Mushroom Redux
I went up to the mushroom building today, and it was oddly quiet up there, now that the exterior work is finished. Two units are now for sale, the first of which having dropped its price by $100,000. As my brother is also discovering to his untold chagrin, the market for high-end view properties is still quite frozen; intangibles like a view seem to be the first thing people are willing to sacrifice, or certainly not pay a lot more for, in uncertain times. The unit I worked on has turned out quite lovely; the owner even has his garage back, and I was just there to do paint touch-ups and replace some hinges.
Of course, nothing is ever that simple at the mushroom. I was using a 1/8″ drill bit to pre-drill the screw holes, and because the wall is, naturally enough, a bit out of level the door wouldn’t stay put, and while I reached for something to wedge it in place, the bit rolled on the sloping floor and into the equally unsurprising 1/4″ gap between the baseboard and the floor. I could not retrieve it, of course, but luckily I had a backup. Once re-hinged, the door would no longer close properly and I had to shim two of the hinges. It’s still not quite right, but when I replace the doorknob, make a few strikeplate adjustments, and maybe replace the misaligned weather stripping as well, those things ought to do the trick. A fifteen minute job now at over an hour and requiring a few, if not several, more. Ah, well.
Anyway, I took some pictures of the street facade of the building, my little spaceship window creation, (It was my idea to box it in wall to wall with wood and paint it dark to draw the eye to the view…) and the gleaming refinished floors, all of which have elicited favorable comments from visitors, according to the owner. The floors, which had been blonde maple, are now stained in a rich coffee brown, an unusual choice made by the owner’s daughter that was a roaring success, in my humble opinion.
If you missed the earlier, funnier posts on this building, they are in archive, categoried under Day Job: ”Is That Green Shag Original? and “The Mushroom Planet.” They describe the project more fully.
I find this building fascinating. The hinge -> door knob -> strike plate -> weather stripping… and, you wonder if you won’t wind up right back at the hinge… or, have to tear out the wood boxed window.
I had to go back ad read the comments at Mushroom Planet, and I laughed just as hard as I did the first time. Jim Montague’s
for the win.
Of course, earthquakes aren’t funny. Neither are tornadoes. But, sometimes when confronted with the aftermath – once you make sure the dog and grandma are okay – all you can do is laugh in a kind of wide-eyed wonder. If this thing were to head for the bottom of the hill, I bet it launches first.
Because there was still a bunch of heavier work being done on the building when I was there, I would occasionally feel a vibration and glance nervously at the chandelier to see if it was swinging. There’s always fear, and sometimes humor (usually dark) in remodeling, but at the mushroom, a lot more of both.
I don’t think I caught all of the comments from your earlier piece on the ‘shroom, but I can certainly sympathize with the one small job creating a dozen others business. Anything that Richard does in our old, humble abode is always like that. And always entails at least three trips to the hardware store (or whatever other type of store is involved) before completion.
It really has turned out quite lovely.
Why thank you… I didn’t, of course, delve outside my work area, where the 70′s come out thumping like Gloria Gaynor. Nor have I ever ridden in the Wood-paneled elevator; looks dangerous.
Nice work, Tony… if we ever get our own headquarters, we’ll have to let you make most of the important rehab decisions.
And as you can see, the joint doesn’t have to be either well built or somewhat normal; it still can be made to at least look like we meant it.
Hey… maybe we need a “virtual” space. What do you think, Tone? Say the use of a conference room and a touch-down office space in CHNN headquarters?
When it comes to buildings, I sadly never get to do them in the “virtual” mode. I’m not entirely sure I’d know how. All the crookedness, unsoundness, and disasters only unfold in real time.
But I do have people all over the country, even the world, whose spaces I can at least analyze with a picture or two, and they’re always happy for that, too. But the proof’s always in the pudding.
There’s a vacancy next door, now that Aaron is leaving, which would make a great studio, and actually has a slightly better view down the park.
I’d grab it, if I were an heiress.
I’m the world’s biggest Frank Gehry fan, which I suspect would leave the Hag aghast. (Please don’t hurt me, I can’t help it.)
Anyway, I made a number of pilgrimages to downtown LA to watch the Walt Disney Concert Hall going up. At one point, when the framing was almost complete, a hard hat eating his lunch on a tailgate noticed me standing there, on the opposite side of the street — as close as I could get — and we struck up a conversation. The frame — you can’t call it beams and columns, exactly — looked like like a cross between a colander and the box-girder structural cage of a Le Mans racer, with hollow stainless-steel girders bent and welded in a seemingly irrational lattice that didn’t have a square joint in it anywhere.
Man, says I to the hard hat, he must drive his structural engineers crazy.
He’s only got one, says the hard hat, worked with him for years, they tell me.
Ah, says I, that makes sense. Is it hard to work on? (He was a welder, as it turned out.)
Nah, he says, you get used to it. And the guy’s always here to tell us where the pieces go.
Something for the CHNN architectural supplement, Hagele. No names, please.
I attended the Philharmonic there a couple of years ago, and while the hall itself is a masterpiece, the lobbies are a confusing mixture of sci-fi and Bugs Bunny. And, like most buildings in downtown LA, it presents an unwelcoming presence on the street. Apparently LA hard hats are more talkative than the NY variety…
Ah, love, every building in LA presents an unwelcoming presence on the street in. There aren’t any transitions, you see — a river of rushing metal twenty feet away from the entrance tends to do that.
LA is for cars, not people, except in the little neighborhoods tucked away from the main streets — many of them from the twenties — which you can find all over town. (If you look, that is.) Century City was an attempt to go the other way — a gaggle of enormous tombstones set in a park. I suppose they were going for a kind of monumental serenity far from the smoke and the roaring. What they wound up with, unfortunately, was a kind of Forest Lawn for giants.
My ex and I used to go to a pizza place in the Sunset Plaza area, where there were tables on the too-narrow sidewalk right near the roaring, speeding traffic. They’d always ask, “Would you like to sit outside?” My invariable response, “Are you kidding?”
Tina – The Colonel’s house ain’t moving yet either –
Mushroom or Corn Stalk – what would you live in?
love,
T
She may someday recall with wistful fondness that insulting offer; probably when the tax bill arrives. (Don’t tell the Colonel I said that, lest I be tossed on a plane again…) Turd is once again talking about a buyout, which will inevitably lead to a battle over price.
A choice of lose/loses. How was Switzerland, Tina?