Construction - R - US
Here's my new cow painting, hanging nicely above my type writer collecetion, set against the board and batton walls. The Painting came from an artist Lisa and I really enjoy (I was going to write "Lisa and I's favorite local artist', but the correct grammer got too complicated). We bought it at the River Gallery in Narrowsburg, run by Tony and Barry. It's one of my favorite stores in the region. I'm a pretty picky shopper, but everytime I frickin walk in there, Tony's got something 'right back here' that 'you're gonna love', and the guy is right - I'm always walking out his store with a big painting. Office taking shape nicely. Interesting material arrangement - board and batton on the rear wall, sheetrock on the right, and corrugated sheet metal on the left. Polished and stained concrete, with radiant heat, a stained wood ceiling, and a Mid-Century Eames chair to nicely complete the room.
Cottage 28 is way past the point of this picture, but I always love the booms, and lifts and stuff that facililate our efforts.
And this is a lovely picture from the rear right angle. It's a little dining room off the kitchen, with tile floors, lots of windows and a cathedral ceiling. It's a great shape. We found humungus bear prints in the mud around this house the other day. I was half expecting the bear to be sitting at a table inside the house.
Cottage 25 is moving right along and we should be turning the home over to Steve here in the next few weeks. Not much left to finish.
And the porch of all porches at Farmhouse 12. Rounded, exposed rafters. Just the right size for lots of diverse activities. Their kids are going to love this porch - actually maybe the parents will, now being able to just 'stick the kids on the porch'. Inside is done, and just need to paint and finish the grading on the land.
Tito and his helper painting the brick fireplace.
And, since we don't waste time, here is the foundation of Ranch 3 - our newest mid-century masterpiece. It's going under contract here shortly.
Nice lot, with great views, just a few miles outside of Narrowsburg, NY.
And here's Mark, our local floor sanding craftsman. We're lucky to have him - he makes our floors look great. He's at our offices here, on a Thursday afternoon, and I needed it resanded, stained, and 3 coats of poly by Monday Morning. Of course, no problemo. Note Jake, who has become a real camera whore.
This is a cool construction photo, below - usually, it's man and his machine. Here is just machine, in an empty room.
I love when they write about upstate. I'm immediately swamped by emails and phone calls. Thanks New York Times - it's much appreciated. Keep up the good work.
TV Interview
Wow, ok, now we are on TV - Channel YNN is an affliate of NY1, which covers the upstate region and they just added Sullivan County to their coverage area - which is great, since this area has zippo local news, at least zippo local news in a timely fashion. I mean a hurricane could come through and unless it hit us, we wouldn't know until the paper came out at the end of the week, or a neighbor happened to mention it. So the TV reporter, Lori Chung, is from Brooklyn and took a job at YNN out of the Middletown office, in order to have the opportunity to spread her wings as a TV journalist, and she's in charge of finding local stories. So, she found us, and it's a 2 minute spot about Blog Cabin 2010. For those of you who don't know which interviewee is me, just look for the handsome guy saying a lot of smart, insightful things. Now, one thing about this link, is the first time you watch it (since it's primarily TV, not web-based), there's a lot of buffering and I just about threw my computer out the window when I watched it - I recommend letting it play once while shaving or showering, then coming back to watch it after it ran once, - the 2nd time seems to run fine, the first time download sucks. Enjoy. YNN TV Spot. And our latest DIY Vlog, with guest star James K.
Big Regional Press
Ok, so maybe the Times Herald Record article this morning gave us a little more credit than is fairly due us in their great article about the DIY project. While we do know that Catskill Farms remains the driving contracting force behind Blog Cabin 2010 in Bethel NY, we won't know until after final production whether we will be the TV stars they ambitiously outline for us. I'll be happy with a few well-shot cameos, a project that comes in on schedule and a successful facilitation of DIY's efforts up here in Sullivan County. DIY deserves it - probably the most solid bunch of folks I've ever had the privilege of working with.
