wenstrup's work really strikes me with her bold use of color and large scale work. I ended up winning a large 1967 Original Acrylica on Canvas Diptych piece that also hung proudly at the CAC in a recent exhibit. I temporarily propped it up on our living room mantle to show a sense of how large and dominant the piece is. We are planning to anchor our new studio space with this piece, ultimately there are only two or three spots in the house it could really fit.

To my understanding, with Margaret's recent passing, her family is auctioning of a majority of her work and estate. We were lucky enough to score these two pieces. This is the large signature on the back of the large piece.

The second piece is a 1957 Original Cast Plaster mod sculpture piece in collaboration with Preston McClanahan. It's almost a flat tile about 3/4" thick and weighs about 6 pounds, not an easy piece to hang. In thinking of what to do with it, we might have to carve out a place in our plaster walls to inset it in as a 'built-in' feature. It could also work sitting on the mantle once the Charley Harper pieces are finally framed. Talk about priorities!

Detail shot of the cast plaster piece.