Many of my regular readers may be wondering what the heck I've been up to. It's been a harried past couple of months, full of big life changes. Now that things are starting to slow down I'm ready to give an update.  

First off, I'm now officially an Austinite! There was a pretty short list of places I would leave SLC for, and Austin was one of them. So is it as awesome as everyone says it is? Yep. Pretty much. That is if you are into the whole delicious food, amazing bars, great people, sort of thing. I've been charging through all the hot spots and finding my favorites. It's a long list.

Second, after 10 years in healthcare I'm finally following my dreams and getting into real estate. As of last week, I'm officially a licensed real estate agent in the state of Texas. Yeee haaaaww! I plan on specializing in modern and mid century modern homes in the Austin area, so if you know someone looking to buy or sell send them my way.  

Ohh, and last but not least, I got a cat. His name is Talisker.  

East Side King food truck

Franklin BBQ

A glass of Talisker.

A cat named Talisker. 

Here is a Kickstarter project that was destined for success from day one. First off it's designed by one of my favorite designers Eric Pfeiffer. Second, it holds wine, which everyone loves. Third, it looks great. The fantastic photos that accompany it don't hurt at all either. The STACT modular wine rack is made of aluminum and your choice of wood, and is a modular system that can grow and move with you. It puts your bottles on display, and equally important, close at hand. 

The Kickstarter project still has 28 days to go and has already doubled the funding it needs to get off the ground.  Mark my words folks, this is your chance to get it for a great deal. After this I bet it will still be produced but prices will go up.

STACT modular wine rack, starting at $95.

In Store Designer is a new video blog that has recently been started by Eric Meeks. Eric used to run a blog called Modern Self that had some great content, as well as some amazing DIY tips. His apartment was a semi-finalist on Apartmenttherapy's Smallest Coolest contest back in 2007. Needless to say, I'm expecting big things from Eric this time around. Hopefully he'll stick with it for the long run. I would love to see a steady stream of quality design video's. The first one is up on his new site, check it out and let us know what you think.

In Store Designer

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Last week I touched on the subject of stock modern house plans. I wanted to throw one more hat into the ring. Dialect Design is an up an coming architectural duo based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. Both founders John Nourbakhsh and Toby Witte have an international background and an obvious love for modern design. On their website they have 3 modern stock plans available with one more (a 60k house) on the way. Full floorplans can be reviewed before purchasing as well as the estimated price per square foot to build. All the plans claim a $105 sq/ft construction cost but I'm sure that price would balloon depending on where you live. Prices for stock plans start at $1,400 and include 6 printed sets of drawings with all the usual goodies.

Modern stock house plans from Dialect Design.

I've been watching modern stock house plans on the internet for a while now. For a long time architect Greg La Vardera was the only decent source, but yesterday I was reading my friends post over at TheArchitectureProgram.com and was surprised to find that there are quite a few decent modern stock plans out there. Houseplans.com had the biggest variety of modern plans with prices ranging from $400 to over $4,000. Of course if money is an issue, make sure you check out Free Green who has some great contemporary house plans that are absolutely free.

Via The architecture program

Houseplans.com

Freegreen.com

Lamidesign (Greg La Vardera)

Because you just can't get enough of the genius of Charles and Ray Eames....

Via Smashing Telly