What are you doing for New Year?

[PZ]

Well, here are a few pics of the good food and fun:

Everyone is enjoying plenty of food
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Afterward, just like good old people, the food coma set in as we each took a comfy chair and watched Downton Abbey
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I redid my wine barrel with a glass table top. I purchased that barrel at a winery for $10, and it makes a great tasting/pouring table. This party is the first time I have used the cellar for an event. The cellar is right off the main living space where we eat and watch TV.
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The bonfire is hot, bright, and the night is cold.
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[Art Blade]

nice. Looks comfy

The highlight was probably the first view of the socks of the guy on the sofa.

[PZ]

 

[fragger]

I like the little railway line running around the coffee table

Looks marvellous, PZ. You have a lovely home The old barrel really works in that spot, nice one.

lol "Food coma" Yep, I'm highly susceptible to those... There should be an Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing the right for anyone over 50 to blob out after dinner

Meanwhile, here in the antipodes, it's sweltering. Yesterday the temperature in western Sydney hit 47°C (116°F). Wasn't quite that hot up out way, but it was close. I slept on top of the bed in nothing but my jocks with the window wide open and the ceiling fan going. It's another stinker today, and even though I've completed the "w0#k for the Dole" program I was on, I threw some freeze bricks into a cooler bag, went to the supermarket, bought a pile of flavoured ice blocks, put them in the cooler bag and drove down to the w0#k site to play Ice Samaritan for the guys I worked with, who are still at it in this heat. Needless to say, I was probably the most popular man in town today

They're good blokes and I felt for them. I'm really grateful I'm not out doing that at this time of the year, I'll tell you. Poor buggers. Doesn't cost me much - this particular supermarket chain (Coles) have their own extensive range of own-brand goods, and these ice-blocks on a stick (very much like the American Popsicles) come in a box of 20, in a mixture of four different flavours, for a mere $2.50. They're really refreshing on a day like this. I came home with only a couple left - the guys went at them like ants on a cake

[Art Blade]

"cool" story, fragger

[PZ]

Indeed fragger; very thoughtful and generous 

[mandru]

Good on ya fragger. 

The term Popsicle leaves me wondering what a Momsicle would be but then I probably don't really want to know. 


PZ, I really like the layout of your living space there.  In the houses I blocked out in an old home design program I had I favored using a Great Room concept that inclusively brought the kitchen into the rest of the main entertaining parts of the home whether it's the dining area, a family room, or simply space that a group engaged in an activity could gather without excluding those who were attending to food preparation.

I've spent a lot of time at parties hanging out in kitchens talking to (or helping when I could) the people actually providing the heart of the gathering. 

Also the decorative window into your air conditioned garde-manger de vin (larder of wine/wine pantry  ) is a thoughtfully laid out touch of class as well. 

[PZ]

Thanks mandru! 

We thought the same when we purchased this house 30 years ago, and for the time, the design was unheard of in my rural area where the kitchen is typically a tiny cubicle sequestered from the living spaces as if it were something to be ashamed of. Living rooms were also places filled with plastic covered furniture that one rarely if ever visited.

The guy that built my place did so for his own family back in the 1970s. He had an interesting history; a Seabee in the Pacific theater in the second world war, he had an innovative way of looking at the world because of the large scale of his projects. When he came to Idaho in the 1950s, he took what was was formerly pasture land on the edge of a lake, bulldozed it out in the winter when the lake level was low, and viola, in the spring when they closed the dam to bring up water level in the lake, he had instant extra mile or more of waterfront property. He built "A" frame summer homes on his new shoreline and made lots of money.

The house he built for himself (now my house) was built on the hillside overlooking the newly formed bay. Because of his nontraditional way of looking at the world, he built the home purely for family livability - kitchen and living space all one big room with fireplace (no traditional living room). We get to enjoy exactly what you described - family gatherings and other get-togethers where people migrate in and out of the kitchen, eat at the bar, play games at the table, or enjoy a recliner in front of the TV - all in the same large living space. For us, it is truly the best design we can imagine because it perfectly suits our lifestyle, and no physical spaces are wasted.

[BinnZ]

Nice Pics PZ!!

And good eye for detail guys! Can I top that? Guess not

I do like the statue (bronze?) on the cabinet; that horse who just got rid of its rider Quite metaphorical I'd say

[nex]

Nice pictures PZ

And I like the whole setup, reading on how your house came about,
I'd love to see it for myself, specially the view you have.
You are a very fortunate man my friend   

[PZ]

Thanks guys!