Monthly Archives: April 2012

Art and the City

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I’m just getting back into the routine of things after my vacation with my mom and I have to tell you… we had a BLAST!  Our adventure took us to Miami Beach, Florida and before arriving, I really wasn’t sure what to expect.  I guess my biggest impressions have been shaped by Hollywood: a place with bikini clad models, lavish parties and of course, Miami Vice.  So I was really excited to take a guided tour as a part of our trip and learn about the colorful history of the area.

Although the Art Deco style can be seen throughout South Beach, the actual Art Deco District is a one square mile area that is the home to over 800 buildings.  Built from the early 1920′s to the early 1940′s (pre World War II), they were heavily influenced by the design coming out of Paris in the 20′s. Many cities around the world have architecture inspired by this style, but they often put their own unique twist on it.  Our guide explained that the Miami Beach locals like to call theirs Nautical or Tropical Deco.

The distinct style of South Beach includes:

Shorter Buildings: Many are just two to three stories high and are designed so that store fronts and restaurants are at street level with art studios and apartment living above.

Eyebrows: Horizontal lines across the buildings shade its occupants in the high afternoon sun.  The “eyebrows” also give a visual movement similar to a steam engine.

A Vertical Stripe: This element breaks up the brow and leads the eye up.  It has a mini-skyscraper look and lends itself to creating a nautical vibe.

Nautical Ship Elements:  Portals (either glass windows or painted details) are present and often you’ll find a deck and mast coming off the roof.

Creative Corners: Several of the buildings are characterized by corner windows for cross breeze.  You’ll also find a lot of rounded corners.

Killer Flooring: The terrazzo floors were my favorite!  The concrete and chipped marble is everywhere and it’s common to see it laid out in decorative patterns with the building logo in it.

Stripes: Often in threes… whether it’s on the building or in the terrazzo.

Arcadias: These decorative archways make it easy to quickly escape a tropical rain or intense heat.

We learned a lot from our tour, but the real story is that much of what we enjoyed might have been lost if it wasn’t for a group of activists that fought to protect the area.  The historic Art Deco District preservation was lead in the 70′s by Barbara Capitman who recognized the significance of the area and the need to maintain it.  I love this gal’s vision and determination.  The district was the first to have the buildings preserved within the same century in which they were built.  At the time, many of the buildings were 50 years old or less… young by preservation standards.  But the wind and coastal air were already causing severe deterioration.  Barbara and her supporters jumped in to protect their story.

As a part of the district standards, the current owners are allowed to make upgrades to the interiors, but the facades and public areas need to be maintained in their original form.  It was amazing to get to see details like these as they were intended.

This keeps big developers from coming in and demolishing several buildings and putting up a high-rise in the area.  I think it’s particularly interesting that some larger hotels have purchased side by side buildings so that they can “group” them together and offer more amenities while still complying with the district guidelines.

Don’t get me wrong… I loved staying on the 32nd floor of our plush hotel, but I’m so glad that South Beach exists too.  I honestly can’t wait to go back and do some more exploring on my own.  It has an incredible history!

And let’s face it… the food and locale is pretty amazing too.

PS. Yeah… those last two are actual photos I took with my iPhone.  Told ya we had a BLAST!

You Say It’s Your Birthday…

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Ma, na, na, na, na, na, na, na…well, it’s my birthday too, yeah!  And my gift to you is a little song that will probably be stuck in your head for the rest of the day.  Yes!!

Birthday’s are incredibly fun in our home because my daughter goes into overdrive trying to make the day super special for the celebrated person.  Her spirit of hospitality is one of the things I adore about her.

This birthday is starting off amazing as the kids have a scheduled day off school.  It always makes me extra happy when they are home!  And that means a bit of sleeping late too. This morning I woke up to decorations…

And flowers.

The cherry on this birthday cake is that I’m heading out tomorrow for a girls trip with just my mom.  As I mentioned here, we don’t get to see each other often and we haven’t done a trip like this in literally FOREVER.  I can’t even tell you how thrilled I am.

