Hopefully you're enjoying some fine, fine springtime weather wherever you find yourselves. Us? We live in Kansas so the chances of that happening are hovering somewhere around 1%. And since we decided to start a business that requires working outside, they've dipped down to something like 0.0%.
But when it has been neither raining, nor snowing, nor hailing, nor a combination of all three in one day (seriously) we've been hard at work on the little Lamphouse Photo Co. trailer.
If you're into it, step behind the cut and take a look at the non-house stuff we've been up to!
I don't know if you guys have noticed, but we kind of like cameras around here.
Correction: I (Katherine) kind of like cameras. Conan LOVESSSS them with four s's.
Home skillet has worked at a camera store of one variety or another for the past bazillion years and in his spare time, he started a business with me where we will *hopefully* do is just drive around and take people's pictures all day and night.
So, it comes as no surprise that there are a LOT of cameras around our house.
Pretty ones that deserve a nice home.
Well folks, earlier this week I closed on a home for Conan's cameras and let me tell you, it's quite charming.
I found it at the DAV thrift store and I loff it soooo much!
I have been searching Craigslist for a long time for something to put Conan's cameras in but I had pretty much resigned myself to finding a cheap curio cabinet and painting it or something.
Never in my wildest dreams did I actually think I would find a perfect piece for a pretty good price!
What was the price, you ask? I know you're just dying to know what my idea of "pretty good price" is and the damage was... $101.46
I was really torn and I walked around the DAV for quite a while texting Conan and trying to decide if it was worth it. In the end, my love of old furniture won out over my frugality.
I mean, LOOK AT IT!
It's a little scraped up on the doors (NOWHERE near the keyhole, strangley enough) and the glass is broken in the corner but I don't care!
(P.S. if you have a good eye and noticed the missing decorative foot thingy, it was actually inside the cabinet - we just haven't glued it back on yet)
Conan still has a lot of cameras to dig out of some boxes upstairs and I have to figure out some sort of seating option for this corner now that the gray couch is gone.
Remember the gray couch?
It used to be across from the piano but now that spot is taken so we had to do some re-arranging.
Step one: We cleaned up the sunroom, moving our old TV out and into the attic
Step two: Make room for the TV in the attic by taking the old stove and putting it in the sunroom
Step three: Move the couch into the sunroom then sit on it and TAKE A BREAK!
Oh, sunroom. You are my dirty little secret. Here you sit with your weird collection of furniture and your awful, drafty windows and your little piece of stained floor : (
I have failed you.
Well, anyways. There it is, folks. My corner of crap. One of many, I'm afraid.
In it, you'll find our old bathtub, a vintage pram (because...reasons, I don't know!), two antique bed frames, an old table and a whole mess a old backpacks and bags.
Ugh.
Life.
At least it's moderately cleaned up now. Maybe someday, I'll have time to devote to our little penthouse view but until then. That's how it stays.
Here's a little flashback of what it looked like when we moved in with its weird, black carpet and Virginia Creeper crawling in through the windows:
Neat!
Speaking of antique beds and buying stuff you don't really need at thrift stores!
I keep meaning to mention that wood bed frame over in the corner.
About a month ago, I saw it at a thrift store marked down from $40 to $25.
I thought and thought about it and then one day, I decided to pull it out and have a look at it.
I was all set to push it back against the wall at the thrift store when I noticed something written on the back of the headboard.
It read: Made by Alfred Tinlef Manhattan-High-School Class of 1940
Some kid made this in SHOP CLASS! Can you believe that? It's incredible!
Don't hate me but I'm considering replacing the guest bed with this one. It's just so pretty! And what a neat story!
Anywho, that's today's lesson in crazy thrifting 101!
Hope you guys and gals have a terrific weekend!
It's finally feeling like spring here in Kansas so we're hopefully *fingers crossed* going to put the air conditioner on top of the trailer!
That's just the shroud up there. It's so awesome looking!
Betcha' can't guess what color we're going to paint the trailer. Nah, I betcha' totally can you bunch of smarty pantss, pantses, pants's? Whatever!
One day it's 80 degrees and we're trottin' the Shorty around and the next it's this
Crappy cell phone pics of fresh pow pow.
What.in.the.world.
Whatever! As any weatherman/woman in Kansas is quick to point out, we need the moisture like whoa so everybody can just deal with all of the gray days and drippy gutters drippin' all over your dang head (personal pet peeve).
