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

So, a multigenerational furniture business which owns, and has owned, a large corner building where they have hawked their wares for decades has collaborated with us on a design of the rear living loft portion of the block long building.  Interestingly, many generations of this family have at one time or another lived in this 1500 sq ft 2nd floor loft.  Now, we are redoing it, Catskill Farms style - a little old, a little new and  lot of pizazz.

I keep a little apartment in Saugerties, right around the corner.   A little love nest, you may say (though to be honest, it hasn't seen any female callers except for cleaning company lady).

Its a super cool and historic building.

Pretty old school interior that has seen lots of kids raised and general good-natured overcrowding and limited bathroom quarrels.

The blues...

Super good looking mint green drop ceiling and wall paper.

We're keeping that beadboard door.

I liked this yellow print long hallway - it caught a lot of sun and was a good color for it.  Alas, by the time you read this it will be no more.

The living room.

Hot red bedroom.

The Kids room.

Should be fun  - and of course like every renovation unexpected things happen - but not usually so quick - we started demo and the sheetrock on the interior walls was partially made of concrete, for chrissakes.

A pretty sunny nice weekend here in the South East Catskills.  It was a dry April which is always nice for grassplanting, earth moving and generally good for construction, but generally bad for having that grass grow for that grass one just planted.

Craftsman III in Barryville is coming along a just fine.  3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 5+ acres.  We had finished the grounds and the exterior last year, and then put the house on hold until we found some buyers, so they would have the opportunity to help us design and finish the home.

Some sharp details with the stone tapered pillars and the cedar shake accents.

Just finishing up the inside work.

The first floor is open, and large, and well-windowed.

Shot of the master bed, which sits high and looks out back.

And the man shed.

Grant and Louise should be moving in in late June.

My Dad was a BIG country music fan, so I heard a lot of George Jones growing up.  George Jones was a real piece of work, more or less imitating a country song his whole life - getting drunk, getting married, using drugs, getting divorced, having car accidents, missing concerts.

I remember when my dad took me to see George Jones at the Pequea Silver Mines outside of Lancaster PA, and the man didn't even come out of his tour bus.  No Show Jones struck again.  Being 10, being pretty church going at that time - it was a hard thing not only for me, but for Dad to really get his arms around, since he's a pretty simple man who believed in doing what you say you were going to do.

But one thing this I've learned over the last 3 years as I see a parade of smart people play 'follow the leader' (actually 'follow the celebrity') - is how important, and rare, originality is - regardless of the gnats constantly swarming and biting.  And regardless of how imperfect that originality is.  He's the type of guy you'd actually like to meet- how rare is that?  Plus the fact that guy lived to 81 gives us all reason to hope.


Rest in Peace Mr George Jones.

"I Always Get Lucky With You'


Video

Video II



I've had good luck, and bad luck
And no luck, it's true
But I always get lucky with you.

I've been turned on, and turned down
When the bars close at two
But I always get lucky with you.

I've keep strikes against me
Most all of the time
And when it's down to just a phone call
I'm minus a dime.

There's been good days, and bad days
But when the day is through
I always get lucky with you
Oh, I always get lucky with you.

--- Instrumental ---

I've keep two strikes against me
Most all of the time
And when it's down to just a phone call
I'm minus a dime.

There's been good days, and bad days
But when the day is through
I always get lucky with you
Oh, I always get lucky with you.

I always get lucky with you...

So, I had the city weekend planned for awhile, and jeez, from a weather perspective, what a great time to be there.  This was an interesting weekend weather-wise since it was super springy nippy, always wanting to go jacket-less, only to regret it pretty quickly.

So here's my son, Spidey, digging his 'letter' chicken nuggets, and watching something on the ipad, having it propped up in a fashion I've tried and failed many times.

And then the real thing in Times Square, where I was staying, at the W.

On the 50 block walk from Times Square to the Met, we saw some fun sights, including the zoo, this puppet show and lots of early fauna.  Like they say, love was in the air, in those optimistic spring romances.

Oh right, but that skips the fact that the night before we went to the Jazz at Lincoln Center at the Time Warner buildings - they were doing this "Kings of the Crescent City' (and for all you squares out there that means New Orleans") - so they did their louis armstrong, their jelly roll morton, and 2 others, in a 1920's style that consisted of 2 trumpets, a piano, a clarinet, drums, trombone, bass and banjo.  Super awesome 5 floor space and around the corner was the dizzy gillespie friday jazz supper club.

Afterwards, we hit a pretty international scene on the 4th floor where I spent some time pondering the idea of an $8.50 bud light.

From the Park, we hit the Met, which after a protracted discussion, ventured to not pay the $25 each recommended admission, bore the brunt of the disapproval, wondered if we were issued a different color (scarlet letter) indicating we didn't pay full recommended donation price, and really enjoyed the Civil War photography exhibition - many of the photos were familiar to me from the Ken Burns thing in the early 90's, which I remember watching religiously like a dork while at the University of Pittsburgh.

The Met.

I think I've posted this photo below of the security guys at the TriBeCa Film festival Gasland 2 premiere - but the more I look at it, the more compelling it becomes - tell me these guys aren't right out of Goodfellas, all diversely menacing, you got the irish guy, the black guy with shades, the old school italian.  It's frightening.  Now remember this show of force was in response to 6 people lobbing softball questions at Josh Fox and Yoko Ono.

Only in America do the liberals (which I am one) get to totally get it wrong and still stake claim to the high road.