Catskills - Sullivan County - Ulster County Real Estate -- Catskill Farms Journal

Jason and Justin (and I'm not in the office to see if I spelled Justin correctly) came to us in June or July after we had started Cottage 19 - a 2 bedroom 960 sq ft house with a huge bathroom, seriously open floor plan and 5+ pretty amazing acres. Cottage 19 is a reduced version of Nick's Cottage 9 that we sold back in December. As with all of our smaller homes, the details are important.

With the big stone chimney, cedar shake, 2 perfect dormers and the large overhangs, this house becomes something special real quick. James and I were excited about its layout and flow from the beginning, and frankly, it exceeded our hopes and aspirations - just like an overachieving child.

The painters, the carpenters, the plumbers and an assorted mix of tradesmen executing their specialized craft, attempting the bring the house to a conclusion in the next week or two. We have our first certificate of occupancy inspection tomorrow, and since this is a new municipality we are working in, it might take one or two inspections to get everything just right for the buiding inspector. During the course of construction, the building inspector/code enforcement officer does 6 or 7 inspections of our construction processes, insuring we are building to or exceeding code. By any measure, we surpass most other construction quality locally.

There's Curtis, our lead independent carpenter who more or less has seen everything in this decades of construction experience. Skilled with the saw, skilled with the customers, skilled with the subcontractors he works with and orders around - a very good addition to the team 18 months ago. He worked for me when I first started my biz in 2003, then went off to greener pastures, then returned to the overgrown weedy fields of Catskill Farms. He came in and replaced some real yahoos we had been forced to deal with out of necessity - since labor is scarce, and was especially scarce during the construction boom of 2004-2007.

Curtis is installing the kitchen here - in fact, I guess the kitchen is in, he's just adding some open shelves that really set off our kitchens (as well as keep down the cost). Nice cabs, nice countertop, nice undermount farmhouse sink, and mostly, nice ass and love handles Curtis!

Nice simple fireplace with locally harvest bluestone squares (originally designed by Dean) defining the hearth.

One of the reasons why we are the only game in town in terms of quality and service is because our entire business model at this point is centered around our warranty, our ability to exceed our warranty, and our ability to respond quickly to small issues.

‍

Interesting enough, the nationally-renowned home planner who loves our work successfully sold his vision to the big, primetime network. Now we just need to make a deal on a house - which is a lot more complicated than one would think. Cottage 17 is also rounding the corner towards completion, and in another month we will be turning over this house to the new owners. This house started as a spec home - without a preordained buyer - but, with the help of Cottage 15 homeowner Gayle, we found some buyers who hopped in and started designing - and now, in 30 days, their country day dream turns real. On budget, on Time.

Now that the handrails are on and the entrance steps being built, the lines of the final product start to take shape. As mentioned, this cottage is inspired by one we built over the winter for Dean.

This plot of land and the way we situated the house called out for a wrap-around porch, so not only does that porch add some additional living space, it adds a nice architectural dimension to the structure.

Another thing we did was flip the fireplace/living room space and the kitchen. In this pic, the house is primed for the floor sanding phase. So, that's it. Labor Day weekend. Very nice weather. Living on borrowed time, with the weather becoming unpredictable, with that dreadful feeling that winter's coming. And the thing is - I like winter - with it's attendent hours by the fire, reading books, and guiltless hours not worrying about the garden you should've planted. But not after a non-summer like we didn't have this summer.

Cottage 22 is nearing completion and for all you counting, that's little more than 3 months from start to finish. From forest to fabulous. From dream to reality. Pretty nice day for these pictures but it has to be said that the night-time temps are hovering in the 40's. Without a summer, fall is coming. Definitely not the type of Catskill summers we've grown accustomed to, with long stretches of bright blue breezy afternoons.

House looks pretty sharp with the rails installed, finishing off the porches nicely.

This house has a heavy emphasis on the porches, which wraps-around 3 sides, has exposed local rough hewn rafters cut and harvested locally. The porches measure out at about 640 sq ft, adding 66% more of outdoor living space during the suitable months.

Simple fireplace and handhewn beam.

Handhewn beam and steel cable railings.

Sliding barn door, big tub and floor to ceiling subway tile.

3 door styles in one shot. On the left are custom constructed cross buck barn doors with 15" black wrought iron hinges. Center door is a traditional 5 panel. And off to the right is the sliding barn door.

Won't be long till construction is finished and the new owners move in.

So like I have mentioned on several occasions, Saturdays are busy. We usually have a full construction team pounding away at something, a bunch of subcontractors are working away, and then to top it off, it’s our main day for customers to visit. So, two weeks ago I have appointments set - one at 10, one at 12, one at 2 and one at 4. So, I’m in and out of the office and some yahoo calls and wonders if he can ‘stop by’ and see some houses. Now, most times this would be out of the question, in fact, James and I would look at each condescendingly and ask rhetorically ‘what are they thinking’?

But I had a little time (15 minutes) and I liked the guy’s message energy so I called him back and said I had 15 minutes and that wasn’t a lot of time but I certainly could run him up the street to look at one of our homes. He shows up in a bad rental car, and we’re off right away to a house so he can see for himself whether this works for him - so he’s asking questions, quizzing me, I’m giving my off the cuff answers, and he really likes the work he sees and so we get back to the office and we have a few minutes to spare before the tell-tale sound of tires on a gravel drive.

Jack then gives up his game. He’s out scouting the area for the next season of a pretty big home show and he was just about ready to blow town (depressed at what he had seen over course of 2 days) when he came across our website, called up, visited and was quite impressed with moi (not sure if that‘s the correct spelling of moue, that damned French word). I showed him about everything - Cottage 17, Cottage 13, Cottage 14, Cottage 19, Cottage 22, Modern Retro Ranch, Cottage 18 - a true tour de force.

So that was pretty exciting, but we are busy, so it’s not that exciting, and since I always freeze up in front of cameras, I could definitely see negative results as well. Plus I’m sure all the hot TV talent would be trying to get in my pants and I’m a happily married guy and who, frankly, needs the aggravation? So Jack goes back to NYC, then to Nashville to meet with the network bigwigs. No, Jack’s great idea of profiling the construction of one of our new old homes won’t fly, but why don’t you work with the guy to find a great remodel project?

That’s where my good friend David Knudsen of Catskill Buyer’s Agency comes in - local real estate guru, real estate blogger of some renown, man with great knowledge of what’s for sale, where and when.

So Jack wants to see all the ugly ranch houses and similarly challenged pieces of architecture on great settings that Sullivan County has to offer. Dave pulls up a list of 25, he and I narrow that to 10 and we all roadtrip on Friday around the county to see some seriously distressed real estate.

Turns out, between Davids knowledge and Jack’s thoroughness, we found a great lake house remodel potentate that just might be coming to the big screen near you.

And you all can say you knew me when.

$10 bucks Cottage 23 gets an offer this week. You snoozo you loso.

‍