Thanks for indulging me with this post and for reading ALL my ramblings.  I’m truly blessed by you!

Have a lovely week!

Mugs & Memories

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For those that follow Storypiece through RSS, email, Flipboard or WordPress you may have received a behind the scenes peek at an earlier draft of this post on Monday.  What you missed was me screaming at the computer, “Nooooooooo” as I realized I’d clicked the wrong button.  Awesome.  For those that aren’t following me, you might want to re-think that… you’re totally missing out on all my shenanigans.  So let’s try this again…

Growing up, I was always close to my Grandpa. Both my parents worked and so did my grandma and my retired grandpa provided child care for me and eventually my younger brother.  He was a fairly quiet man, not your typical playful grandpa, but my mom says I had him wrapped around my tiny finger early on.

My Grandparents | Storypiece.net

High School Graduation, 1988

Like many men of his generation, I don’t think he was really a shopper.  However, he would often be the one to buy my gift when holidays came around.  He died the Christmas right after my son was born, but he’d already picked up these mugs to give to me that year.

They’re a set of four mushroom mugs.  Normally, he would purchase little earrings for me so I’m not really sure why he looked at these and thought I needed to have them.

I’m not a fan of mushrooms or cute little garden stories.  In fact, I think these are pretty ugly… And at the same time, I love them so. They’ve moved with us several times and I can’t seem to part with them.

Since I’ve been really thinking about the William Morris quote, “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”, I was determined to embrace these guys and do something with them.  My grandpa loved his garden and I was always fascinated with the succulents in it.  And since they are everywhere right now, I thought it would be fun and fitting to plant succulents in them.

I picked up two varieties to play with.  The ones on the left are similar to what my grandpa had.  The ones on the right I liked in the store… not so much in the mug.  It looks like broccoli.  I also bought some flowers to give the table setting some height.

Okay… I seriously love this more than I thought I would.

I really like the springy, but neutral look… especially now that all the Easter decorations have been put away.  I opted for displaying only two of the planted mugs; all four was just too much.

My grandpa’s birthday was the day before mine and we always celebrated together.  Today he would’ve been 91. (Whoa!) Happy Birthday, Grandpa!  And thanks for the mugs… they are pretty great and remind me of you.

Studio Reveal: Part 2 – The Hub

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Welcome to The Hub! That’s such a weird name, but I’m not sure what else to call it. The command center? The heart and soul of Pixelgarden? Tyson’s Man Cave? Whatever you want to call it, it’s the primary spot you can find Tyson creating art most of his waking hours.

As I’ve mentioned here, we are in the process of remodeling my husband’s office and giving him a better functioning space.

We didn’t make as many changes in this part of the office, but we cleaned it up significantly which was really important. Currently, the biggest upgrades have been paint and new flooring and changing up the functionality of part of the space.

Look who dropped by during photo time.  Hello, handsome!

Tyson’s desk area is pretty much what he had before.

Structurally, we made a minor change by trimming up the closet space. There is a pipe that runs diagonally across the wall… I have no idea why. The previous owners framed and boxed it in, creating a triangular shelf that was odd to use. Tyson ended up updating the shelf and making it rectangular so that the printers fit nicely on it and he has storage for smaller items.

Most of the metal boxes under the shelf will be relocated to the cabinets being built in the lounge area.  It will streamline this area even more and we can’t wait!

The new space also gives him a sitting area within this nook. He now has a place to read and find inspiration.

I’m not gonna lie… It’s a pretty great spot.

We still have some additional updates that we’d like to do. We have plans to add closet doors to conceal the office supplies and equipment.  And we’re also planning on creating a rustic Pixelgarden Studios sign to hang over his desk. Thanks to Pinterest, I’ve found some tutorials on the process of distressing wood and I can’t wait to try it out. I’ll share more of those upgrades when we get to that point… Hopefully soon!