http://www.modernhivedesign.com/

Modern Hive, San Jose, CA (2025)

09/16/2020

Farm Therapy: I loved cracking open these papery pods, releasing the shiny weight of a cool white bean. Turn up the sound to treat yourself to some farm ASMR 🌱.
The French tarbais beans we pushed into the warm earth sprouted during the first month of our shelter-in-place. It took 3 tries, but we finally got a handful of seeds to release their heart-shaped leaves in April. The vines twirled up our tall corn during the spring and summer of discontent, their dance unseen as our hearts were heavy with a pandemic and the killing of our brothers and sisters.
In August they grew heavy with leaves and pods, bowing the tall corn stalks into graceful arches, drying both the corn cobs and the bean pods in our summer heat wave. I barely noticed as I hastily watered our garden in the early hours of those 105-degree days. In their final weeks on the vine, the swollen beige pods collected a fine dusting of September wildfire ash that floated from the other side of the mountains.
This is the miracle of our food. Nature is so generous, so beautiful, so tenacious in giving us gifts. Even when all seems apocalyptic.
What seeds of hope will we plant now during this election season, to nurture hope and life and a way forward, to harvest in months from now? Vote, and vote for the candidates that will bring us together, who will work to preserve the miracle of our earth and our loved ones.
As Annie Nothoff wrote, “We desperately need a president and vice president who understand the urgency and seriousness of climate change and have concrete plans for action. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are those leaders.” Vote.
.seeds

06/08/2019

May-bees 💕🐝💕. Could this be our new home, maybe? ask the scout bees. These girls are checking out our empty hive to decide if it would be a good place to move into.
Watch them check out the hive from all angles, then finally go inside to take measurements.
These little honeybees are a , an animal made of lots of smaller animals that think together as a whole community. So what you’re seeing them do is gather information, and then head back to their hive. They say, “wooo, sister! There is as sweet little home we can move into with a south facing window in a safe neighborhood with food nearby and it is the perfect size for our growing family!” Then a few other girls check it out and spread the word. Finally, if enough bees decide it’s a good home, they all decide to move, and when.
This is a life or death decision for bees. Half of the hive will leave, so it’s very important they choose carefully. Fingers crossed they move in, it’ll be great to have a wild swarm of bees with strong genetics!

06/06/2019

My first year of grad school is done! Hundreds of hours have been spent behind this desk. I’m going to enjoy being on *this* side for the rest of summer ✨.

06/05/2019

✨Home sweet home✨. Our yard is almost done! Aaaand we finally made a decision on our chair and chose ‘ Adirondack chair.
I wanted to be absolutely sure we loved our new chair since we only want to buy our furniture once. I knew I would see it year round from our living room ...and every part of our house because we have a glass walls 😂.
It was the more expensive option, and for now we can only afford one chair. But ultimately, the color saturation, the modern lines, the hidden hardware, and the way the chair looked great from all angles did it for me. Also, I love that it is cradle to cradle certified, meaning it is certified as waste free with minimal impact on our environment.
The Polywood chair was a great chair, but it had more of an orange peel texture and wasn’t as saturated. That said, it’s a pretty good second option.
This is NOT sponsored post. I know most of us are design and ecologically minded and I figure it may be helpful for anyone who wants to have a cozy home with minimal impact on the planet. Hope it’s helpful. Great design means minimal impact, bc there is no Planet B.

06/02/2019

The Sunday we walked into a fairy tale village.

06/01/2019

✨Head in the sky, feet on the ground.✨
Naples was dreamy. We filled our bellies with complex, rich ragu pasta at 10:30 pm after a soccer match at Naples Stadium. And as we dragged our feet home *this* was the floor of our apartment building 🇮🇹💗.

06/01/2019

Midcentury Modern House goals: An atrium that collects water into a fountain, which *also* collects water underneath. Decorated with a marble mosaic floor. Pompeiians are my new favorite interior designers.
Pompeii was a giant, one-story city. Imagine New York with no skyscrapers next to the ocean. And a huge volcano next door.
There was no yard or green space...except on the *inside*. Homes in Pompeii had at least 1 or 2 atriums that were the heart of the home (sound familiar? ). And in the floor of those atriums were fountains, which drained into a cistern below to collect fresh rainwater.
In California, water is a rare and precious thing. If anyone wants to start making one of these atrium / water / fountain combos, put me on the list, my friend.
Photo details:
> 1 // Top view of fountain set into the floor
> 2 // If you squint, you can see a hold to the left of the faun in the fountain. That’s where the water drains into a cistern below
> 3 // Pompeii’s city layout, and those awesome curbs
> Garden, *little bit of house*, garden
> House Goals: atrium w/ fountain below.
@ Pompeii

06/01/2019

Il Duomo. The Sistine Chapel. The Pantheon. Magnificent architecture, but then the FLOORS. The ceilings! And the walls! They were not into minimalism, those Romans.
These people had some IN. SANE. design skills. You know what was also insane? Where did all that marble come from? Oh, down the street from the Forum and Coliseum. You know.
Imagine the Coliseum covered in marble imported from all over the world. If you take a close look at the ruins, you can see where the marble was mounted on the face.
That round purple marble used to be an Egyptian purple marble column, now it’s sliced like a carrot for the Sistine Chapel floor.
They were like reduce, reuse, recycle before it became a thing.