Micro Cottage 3 - Sold
This picture above was supposed to go at the end of the blog post, but then I accidently deleted it and then when I re-imported it the blog is refusing to let me cut and paste it so now the whole blog post has to change right at the minute of publication but I'm just going to go with it. The picture above is our secret to our success - that intangible, inarticulable shadow of soul. Gloriousness.
I had this really great clever title for this blog post, and then I forgot what it was. So I will stick with the old and trusted "Another Sold so Suck It Great Recession (to borrow liberally from Kathy Griffith.)
That's not an ardvark in the front yard, that's Jake my dog on Norm's freshly planted grass. He throws hay on top of it to keep the seed from blowing away and to keep it fertilized and warm.
This little house with a big personality reminds of say Sammy Davis Jr or Frank Sinatra or even Prince for that matter. Good things come in small packages (that's what she said, not). Daniel was just about ready to lay down his life's savings on some run down little cottage when he came across our homes and decided, you know, that a home's character is not just it's faults and inconveniences, like the old house crowd loves to crow about. The character of a home comes from its essence, its soul, - and that has nothing to do with age. It has to do with taste, and talent.
All 780 +/- sq ft of this micro-cottage is pimped out pretty good, with a white washed plank ceiling, salvaged barn siding with peeling paint framing the entrance, spiral staircase, and light to natural floor stain and some muted paints give this cottage an airy expansive feel.
Raise your hand if this kitchen is bigger and better than the one in your apartment.
Fireplace, bookshelves, radiator and whole house audio. Can you say swankee? How about too-cool-for-school? No, how about 'get down on it, if you really want it, get down on it, etc", then?
Daniel took this cottage in a fresh direction, and I say it everyday. The creativity of our clients, and the ability/privilege to collaborate and work with such creative people everyday is definitely one of our secrets of success. We are constantly exposed to new ideas, and new directions.
Living room, dining room off to the right, stairs to the basement, and front and back decks.
Brought to you by WAL (wide angle lens, duh, and it's the last time I'm going to take the time explain it the abbreviation).
Shazam.
Plenty of room to do your thing, and if I'm not mistaken that looks like a frickin speaker in the ceiling! This guy has a speaker in his bathroom with a separate volume control! Now that's livin. Dan wrote us an email with some punch list things outlined and he remarked that he just bought a Craftsman I80 Stud Finder, and I told him he had just wasted his money cause all he had to do was look in the mirror for free to find the nearest stud.
Cool bedroom overlooking a pretty great piece of land. This house and the barn house next door both benefit from great pieces of land and the homes really placed about perfectly.
This staircase (below) reminds me of a lap dance in Vegas at the International Builders Show in 2009.
And the big full basement with on-demand hot water heater, propaned-fired furnace and the well water tank.
And here's the porch at Farm 12, a house not built in the factory, not developed by a team of high paid marketers, not designed in a board room, and definitely not set in unchangeable stone once it leaves the factory.
NY Times 4th article about New World Homes, a company that has a decent idea but has only sold a couple homes after what I would guess is adding up to a couple of million dollars of branding and 3 yrs of effort and visibility in what seems like every single print magazine on the newsstands ever-
What I respect most about this effort of the Times to further clobber their readers over their heads with an idea that just can't get going was the fact that at least this time they just went ahead and posted the phone number and website address - finally admitting that for some reason they are fully and unabashedly participating in a marketing campaign. At least the covers are off the fat hairy guy. And you got to hand it to New World Homes - they hired the NY Times to help launch a business (sadly though, the public has the last say on whether it's viable or not, not the brain trust from Brown U.).
In the end, it's not the name of the house, not the branding of the house, not the marketing of the house - in this marketplace there is only type of house that is selling, - and honestly, it's not even a house, - rather, it's a Home, and it will sell if it inspires. Nothing more, nothing less.
