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DIY Ping Pong table

DIY: Backyard Ping Pong Table

In 2018, we profiled an incredible backyard makeover in Salem, which had an outdoor dining table that could also be used for games of ping pong. What a great idea! It was custom-crafted from stone and concrete—not exactly easy to replicate—so here’s a DIY-version made of inexpensive construction materials and galvanized steel, which can be put together in about a weekend. KEEP IN MIND A regulation size ping pong table should be about 9 feet by 5 feet and 2½ feet high. For ease of construction, we sized our table to a standard sheet of plywood measuring 4 feet by 8 feet. This will also comfortably seat six to eight chairs, depending on their size, for dining. Wherever you place the table needs enough clearance to play the game without hazard. Consider shade as well: the metal top gets hot if the table sits in the summer sun. If you…

A roasted carrot soup with miso butter is carrot comfort food for fall.

A Carrot by Any Other Name

written by Thor Erickson | photography by Tambi Lane It was a bone dry 95 degrees as our 1975 family van rolled into downtown Ashland. I was hot and thirsty, and my three sisters had been asking for hours for dad to turn on the air conditioning. “It uses too much gas.” He hollered back from the driver’s seat as he pulled over to a bank of granite-clad drinking fountains at Lithia Park near the center of town. “Go drink some cool water.” Following his instructions, we piled out of the van and raced to the fountains. As I took my first gulp, I almost gagged at the foul smell and taste of the warm water. Over my shoulder, I heard a laugh. I turned to see a balding middle-aged man in a dress. “Never drink the Lithia water!” he exclaimed in a British accent. He was holding a carrot…

Designer Max Humphrey pulled ocean and sage colors from Manzanita and found the tile to make it work.

Three Bathrooms, One Designer

Max Humphrey shares three very different bathroom designs for inspiration written by Melissa Dalton photography by Christopher Dibble Considering everything Max Humphrey has done before starting his Portland-based interior design business—including working in television and film production in Los Angeles, and touring the United States and England as a bassist in a punk band—perhaps it should come as no surprise that he has this advice for prospective bathroom remodelers. “Bathrooms don’t need to be neutral and boring,” Humphrey said, who is also the author of the recent style guide Modern Americana. The following three projects show us how that’s done. Manzanita: A nature-inspired main suite For a top-to-bottom gut remodel of a 1978 house in Manzanita, Humphrey worked with the Portland architecture firm Beebe Skidmore to swap out the home’s dated finishes for a beach cabin aesthetic that takes inspiration from the immediate natural surroundings. “An Oregon beach is very…

Brad and Seth Klann, of Mecca Grade Estate Malt, stand in their rye field with their malthouse in the background.

The Thresher in the Rye

Once derided as worthless, rye is making a comeback in bread, bourbon and beer written by Julie Leephotography by Toby Nolan Once considered a weed amongst fields and often hailed as an underdog, rye is viewed by some as the world’s most underrated grain, though countries like Russia have long adopted it as a staple, using it in breads and other recipes. The carb-laden grain is also used to make whiskey, bourbon, and beer, and can be incorporated in vodka and gin as well. Farmer and brewer Seth Klann of Brad Klann Farms near Madras, is considered an authority in the field of rye and other grains among his peers. “Seth is one of those special generational family farmers who has upheld traditional methods and expanded to his own unique malting techniques.” said Clark McCool, general manager of production at McMenamins, Inc. Klann’s family’s farm has specialized in grain and…

Not all rye bread has sprung from a landfill, but this one has and it’s delicious.

