Home Tour 2007!

Some of you may know that we are on the Minneapolis/St Paul Home Tour, which is this weekend. This has been, oh, just a little stressful getting ready. The remodeling project is literally finishing today- there is still some painting left to do, and putting on a few cabinets. A bit of trim left to go on. The sink in the powder room was just hooked up this morning. And it also means we are finally unpacking, and the house starts to look like it belongs to us instead of some people camping out while re-modeling!

So I thought I'd post some photographs of some of my favorite parts of the house...

This is perhaps what I am most proud of in the house, personally (meaning I did it, not you know professional remodeling types / designers. It's a "living wall," made by ELT Easy Green, and is essentially a garden in vertical space. Nifty, huh? It's in our dining room and I decided it would be nice to put all my botanical-type prints around it, on that corner. Including a Silene latifolia botanical drawing (from Ingrid, Thanks, Ingrid!) and a Geranium maculatum watercolor (from Erica, for my PhD graduation, Thanks, Erica!).







From the kitchen, we have this close-up of the tile work, that covers the whole area behind the stove and beyond. Then there is a photo of the cabinets with the awesome paint job (and a bit of the dishwasher on the left). Cool, huh?


This floor lamp is made by Fire & Water in NYC, and is made of recycled copper and brass. Also by Fire & Water is the hanging lamp above our dining room table. That one is also made of recycled materials, and bamboo.


Our dining room table is made of recycled copper, which is hammered and subjected to a number of heatings, to create the patina that is original to each piece made. We love it! Under the dining room table are carpet tiles by Flor, a really great company which makes modular carpet - very modern aesthetic and "design-it-yourself" and this means that there is little waste, they use recycled and recyclable materials, and have low VOC (volatile organic compounds). The company itself is striving to be ever more green in its practices.


And now we turn to the bathroom.
Just last night I took a nice long bath in my gorgeous bath tub, with candles and bubble bath and dimmed lighting and all. Is there any other heaven on earth? I don't think so!


Someone or other requested that we show a photo of the completed vanity, made of hickory and remnant marble. So here's that, AND the photo of the cabinet that Michael designed to hold the compressor washer/dryer and various drying racks and a folding surface for Eric (who does all the laundry in our house). Snazzy, huh?!



A final touch in the bathroom which is lovely is the eco-resin window between the tub and the shower, to which I have added little glasses of living grass.