Even after two years, I've still only hung a single piece of art in my loft. I've been overly selective about what I wanted in there. The enormous scale of the place with the large open main area and 18.5 foot ceilings dwarf almost any painting. The loft is already full of wood, metal, brick and other busy textures, so anything but the simplest paintings can look cluttered.
A while back, The Accordion Player rescued a giant canvas from an unnamed location. I'm not sure what inspired us to finally do something with it, but I eventually came up with a picture in my head that I thought would compliment the entire loft. We set to work, and here is the result:
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If you've picked up the most recent issue of Birmingham Magazine you might recognize the setting of the fashion shoot. After doing a story on my place last year, our friends over at the magazine decided it would make a perfect setting to show off some swanky clothing. Here are some of the photos that didn't make the magazine.
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The crew of "Behind You" showed up at my place early this morning. "Behind You" is an independent film directed by Rebecca Pugh and filmed by Joe Walker with the help of some other great people.
I don't want to give anything away about the plot, but I'm sure you'll be able to catch it at Sidewalk Film Festival next year. The story is very cool and the production values are above and beyond your average short film. Joe explained all the technology, which I will recite here: it's filmed on a ds-err-etch-blem with eccity-eccity-ooo. The lighting is something also special, apparently.
The crew was fired up and it was fun to watch them set up the equipment. Here's a few pictures of the setup.
The LivBirmingham Loft Tour still needs volunteers to greet visitors and give directions. Please consider showing off our friendly neighborhood!
Rebecca Pugh and Joe Walker are making a new short film. Most of the story takes place in an apartment. When they asked to shoot in my loft, I said "Heck yeah!" After talking to them this weekend, this sounds like a really ambitious project using state of the art cameras, flying in an actress from across the country, and submitting to all the big time international film festivals. The script looked great, and I can't wait to watch the movie!
You can see some more pictures on Rebecca's blog: http://rebeccapugh.wordpress.com/2013/04/20/location-location-location-indiefilm/
Last Sunday the accordion player and I decided to redesign the closet. The original walk-in closet design was enormous, but as we added a washer and dryer, and all of the home control, security systems, and media hardware, "enormous" became "yeah, that's pretty big."
We raised the original hanger rods and shelves to 80 inches, and added a second rod and shelf below one side at 40 inches high. Under the other rod we put in a shoe rack. We almost doubled the closet capacity and now it looks a lot less cluttered.
Our next step is to reconfigure the media rack to be more compact, and add a few more shelves along with racks for ties and belts.
Happy Valentine's Day!
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I never posted an overall finished tour of my loft the way I did for El Barrio. I always meant to get around to it, but was waiting until I could afford to update some of my furniture. Also I'm lazy. So when an old friend of mine from Birmingham Magazine called me asking to do a feature on my loft, I jumped at the chance to not have to write a blog post. You can read the article here and see the photo gallery here.
The upper floor of the Counts Brothers Building is home to 2nd Avenue Storage. Until recently customers have used keys to enter and exit. This week we installed proximity card readers to increase security. Cards are serialized and entrances are recorded so that we know who is coming and going, and access can be more easily revoked if the need should arise.
In other news, El Barrio has begun outdoor seating, taking advantage of the covered recess leading to the doorway of 2nd Avenue Storage and my loft. It's a nice place to enjoy the spring weather!
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I spent a lot of time describing the construction of the rotating TV wall. However, I recently realized that I had never actually posted a picture of the wall with the TV and speakers installed. The TV is 70" and can be viewed easily from anywhere in the main area of the loft: kitchen, dining area, or entertainment area. When the wall is facing the entertainment area (as shown in this picture) the surround sound speakers in the walls opposite of the TV turn on. The sound is controlled by a Control4 controller, and was installed locally by Interscapes. Sound and music can easily be routed to anywhere in the loft.
I got a partial Certificate of Occupancy last week, and I'm thrilled to announce that I'm living in my loft. I haven't had time to move any furniture in, so I'm set up somewhat camp style, sleeping on an air mattress and living out of unpacked boxes. I've posted about the lit countertops before, but being there at night allowed me to take this incredible picture that really shows off the idea of a forge:
Birmingham's background as a steel producing city inspired the molten metal look of the countertops as well as the steel cabinetry.
Not only have I moved in, but so have my first self storage customers. In fact, they liked it so much they got a second unit. Welcome John and Mabel Tingley!
In a final bit of Counts Brothers news, Operation New Birmingham brought in The Birmingham News to do an article on the building last Friday. You can read it here.
