Mongo Deco

Kitchen @ MDHQ: East wall progress

swoops — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:33:27 +0000

The kitchen was a particularly challenging room. Our old kitchen is set in the back corner of the house, next to the library, and has little room to expand. We decided to move the kitchen forward, removing a shower stall in the downstairs bathroom and pushing the wall out to make space for the new kitchen. The kitchen has concrete floors and counters, ash cabinets, salvaged tile and sink, and new Energy Star appliances. Kitchen is still in progress, but here’s a little sampling of what we’ve done so far.

Master Bath @ MDHQ

swoops — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:22:17 +0000

Our master bath was the first and possibly the nastiest room we gutted. We removed five layers of carpet, linoleum, and wood before reaching the subfloor (and carpet that’s been down in a bathroom for 20+ years? you can imagine.) We had to change the space around to fit a double sink and jacuzzi tub, so we built a custom shower in the northeast corner, dropped double sinks into a vanity, and miraculously lifted a 500-pound 1970’s Kohler jacuzzi up our steps. We also experimented with mosaics in the upper section of our custom shower, collecting miscellaneous remnants of white tile an arranging them in a random pattern with thick gray grout lines.

Library: finished

swoops — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 07:32:03 +0000

As collectors of books and records, we needed a storage solution that could support our habits for years to come. We’d both always wanted a library, and thought hard about how we might create high wood shelves in an economically sustainable way. We ended up finding a way to use ash from a standing dead tree (claimed by the emerald ash borer.)

Our library uses ash wood for the shelves and other reclaimed woods throughout: the aged beams which offer structural reinforcement were salvaged from an old barn in Michigan, our floor was reclaimed from a demolished shoe factory, our door was taken from an old school in Indiana, wood from the attic was repurposed below once the ceiling was removed, antique fixtures and furniture throughout

Library: details

swoops — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 06:56:42 +0000

Library before + afters

swoops — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 23:57:49 +0000

Sitting room off master bedroom: a photo journey

swoops — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:40:00 +0000

Upstairs hall (leading to master bedroom) @ MDHQ

swoops — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:14:38 +0000

There was a small 6×6 room at the end of the upstairs hall which was not quite big enough to be a bedroom (although we have heard tale from a previous renter of it being used as such - he had to cut his mattress to fit inside) but a bit too much for a closet. We decided to attach the room to the master bedroom as a sitting room (see more at the master bedroom project.) We covered the doorway, creating an inset bookshelf on the other side, and put leaded glass windows facing into the sitting room and above the stairs, which provide interesting pass-though daylighting on both sides of the wall.

Resurfacing+refinishing the stair @ MDHQ

swoops — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:40:19 +0000

Years of wear, carpet adhesive, and general grime made the stairway and front hall of the MDHQ seem anything but grand, but under all that we knew the beautiful original 1900s banister and lovely step detail might clean up ok. We won’t go into detail about the removal process for old hardened carpet adhesive, but it was most unpleasant. The simple resurfacing and repainting of our front hall and stairway created a grand entrance to the MDHQ.

Gallery Renovation @ MDHQ

swoops — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:15:05 +0000

As you probably know, MDHQ (the former Bad Idea) was originally a co-op, and thus, many of the rooms were divided to create additional private rooms. The large front room at MDHQ was initially broken into two odd, l-shaped rooms. The l-shaped rooms were cramped, cluttered with sleep lofts, and dark (since the windows in the rooms were chuked apart with the l-shaped partition.) We removed the partition, sanded and refinished the original 1900’s wide plank floor, and redecorated the room with salvaged materials. The gallery is envisioned as a flexible space that we can change and adapt to fit our needs, it’s first use will likely be a live-work gallery for visiting artists (more about our vision of a residency program to come.) We left the graffiti on the gallery’s front entrance door as a tribute to the former Bad Idea house.

Salvage Decoration at the Bluish Barn

swoops — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:20:42 +0000

The Bluish Barn is a house in Ann Arbor that hosts public movie screenings and other events. Since the tenants were unable to make any permanent changes to the house’s structure or surfaces, Mongo Deco was tasked with furnishing to fit an existing layout and color scheme. The small space had to be a comfortable place for three friends to live and work while also accommodating larger crowds.