05/31/2019

Taking the plant friends outside for their Friday watering and kind of obsessed with what green did. It’s a small outdoor room outside our bedroom, but also a plant spa💧🌱🌵🌿✨💧.

05/30/2019

Cinta Senese pigs, aka., chubby Oreo piglets are just 🥰. Little G declared he wants an Oreo pig 🐖.
are heritage pigs from Tuscany and lived on the Spannocchia farm , where I conducted research this month. “Cinta” means belt, Senese means native to Siena, Italy. They forage on wild truffles, chestnuts, and acorns which makes their meat fatty and rich.
A “norcino” cures every part of the pig to make it last an entire year. So 1-2 pigs could feed a family of 4, important for rural farmers hundreds of years ago. MIND BLOWN. Talk about sustainable farming.
After the fresh pork was eaten in the first month (pork chops, ribs, etc.), the rest of the pig was cured and ready to eat throughout the year: pancetta (3 weeks of curing), “salame” or salami (6-10+ weeks), guanciale (12-16 weeks), lardo (6 months), prosciutto / leg (24-48 months), etc.
@ Tenuta Di Spannocchia

03/25/2019

Always Bee Hustlin’. Check out their grainy 70s retro film and disco music while they shuffle back and forth. 💕🐝💕. These bees are either scrubbing the front of the hive or doing the Electric Slide. I don’t know what you’re doing, girls ... but I like it. Do the hustle! Tag your fave person below who knows how to hustle with *style*.

03/10/2019

Happy International Women’s Day! Give the girls a hand! Here’s a snapshot of the bees I helped install at Google yesterday with Deb & our Google beekeeping buddy Donn. We re-homed this chilled swarm of girls, who hung from a tiny branch in the cold rain for over 5 days. We taught new beekeepers how to feel the heat coming off of these hot honeys.
We are mightier together.
Thank you to my human sisters who work hard every day for the betterment of this world. Who care for their hives, their people, so bravely, selflessly, and beautifully. In my sustainability grad program, I have met even more amazing women around the world who wake up at 3-5 am for a lecture, so they can gain an education. Who are speaking for a safe, more sustainable world when they are the only women on the panel. Who are willing to face injustice because they are showing up for a better future for all, and no one else is speaking truth to power.
I see you, whose hearts are full of honey, but who are prepared to meet injustice with the sting of your words.
Happy (late) International Women’s Day to all the ladies. The world is a better place because of you.
More pics of x Google in Stories.

03/05/2019

Before & After :: Yard demo has begun! We are doing a refresh and redesign of our outdoor space with the ridiculously talented and cannot be more excited to see her vision come to life.
The kids used to climb in those bushes and since it wasn’t precious, they used its leaves and branches for spears and making teepees. Best playground ever.
After living in our home for 14 years (and building our outdoor space slowly ourselves then have it die during our CA drought), we feel privileged to have Erica take a fresh look and re-design our space in such a beautiful dynamic way. T and I are in awe of her creative reuse of our outdoor space using the existing hardscape and integrating new plants with established plants. We got some new pollinator plants and some of her signature succulent design, too 💕.
Erica is an Eichler owner (and neighbor) who has designed around the quirks of her own home, is an experienced architect, and THEN she’s been applying all that design talent at her landscape design firm . It’s going to be epic.
Thank you also to Roger Cardoza of who began work last week. Stay tuned!

02/03/2019

Woke up to a rainbow over our little pot of gold this morning ✨.

02/01/2019

PSA to my N. California friends: free water falling from the sky in T-30 minutes. Absolutely FREE. Get yo’ plant babies out there for a shower and a drink.
For everyone else in the country living in the polar vortex, stay safe! Stay warm! If y’all are getting the eye roll when you talk about global warming and this extremely cold weather, it may help to call it Global Weirding. Sub-arctic temperatures in Milwaukee. Huge wildfires in CA. Mega storms. WEIRD. Weird. Weird.

11/03/2018

Vote! Vote for our children’s future, for our life-giving environment, and leaders that are compassionate, intelligent human beings.
Harvard midterms this week + election midterms... ALL the midterms this week for us. Show up, my friends. You are so important. Vote vote VOTE. 🇺🇸

09/03/2018

Labor Day + 2019 Stendig Calendar sale! I’ve got 8 of my absolute favorite calendars left in the shop for $40. They usually retail for $50 and are a limited run, so Stendig fans start buying up now and it’ll sell out quick. Be sure to pick UPS Ground to get the best shipping rate if you’re out of state.
I love these calendars because they’re big enough for me to reuse as wrapping paper and then I can recycle all the parts. So in love with that + excellent design. See how it makes our chaos look all pretty? It’s magic.
Link in the bio to the Modern Hive Studio shop.

08/02/2018

Gone fishing with the boys in the Eastern Sierra Nevadas. We’ll be blissfully offline for a couple weeks! Have a great summer, friends!

Modern Hive

09/16/2020

06/08/2019

06/06/2019

06/05/2019

06/02/2019

06/01/2019

06/01/2019

06/01/2019

05/31/2019

05/30/2019

03/25/2019

03/10/2019

03/05/2019

02/03/2019

02/01/2019

11/03/2018

09/03/2018

08/02/2018

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share

Category