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

We have a lot of shit going on all the time - a wide ranging display of our versatility and breadth of our experience, as well as the health of our cash flow - since these parts are not like other parts where you can take 30 days to pay a bill- most of our subcontractors submit bills by Tuesday and want paid by Friday. For a construction business, that's no easy task - and fail in that payment task, and the show stops pretty much right away. Up above in the construction arm - Bluestone Construction - of Catskill Farms, getting the old red rusting-away 1990 Chevy truck ready for the winter. Like most of my staff and subs, this truck is diverse in its talents and responsibilities - plowing, sanding, dump trucking. Below is a picture of the soy-based spray foam we use to keep our homes amazingly warm and cool at lowest possible cost.

Here's the sheetrock crew at 50's Ranch 2 who can sheetrock one of smaller homes in a day.

And the painting crew at Cottage 24, working their magic around the hand hewn posts, salvaged wood siding and reclaimed wood rails.

The siding crew taking a smoke and snack on a cold winter morning on Lake Ridge Road outside of Narrowsburg, NY.

Curtis going wild at sweet Cottage 20, trimming the windows, doors, closet shelves and the 100 little details that keep everyone happy.

The wood crew installing the wood ceilings at Cottage 24. Obviously these pictures are not sequential since a few photos ago they were being painted.

Here's the heating crew working through a cold rain to get the radiant heat and water lines into the slab of our new 5-bay garage/man-cave before the concrete pour.

And the painters at our offices, on the last possible day of exterior painting until the spring. They turned the dirty brown front into a cool red barn in 8hrs flat.

The foundation at Micro Cottage 3 over on Tuthill Road.

The concrete crew working the concrete, with the pump trucks and concrete trucks supplying them with a steady stream of wet concrete for the 5-bay garage/man-cave.

And then two pictures of people obviously not working. Lisa and my son caught napping, mid day.

And my Dad, up for a two week visit, not really setting the world on fire either. Looks like he has everything he needs - cane, ball for dog, coffee mug, and lots of blankets.

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Lisa and I are sitting in the dark on Friday night watching "Elvis on Tour", and at the moment he's singing about hunkin, hunkin burnin love while dressed in white and a red line cape. Lucas is sleepting, the cats are waiting patiently at a newly discovered mouse hole, Jakes asleep in the mud room, and a heavy wind is sinking the temps to below zero. I'm back in the saddle after the great Floridian vacation, where I hear it's crazy cold now. I mean, I didn't mind the mid to high sixties, but 40's? That would have sucked. I didn't get any pictures, but there were a few days by the hotel were it was definitely too cold to be out by the pool, but nevertheless, every lounge chair was taken or reserved and many people were out sunning themselves as the cool wind whipped, goose pimples obvious to anyone who looked too closely. After traveling the whole way to Florida, I guess some people just weren't going to be denied their day in the sun - literally. "that's all right, that's all right momma, any way you do" Construction continued while I was away and the 3 houses up on Lake Ridge road outside of Narrowsburg are coming along just fine. It's been cold, real cold, since mid-december with the ground hardening up and complicating our plans, but onward we build, construct, raise and complete. We actually got 4 new homes started in December, with nothing more than sheer determination - or as Lisa's special forces trained Dad would say - 'mind over matter, - if you don't mind, it don't matter.' Or one of my favorites, in a testament to the lethalness of the special forces in general - 'you can run, but you'll just die tired.' Here's Cottage 24, from the front, with a lot of the details starting to be wrapped up. Like I mentioned this house went under contract just before Christmas, which was a nice Christmas gift. It's a great house, fully defined and designed and detailed by me, unobstructed by that crazy collaboration that produces some fine examples of good taste. It was fun. Back in the old days when no one knew us and no one bought our houses, I would design them, build them, decorate them, furnish them and then wait day after day, week after week, month after month until I got them sold. This is a great house. Elvis is currently picking out random woman from the first row to kiss. "Love me tender, love me true, you have made my dreams fullfill, oh my darling I love you and I always will." The show, "Elvis on Tour" is now showing his multiple movie parts with hot perky breasted women of the 60's.

A lot of reclaimed barn siding, v-joint, barn beams and heft stair treads. Hats off to Courtney and Bronson who pioneered this open basement staircase idea. It really works, and like many inspirations, it's genius is it's simplicity. In the pic below you got the siding, the chalkboard door, the sliding barn door and a bunch of perfect barn lighting made of dull galvanized aluminum.

Big momma black radiator heats the place up.

And as part of the deal we are fixing up the basement. I love the basement build out spaces, they are just super comfortable and versatile.