The Seven Seas of Rye

written by Thor Ericksonphotography by Tambi Lane “I found a field of rye growing next to the Knott landfill!” my friend Hubert yelled into his cell phone with excitement. He continued talking with his thick German accent. “I am harvesting it now and will be over shortly.” A retired geophysicist and university professor, Hubert looks more like a mash up between Brian May, the guitarist of the rock band Queen, and jolly old St. Nick. Hubert, who rides his bicycle everywhere arrived at my house and quickly unpacked the harvested rye berries along with a bag of dirt. We ground the grains into a small bag of flour to be used for a sourdough starter and, due the location of where he found the rye, we packaged the dirt to be analyzed by Oregon State University. Second to wheat, rye is my grain of choice when baking bread. Often referred…

DIY Cornhole board

DIY: Cornhole Board

illustrations by Jenna Lechner The origins of the modern lawn game known as cornhole are a bit of a mystery, but a patent filed on September 25, 1883, seems to offer a clue. For it, a person named Heyliger Adams de Windt of Chicago, describes an apparatus for playing a game called Parlor-Quoits, which was an indoor bean bag toss game using inclined boards with a designated hole as a target for the bag. “My present invention has for its object to provide a new game which shall be particularly suited to indoor amusement, and which may be played with an apparatus that will be inexpensive, simple, durable, and noiseless,” wrote Adams de Windt. These days, cornhole is typically played outside in lawns and parking lots rather than a parlor, but, as in Adams de Windt’s day, it’s still a fairly simple and inexpensive apparatus to make, requiring basic tools…

Owner Rachel Clark of Goose Hollow Inn, known for the “best Reuben on the planet” serves her namesake Reuben with a delicious twist.

A Rye Sense of Baking

Rachel’s Reuben Goose Hollow Inn / PORTLAND Rachel ClarkSERVES 1 Ingredients: 2 slices of dark rye bread 3 ounces (to taste) of Russian or Thousand Island dressing 2 slices of thick Swiss Cheese 4 ounces of sauerkraut (squeeze off the liquid to avoid soggy bread) ¼ cup sliced mushrooms (can be more; they will cook down) Several slices of red onion 2 slices of tomato ⅛ teaspoon of granulated garlic Instructions: Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place bread slices open face on a cookie sheet. Generously spread the dressing on both slices of bread. On the first slice, spread sauerkraut on one slice over the dressing. Place Swiss cheese slices over the sauerkraut. On the second slice of bread, spread out the mushrooms, then top the mushrooms with the red onion. Sprinkle the mushroom and onion slice with garlic. Bake both sides of bread until the cheese is fully…

Connie Migliazzo and husband renovated the pool area with textural ferns while keeping it simple for many uses.

Bit-by-Bit

A landscape architect takes it slow redesigning her yard to maximize enjoyment in the creative process written by Melissa Daltonphotography by Elijah Hoffman Passing by mounds of Mexican feather grass rippling in the breeze, the crunch of decomposed granite under foot, there is a feeling of calm walking up to Connie Migliazzo’s house in Southwest Portland. That’s relatively new for the 1953 abode, which before, had a yard as common as they come: lawn, and more lawn at the front, side and back. “There were some intermittent random plants, a crumbling lava rock wall, but mostly just lawn,” Migliazzo said. “I wanted to do my own thing.” Migliazzo, a landscape architect and founder of the firm Prato, relocated with husband, Jonathan Kadish, a data scientist, from Berkeley, California in 2018. Ever since, they’ve been fixing up the interior of the Mid-century home with Helland Architecture—“It wasn’t a cool Mid-century before,”…

On a forest clearing outside of Tillamook, a couple creates its own Oil Can Henry’s architectural style.

A Cabin State of Mind

A photographer and an architect, friends and neighbors, craft a small retreat in the woods outside Tillamook written by Melissa Dalton photography by Shawn Records Both Shawn Records and his wife, Jenny, grew up in Idaho with a “mountain place” in their families. His grandparents had a little trailer at Lake Cascade, while Jenny’s parents built a cabin close to Lake Fork, ten miles south of McCall. Around 2013, the now Portland-based couple—he’s a photographer, and she’s a librarian—started looking for a little extra land of their own to continue the tradition and build a new place for a new generation of the family, said Records. They started scouting out the Oregon Coast, but contrary to so many buyers, didn’t necessarily want to be on the water. Then they found a seven-acre forested parcel outside Tillamook, with a meadow clearing, salmonberry thickets, and deer trails carved through groves of alder…