My Ranchburger is for Sale

At My Ranchburger: Slate coffee table with marble sculpture and hydrangea.

If you are also a reader of My Ranchburger, the blog, you know that Tall Husband and I have put My Ranchburger, the home, up for sale. The Bunny Bungalow will be our fulltime home. This was a difficult choice, as I have lived in My Ranchburger during and since my college days and raised a family and a step family there. So, the place is full of wonderful memories. I'm the second and third owner of the home (but that's another story.)

You may see the listing here. There will be an open House at My Ranchburger on April 18th, 2010, 2-4 PM for anyone who's looking for a great Houston home with great neighbors. The address is on the listing.

If you happen by My Ranchburger, don't forget to notice my favorite reading spot...the hammock under the shade of the old pecan tree.

Step by Step

Tall Husband and I have been attempting to come to a decision about where and how we will live as we approach retirement. We have visited other cities and looked at other houses and talked with other couples who have made these tough choices. In our situation, we find ourselves with two houses, My Ranchburger and The Bunny Bungalow, with contents which are very different in style. Downsizing is quite involved, for each house holds so many memories.

All your e-mails and comments have played a big part in helping us work our way to a decision. Some of you, like us, have grown children living far away, so friends are our immediate families; You pointed out the need to stay where friends are. Others indicated that there is life after change. A few of you, just flat out, said that we cannot sell The Bunny Bungalow. Some of you recommended making changes in small steps.

So, we have begun to take some small steps. In spite of hurricanes and the horrible heat, we will stay here in Houston with our friends...as a former military wife, I've had to part with too many friends. Then Tall Husband and I talked about houses. We agreed that staying in My Ranchburger makes financial sense, but the quirky, modest Bunny Bungalow has captured our hearts. Next we talked with our children to ask them to choose things from My Ranchburger, so that they may have them while we are still around to see them enjoyed.

And today, at The Bunny Bungalow, we took another step: we met with two wonderful architects to ask them to design us a garage with a studio, so as to add living space without changing the character of this old bungalow. We are off on a new adventure!

Thanks for all your support and sane advice. And know that there will be reports and photos of this adventure.

P.S. A magical coincidence: The architectural firm has on staff a person who loves and lives with bunnies...real ones!

First Love

I have previously shown you this little castle but did not make it clear that this was the first place with which I fell in love.  When I was just entering my teen years, I lived down the street from this limestone studio, which was built by Elizabet Ney, a nineteenth-century, German-born sculptor. Though Elizabet died long before I discovered her and her studio, her place was lovingly kept as she had left it.  Its keeper was a woman who recognized a young girl's feelings for this special place; a woman whom I chose to believe was really Elizabet, reincarnated so as to watch over things. As I was generously given full access to every nook and cranny of this magical place, along with all of Elizabet's wonderful stories, my girlhood still clings to its walls and that girl still climbs the spiral stairs to the tiny tower room.  As the little castle is now a museum, the adult me can also visit.

But now comes a time in life that brings pressures to choose between two places, each of which holds my things, my history, my stories: The Bunny Bungalow and My Ranchburger.  My heart is at the Bungalow, but my head and reason are at My Ranchburger.  Life choices are never easy and one can remember having made wrong ones.

Weekend Fun

Pure and Simple flowers at the Zamore Homes Open House were an inspiration.

Gotta love those Rice University students of architecture; they carry style right down to their toes.

This face just makes me happy. This is Pearl who was also out admiring the architecture at Zamore Homes Open House last Saturday.

"Excuse me. I think I've just spotted a new trend!"

Tall Husband and I were out and about this past weekend, enjoying the mild, sunny weather. We spent Saturday afternoon at the Zamore Homes Open House, photographing the Kit Homes for My Ranchburger blog. While there, we met some wonderful design fans including Pearl, who can smell a design trend before it hits the East coast.

Click on Photos to enlarge.

Hide!

"Hide" a painting at The Bunny Bungalow by Linda Hickerson-Hofheinz

There are still widespread power outages in the Houston Heights. We are lucky, as we have My Ranchburger and the electricity was restored there two days ago. However, our neighbors at The Bunny Bungalow are still in the heat, as they have no power and our "cold spell" has passed. It is now in the 90's (Fahrenheit) and humid. The air smells of rotting meat and other grocery items since the neighborhood supermarket was without power and threw away perishables which have not been hauled away. Tall Husband and I were searching under the bungalow for a dead animal before we realized we were downwind from the supermarket's dumpsters.

Our friends who were with us during Hurricane Ike now have electricity and have gone home. So I will find some Bunny Bungalow neighbors to stay with us at My Ranchburger until they have power.

Friends and Family have been wonderful to us. When we were without water and power they took us in. Thanks to all of you! We couldn't have survived without you. Also, thanks to our mayor, Bill White, for leading us in the "can do" recovery; thanks to AT&T for never going down; thanks to Entex (gas) for my hot showers in the dark; thanks to Centerpoint Energy for the super human task of powering us up again; thanks to our postal carriers for delivering the mail every day; thanks to the City of Houston for continuing garbage collection at our homes; thanks to all the thousands of workers who came from out-of-area to help mend our cities; thanks to our Houston Police and other law enforcement; thanks to KTRH radio station for your excellent service before, during and after Hurricane Ike. You all have families that you had to leave so you could help our families. Thank you and your families!

Comcast Cable and Internet: you may have noticed you are not on my "thank you" list. During all this Ike aftermath your radio ads told us how we should clean debris from around your equipment to make your job easier, then you sent us e-mails (e-mail I could only read when I used another provider's services as you are "down" in most areas) warning about your "Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)...AUP outlines acceptable use of our service..." Have you not noticed AT&T's new U-verse equipment for Internet and cable that has recently gone into our neighborhoods?

New Blog

Barcelona Chair (1929) Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; at DWR, Houston, Texas

My new blog, My Ranchburger, is named after my other home, a late fifties haunted (more about that later) ranchburger in Houston, Texas. I wanted a place in which to post about what I call modern minimalism.

In both of my homes many of the furnishings are from the early twentieth century (either original or reproductions of designs from that period.) In The Bunny Bungalow, most pieces are arts & crafts antiques or reproductions from Stickley; whereas, the pieces at My Ranchburger are modern, such as Le Corbusier or Marcel Breuer designs (reproductions from Cassina). These seemingly disparate styles surprisingly have in common the time period in which their designs were originally produced. With arts & crafts, the designers were looking backward, to a time when things were handcrafted. The designers of modern style, however, were looking to the future, so embraced industrial production. In spite of having been conceived in the same time period, the two styles seem to be in opposition to one another, yet they have in common a minimalist purity. Therein lies the reason a minimalist heart can love both styles.