On the bright side, being stuck inside means you have an excuse to do all of those things you've been putting off for forever. Those tiny projects that you've been putting off for forever and when you're stuck in close quarters with them, they burrow into your brain and you have no choice but to do them. My tiny, brain-burrowing project? This picture.
It has sat on the shelf behind our couch since we bought it a couple of years ago.
You can barely see it in that picture and there's a reason for that. See, we bought this amazing picture of a car, presumably in the 70s or 80s, racing through the streets of downtown Wichita from the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store for $5 a couple of years ago and although it is amazing, the frame and the frosted glass were notsomuch.
It made it look all cloudy and perpetually dusty even though it wasn't and it didn't let the true awesomeness of this picture shine through. Seriously. I mean, 70s? Volvo? Street Race? Wichita? These are all components of an awesome picture that people should see.
So, about a week ago I got super motivated around 9 o'clock at night and whipped out the Rub N' Buff and started rubbin' and buffin' this hunter green frame that I got at the Goodwill many moons ago.
Then I walked around singing "He loves Goooooold!!!" for a few minutes
Good times.
So, I had this brilliant plan to frame a piece of this wrapping paper I bought at Tar-jay around Christmas. It was Rodarte and it was black, with a moon, and it was awesome BUT
it just would NOT fit in that frame. No matter what, some of that lovely moon was going to be cropped out and that was just not acceptable. Someday, fancy wrapping paper, someday...
So, instead I had a flash of genius and decided to FINALLY re-frame the Volvo Street Race picture
Conan did all of the glass-handling and framing because oh boy, glass-handling gives me the heeby-jeebies. I am TERRIFIED of getting cut by glass.
So now, there it sits. Lookin' much better if I do say so myself and because the non-reflective glass is gone you can actually see the awesome-ness of the picture which is why we bought it all along.
I can't decide if I'll leave it there or hang it somewhere. I like the size in that spot but I feel like it needs to be really seen. We'll see. Plenty of blank walls and plenty of time.
I call it work but it really was just a bunch of friends, hanging out, taking pictures.
We experimented with different lighting, poses and backgrounds
Conan got his picture taken instead of being behind the camera for a change...
Our friend Jeni made good use of that cat mask we've had lying around since forever
Jess (who writes a very, very funny blog It's Jess! Do yourself a favor and check it out, son!) did what she called the "Coal Miner's Daughter/Look at the Lord" pose. It was fantastic.
And I put on Conan's parka and tried to look waaaay cooler than I actually am.
Mission accomplished? Probably not.
Whatever. It was a hoot and we are DYING to get outside when the weather is nicer and start doing this stuff in the trailer and sharing with the good folks out there.
Hey party people! Hope your St. Patty's was patty-licious or whatever it's supposed to be.
Conan made Irish soda bread and we splurged on the fancy butter. Par-tay. I know.
Anywhoodle, chicken noodles!
Since I said upon our return to the blog that I was going to talk a little about our new business venture, Lamphouse Photo Co., I thought I should probably, eventually actually talk about it and show you guys some pictures and explain what we're going to do and how we came up with the crazy idea to put a photobooth inside of a vintage travel trailer.
Here goes nothin'!
Well, as I mentioned in the last post, we were having some serious trouble figuring out the exterior lights. I am now happy to report that just moments after I hit "Publish" the problem was resolved and now we have beautiful little amber and red lights all over!
Just for fun, I snapped some pics as the sun was setting the other day...
The Grand Wagoneer looks pretty spiffy in front of the trailer. I think they're going to make a great team.
I mean, the trailer hasn't even been painted yet and they still look pretty cute together!
Cutest. brake lights. ever.
Okay! You get it, you get it! The lights work and it's awesome. Moving on then...
What are we planning to do with the travel trailer and what have we done so far?
The plan for the trailer is to convert it into a mobile photo studio and darkroom. Sort of like a photobooth except that instead of little moving parts inside, it has little moving people.
Cool? Cool.
So, the first step was finding a trailer that would fit both of those things along with room to move around in it. We looked at several on Craigslist and ended up settling on our cute little vintage Conestoga Travel Trailer that's about 16 feet long by 7 feet wide.
Next, after taking a bunch of pictures and giggling a lot about how cute it was we started the very fun process of gutting it.
That meant saying goodbye to this lovely piece of equipment...
As well as the bed that was underneath it.
The other end had a little table and kitchenette
Which we removed very carefully (so, if anybody has need for a tiny stove or table, we can totes hook you up!)
One of the neatest things? There was a little gas powered light next to the door. Kept that, too of course!