Cottage 20 is moving right along as well. This 960 sq ft 2 bedroom house is comfortable, well-designed, and just weeks (ok, maybe a month) away from being complete.

That's the floor sanding machine separating the fireplace from the media center.

This is bad picture quality of a kitchen that as it comes together piece by piece is going to be fantastic, unique, elegant to the extreme, and functional.

The new 50's Ranch profile shoot looks good to me. Big overhangs, tony fireplace stone, and a neat bluish green stain.

This house is just entering the painting phase, and the ceilings are stained and the walls painted.

This is now our only house that we have under construction that is not spoken for. Cottage 25 is 1300 sq ft and hotter than Elvis in Hawaii.

"Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land"

We heat our homes over the winter with these propane fueled gas heaters.

Here's my new red 5-bay garage for my insulation truck, my tractor, my ford, my other ford and my dump/plow truck. It will have heat, electric, cable, an office a basketball net and a few other bells and whistles. Sounds like the perfect man-cave.

It wasn't that long ago I was working out of my home, with deliveries of lights, toilets, and hundreds of other house furnishings filling up our porches, kitchens and basements.

I mean, in retrospect it's plenty romantic getting a business off the ground, with all the sacrifices, mistakes, miscues, glories and defeats - but it's actually a lot nicer having a little consistency of cash flow and lifestyle.

We're caught in a trap

I can't walk out

Because I love you too much baby

Why can't you see

What you're doing to me

When you don't believe a word I say?

We can't go on together

With suspicious minds

And we can't build our dreams

On suspicious minds

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Here's a great photo of Lisa hoggin Lucas' new gift from our neighbor Theresa. I literally had to wrestle the new guitar out of Lisa's hands and give it to lil' Lucas - it is his gift after all. We're back on Crawford Road - so of a rude welcome back, considering it's like -25 degrees with the wind chill. We had frozen pipes at our kitchen at the old farmhouse I own - so I was down there with the hair dryer. I wanted to post a few pics of Lucas in his new hat that Jeanne and Deb from Cottage 14 got for him. I personally think he looks a lot like Robert Redford in one of my favorite movies, Jeremiah Johnson.

We all caught colds in Florida, and one by one we started sniffling and coughing and stuff - but we are on the back side of that nonsense now - Lucas timed his 'cold peak' perfectly - we were on a planes all day while he was coughing and more or less feeling miserable.

And a final pic of Superman and his Mom takin' it easy in Key West, which is only a fading memory now. I'm in the office ready to go - we do have 8 houses under construction.

Lisa and I like to travel and have managed to squeak out quite a few trips over the last 7 years of our partnership - repeated trips to Mexico, Rome, Capri, Berlin, Munich, Warsaw, Lodz, Florence, lots of New England trips, NYC, California and various parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania. We like traveling over Christmas, and this year we wanted to keep it simple so we stayed in the States (and considering the air travel hassle of the big northeasterner before we left and the attempted terror attack on Christmas - thank god for that). Key West seemed exotic, fresh, easy and not that far - so that's where we've been since the 22nd. We took a sailing trip on a old wooden schooner, took long walks all over the Island most mornings and evening, and more or less just took it easy. Captain Lucas and 1st Mate Mommy.

Been experimenting with photoshop to enhance the photos a little, and the results are above and below. The pic below is of Gen. George Pattons boat "If and When" - never really used because he died in a car wreck before retirement.

And then we went to the aquriam and saw turtles and sharks and sea horses.

Me and Lucas and some Captain Hemmingway look-alike.

And here's Lisa outside the aquriam being molested by the Sponge Monster, which was this grotesque creature made up of thousands of sponges.

Lucas' first trip to Santa - kind of weird being warm and on a pier.

Lucas at our room at the Westin in Downtown Key West - on his big bed, near the pool, with his favorite Baby Einstein.

Big cruise ships ported everyday - Here's a huge one from Disney just outside our hotel.

See Mickey Mouse on the Chimney.

The Westin (or as Lisa remarked, The White Bread).

And here's Lisa doing her best Christmas Story impersonation with her son looking on doubtfully and unconvinced.

Then by plan we switched 2/3 of the way through to the Marriott BeachSide on the other side of the island. View from our window with the First Lady of Catskill Farms presiding.

Photoshoped tricked out ocean photo from the balcony.

Lisa holding Lucas who caught a cold somewhere. It hasn't been spectacular weather, that's for sure - but were not complaining considering it's hovering around 70.

And Lisa with Lucas, sans flash. God, now that should get Lisa's damn Mom off my back - she's been calling twice a day looking for photos of Lucas - I tried to tell her this is a business blog, but you know how Grandmoms can be.