illustrations for life

 Our efforts in restoring our home continue to excite us and frustrate us simultaneously. I've been hoping to post some before/afters of the upstairs when we've reached the point of finally being able to use it as living space. It's definitely getting there, but difficulties with giant floor-sanding machines have left us in a holding pattern once more.

Drawing inspiration from newspapers continues to push me to seek the weird among the bizarre. No doubt, one day we will all find a home.

pet sounds

Tis the season for applying bunny ears to your canine pals. 

Enjoy this magic moment.

groove crews

We at the rockey home are just coming down from our weeklong recuperation from our weeklong vacation from working on ye olde homestead. It's been difficult to get back into the groove, but if we're going to prove our love we're going to have to get up on our feet and step to the beat. Boy, that's what it will be. 

In other news, the sun is shining and the mammoth icicles hanging from our home are melting and falling and making terrifying yet glorious noises. They fall with an unsuspecting rhythm that would make lovers of street dancing hoodlums. It feels enough like spring that miranda is cleaning house whilst i draw and scan images for a secret forthcoming collaboration. The introspective couple that you see illustrated here have nothing to do with any of that. Dig it, you wild and free bohemians.

timeline fotos

the purple room

We started setting goals for completing the bedrooms upstairs. They may have been a bit difficult to meet on time, but they've kept us hammering away. We started with the purple room. The drywall went up on the ceiling like hot-buttered soul which led us to believe that finishing it would be easy breezy one two threezy. I will mos def declare that after layers of patient mudding and hours of sanding, the ceiling looks spectacular. Miranda definitely took the award for most valuable player on this one. 

After the ceiling was primed and painted, we made some repairs on some cracks and bulges in the original plaster walls. We hung a customized hunter fan. We ripped up the purple carpet to expose the hardwood floors. We primed and painted the walls. The room isn't one hundred percent complete yet, but it's getting remarkably close. The transformation has inspired us greatly. Voila!

We've already started moving on to work on the green room which should look something like this in a couple more weeks. Hopefully before spring we'll be actually using the upstairs for living space.

Slowly, our broken house is becoming a home.

i am bleeding, hear me rawr

Collaboration is the name of the game. For thirteen years now, i've given home-recorded and assembled gifts to family and friends during the holiday season. Some of these collections of song were assembled over a period of time. Some were written and recorded within the two months leading up to christmas eve. Some have been collaborations with family and friends. One particular project was a collaboration with my four-year-old daughter. This year, i asked the people of the internets to flood my inbox with song requests. I then asked folks to vote on the songs that they would most like for me to record. 

After the voting ended, my wife and kids and i migrated north to settle into a century-old house in need of a whole lot of love. Eventually, the list of songs elected by the people of the internets began reminding me of the project that i'd promised to deliver. Late nights and early mornings became prime time for recording these modern day standards until lo and behold i gave birth to a short stack of compact discs. I'm thankful for all those who took the time to participate in this project. It was challenging, inspiring, and a whole lot of fun to make after spending so much time hammering away at this old house. Enjoy this aural monstrosity RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.

Welcome to the new year, beautiful broken people!

salvaging, part one

The family recently discovered Franklin Heritage, Inc. in downtown Franklin just a hop, skip and a pancake down the way from our monstrosity of a home. We happened upon them whilst searching for skeleton keys on ye olde craigslist and thought it might be a trove of treasure just waiting for our grubby little paws to sift through. After spending a great deal of time staring at schoolhouse lights on the internets, Miranda Jane was delighted to find a salvaged globe and fixture that i purchased for a few bones. "Happy birthday."

We then decided to spend the afternoon touring several antique shoppes along Jefferson Street right in the heart of downtown Franklin. We're still living amongst quite a bit of chaos in the house which makes it difficult to know what might go where. Also, having two curious, can't-look-without-touching youngsters along makes antique shopping slightly trickier than a run to the grocery store. Though we weren't ready to commit to any big ticket items, we did grab a few flashcards bearing the kids initials and some avian-inspired illustrations. 

Purchased for fifty pennies each at Salvage Sisters' Antique Market. 

Suitable for framing.