Once the whole thing was pretty much totally empty, it was time to start replacing all of that rotten wood and fixing the leaks that caused it..
Yikes!
With the help of the 'rents we slowly replaced all of the rotten wood (ceiling braces, wall supports, giant chunks of the floor, etc.)
Once the wood was replaced, it was time to start wiring the exterior lights
It was a pretty frustrating couple of days. All new wiring inside, everything looks good, hook it up to the Jeep and...nothing.
Our next door neighbor was even standing in his backyard giving us suggestions! We all stared at it and and wrinkled our brows and then finally, after Conan suggested that maybe the skin of the trailer wasn't grounded, my mom ran a new ground wire from the frame to the skin and success! Lights!
She said she "could have just cried right there" when they finally came on.
Wiring is incredibly frustrating when it doesn't work and incredibly thrilling when it does.
This applies to house wiring, too!
Speaking of house wiring, our next step is to begin wiring the darkroom which will be contained in the back of the trailer where that bed used to be...
That little cubby where the shower and fridge once were is now gone and a wall will be built, just past the wheel wells to divide the studio end of the travel trailer from the darkroom end.
If you're wondering what kind of pictures we'll be taking, I'll hand it over to Conan to describe the whole process to you
*hands the computer to Conan*
Way back in September Katherine and I took the wiener dog on a walk, as we do, and after much talking and discussion of various ideas pertaining to food-truckery, we decided that it simply wasn't for us. But we still wanted to create a small business, and Katherine naturally pointed out that we needed to do something that was actually a part of our lives, and I said, "Like what, home improvement?" After the rolling of eyes, she said that it needed to be something "magical". I mentioned that watching traditional photographic prints develop in the darkroom always seemed pretty magical to me, and that led me to recall something I had seen several years ago about Afghan box cameras. After a quick google search on the ole intertubes, I found this video that gives a pretty good explanation:
We both loved the idea of creating portraits rather quickly right on the street but agreed that we wanted to do something on a little larger scale. If I remember correctly, I think Katherine said, "If only we could be inside the box." The answer was to turn the box camera into a mobile photobooth with two seperate areas. One for taking pictures and one for developing them.
But how do you take and develop individual pictures quickly and easily? Just like the box camera, you use a paper negative process.
I dusted off my Graflex large format camera,which had previously been serving time as a bookend:
grabbed some negative holders and we started experimenting with the process, taking pictures of family, friends and ourselves and developing them in a makeshift darkroom in the basement.
So let me break it down for ya'.
Instead of using film, which is too expensive and takes too long to develop, we use a piece of 4x5 inch photopaper as the negative.
We develop that, stick it on top of an unexposed piece of paper, expose it to light, and develop that to get a positive image.
After we had the process figured out and knew that we could re-create it, photobooth style, inside the vintage camper, we moved the process inside and started figuring out our lighting setup.
We tried a single giant soft box with Katherine in our living room
Our friend Nick brought over his multiple lighting setup to try some other things.
Until we finally decided to start with two beauty dishes and one background light.
After our lights arrived, I cleaned out a space in the attic and mapped out the entire trailer using painter's tape on the floor.
I put all of the equipment in and we started experimenting using the lights in the space that we would actually have in the trailer for our mobile photobooth.
Our friend Alex took this picture of our setup in the attic.
You can see the tape on the floor in the left hand corner.
Katherine and her mom also built a very tiny, temporary darkroom in one corner of the attic so we could better simulate the amount of time it would take to make a print (rather than taking one and running down the basement to develop it).
**BTW: This entire process, start-to-finish takes about ten minutes**
We've been taking pictures of friends and perfecting the process ever since while we work on re-building the inside of the trailer.
Here's a look at some of those:
Alex and Shorty
Super cool couple, Jan and Stephan!
Miranda and Alex's friend Jena was nice enough to come over and let us take a picture or two.
And Miranda!
(Fun fact, Miranda did everyone's hair at our wedding and she is one of the few people who have seen the house go from zero to sixty over these four years).
The plan is to be up and running (or rolling) for our very first event at the end of June.
And now that you're all caught up on the dirty deets of Lamphouse Photo Co., we can start showing you the process of putting a studio and darkroom inside of a vintage travel trailer as we work on it!
Yay! Travel trailers! Jeeps! Pictures!
We really are suuuuper excited to share this process with you guys and gals and we appreciate all of your well wishes and support!
If you want to follow our adventures on the daily you can check out the tweeter or the instagram for Lamphouse!
