Cottage 38 and Miami
Random South Beach sports bar on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I'm pretty sure it was a tongue-in-cheek display of gay haute couture.
Lucas had something different in mind with his Avenger shirt from below. The Hulk, Mark Ruffalo, sends his kids to the same school Lucas goes to. (Other actress's child deleted in 2nd censorial demand in one post!!! ) It's an 85 acre Montesorri school in Glen Spey NY called the Homestead School with gardens and live animal births, and barns and hills and woods and pretty perfect (... narrative rant deleted cause Wife told me too).
I was in Miami for a few days and it was real tropical windy stormy, which I didn't mind - but I did feel bad for the people who did. It was like 3 days of bluster, heavy winds and 'getting wet' storms.
Cottage 38 in Stone Ridge is looking good and nearly done. A lot of action this past week.
Hey, how did this picture get in here?
I stopped by the job site on Thursday to find a lot of busy bees. There's John the Electrician, - been with us since Farm 3 back in 2004.
Steve the Tile guy jamming along. He throws up a lot of tile for us.
A little bit of everything scattered about as everyone is fighting for space.
The appliance install...
Someone staked out the porch for some elbow room...
And the Man Shed...
Truck galore and a dumpster ready to be taken away...
The gas guys, there to take care of the ground floor gas fireplace and the Wolf Stove.
Nice bluestone patio coming out of the basement...
And then I ended the day with Bryan of Cottage 34 at the politically incorrect Narrowsburg Inn watching the bartender play a wii fishing game on the big screen.
Yes, you know you are in the country when you end the day with an order of scotch and beer (one of each for both bryan and me) for $18, sitting around watching someone fish on the big screen.
FH20 Guy Strikes Again
FH20 Guy Update #2 –
Starting the Process
While Chuck was busy running the land closing process, I started thinking about and planning for the actual farmhouse. First, buying and closing land is different than your typical experience of buying a coop or condo in New York City. Thankfully there are no coop boards, interviews, gazillions of forms to fill out, references to obtain, and so forth. Even better, Chuck does all the
work for you... communicating with the various stakeholders, organizing the professional survey, conducting perc tests for septic, title/deed searches, and so forth. While I’m sure there’s more
than one way to skin the cat, I’ve been very happy so far with the professionalism, performance, and pricing of Chuck’s contacts (real estate lawyer for closing, survey firm, title/deed company, etc.) and expect nothing to change as we move towards closing. Why bother figuring this out when someone’s already figured it out for you after building hundreds of Catskill farms? Plus, I have to imagine all of these guys will want to continue to get Chuck’s referrals and business so they’ll do a good job. So far, everyone’s been an A+ professional.
Offloading this work allowed me to totally geek out and start working on the actual FH20. It’s
been an amazingly fun and educational process so far, and this is what we’ve done so far:
* Agreed on the basics of FH20, shapes, layout, and so forth. With so many existing designs and
examples, you can copy or modify entire cottages or pinpoint specific rooms or design features from the Catskill Farms galleries. I loved walking through actual farmhouses at different stages of production...framing going up, windows being installed, drywall and porch railing being secured, and of course finished products.
* Planned for a separate structure, probably a classic red barn we can use to garage a vehicle, serve as a man shed, and provide power/water for my wife’s attached, integrated greenhouse.
* Strongly considering green technologies for HVAC and other utilities. I should devote a separate post for this because it’s been fascinating learning experience, but in summary, we’re probably going to use (a) ground-source heat pump and forced air (ducting) for HVAC, (b) LP backup power with automatic switching; check out this New York Times article at http://tinyurl.com/c2m2xnd where the writer profiles Catskill Farms, (c) LP hot-water tank, not on-demand, tied into the heat pump as well, and (d) a possible grid-tied solar photovoltaic
(PV) system for electricity production.
* Spec-ed out a tricked out bathroom, affectionately named POJAB™, or the “Pimped Out Japanese Awesome Bathroom.” Chuck came up with this acronym after hearing me describe the concept, and I’ve ripped it off from him and trademarked it. I’ll definitely have to devote
another post to the POJAB!
* We recently walked the actual property and have yet to decide the actual placement and orientation of the structures. There are several considerations (seclusion, unique property features, proximity to utilities, driveway length, tree and brush clearing, etc.) so we’ll evaluate a few possible sites, write up pros/cons, and most importantly attach costs to each site. With the greenhouse and potential solar PV system, the barn or garage will definitely have one side facing south, the optimal orientation for maximum sunlight. The rest of it will probably be determined by cost... trying to get the biggest bang for our buck.
It’s fun to write about this stuff right now to “mark the moment” and record the thoughts and considerations currently going through our heads. I’m sure as the process evolves, we’ll have to modify or even delete certain things due to cost, but we’ll revisit that when it comes. After we
close on the land, we’ll hammer out the construction schedule and budget given all the information we have and we’ll go from there. Yep, we’re really motoring now!
Additional reading and information:
(Above) The GO Home in Belfast, Maine (LEED Platinum, Home
Project of the Year 2011):
http://www.gologichomes.com/featured-projects/passive-house.html
Ground source heat pump:
http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/heating_cooling/geothermal.html
Energy Star products, including heat pumps and LP hot water
tanks: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=products.pr_find_es_products
More Press about amazin' Catskill Farms
We had some good press lately about a variety of things. I'm down in Miami taking a few days off but before you get too jealous let just say it's been raining since Friday, which I why I guess I'm blogging on a Sunday morning.
Times Herald Record covers our upcoming TV appearance on Selling NY -
Manhattan Media and their five neighborhood newspapers cover our homes and ideas -
Brownstoner gives us a shout out last week and one of our houses for sale-
And the trusty Hudson Valley Business Journal - with a real handsome shot of me!!
That's it for now. Got some real good blog posts incubating in my head so stay tuned.
Appliance sale, Eldred is Hot, and Contractor Blues.
Eldred NY seems to be the hot spot. Tom Givone just made a big splash in dwell magazine with his renovation of a house over off of Airport Road. No link available, but I think the feature story is available in this month's issue. Tom's done a few projects up here over the last decade - all of them interesting with unique approaches.
And a fun 'upstate projects can be painful' article in the NY Times - "Pre-Fab Short on the Fab" - something we are well aware of and really the inspiration of the whole Catskill Farms business model. Upstate living and the transition thereof does not have to be a test of endurance and financial/emotional survival.
It can be real easy - The Catskill Farms way. Perfected over 10 years of experimentation and improvement.
