Spring
Spring has sprung - in the Catskills that means mornings are 32 degrees, and afternoons are 65. Even in the summer, our evenings cool down melodiously - negating the need for air conditioning and discouraging a lot of pests.
Here is Cottage 5 Maurizio's yard, about 10 days after we planted it. First you 'grade' it, then you rake the rocks out, then you add two teaspoons of top soil, rake it 0ut, sprinkle liberally Delaware Valley grass seed, and cover with hay (which keeps it protected from too much sun and too much wind), let sit 2 weeks, and enjoy. We differ from most country builders by even using top soil - most just rake around the clay like soil they found on site, throw some seed around, and wallah - a rocky, spotty, weed lawn impossible to fix without starting from scratch. This is a great example of how Catskill Farms exceeds expectations - a fine yard process like this is easily $5k, and no where in the contract does it stipulate I will do it. But let's be honest - it's better this way, so we do it.
Maurizio also has already planted some trees -
Sullivan County has lots of little farms and 'at home' suppliers of all the little essentials that makes life sweet - in this case, honey. Which immediately makes me wonder why a few of my customers have never heard the cliche 'you catch more flies with honey....'
And the Sullivan County countryside, in all it's glory.
And Cheri's 1100 sq ft modern abode.
And Cheri's note to us after she settled in (one of full timers) -
I'm so happy to be here.
It's unreal.
I'm not kidding.
I keep telling the dogs we are on vacation.
Norm is like a pig in shit, Scout a bit wary.
When I wake up and go outside
I don't need to smile at anybody if I don't really want to.
Or talk about the weather. Or how I'm doing today.
I don't have to make a mad dash for a hot pile of poop nearly getting hit by a street sweeper sitting on his throne.
I don't have to cover my ears as screaming emergency vehicles go by or be saddened by
firetrucks rolling by with american flags flying.
I can sit on the porch with scout and norm
and listen to a little chirpin' and hummin', whooshin' and cracklin'.
I talk to spiders before I pick them up and gently place them outside (where I think they belong). We differ.
I found a tiny bird dead on the patio in the morning one day...it must have flown into the sliding glass doors in the night.
I buried the little body in the backyard. (respectfully).
And yesterday I uncovered two tiny translucent bright orange baby salamanders under a log.
Awesome. After admiring them, I placed the log back over them, gently.
...not to mention having a washer/dryer. And a fancy stove.
shit. it all just blows my mind.
You've all heard about 'road rage'...
well, here's a nytimes article about contractors and builders not feeling the love. Pretty good and funny article, and the related blog posts reveal the extent of the bitterness left by contractors and their minions. My thoughts - both sides have a point to be sure. "Building Rage" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/garden/15contractors.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=contractor%20therapy&st=cse&oref=slogin I thought it was well-timed because you always read about the homeowners and architects, but the builder sometimes actually has to serve as a bridge between the aspirations of the homeowner and architects.
Builder Magazine Article Link
That's right, we bad. Nice article capturing our business philosophy in respected trade magazine. http://www.builderonline.com/custom-homes/escape-from-new-york.aspx
Old House Blues part tres
Ok, we are making some big progress at the old farmhouse - we are insulated and ready to rock (sheetrock that is). The old lady is coming right along, tripped out with some security, whole house audio, higher ceilings, and more windows. The only thing untouched is the bathroom.
I don't know if I mentioned but this house and 50 acres was owned previously by an older lady who spent most of her adult years performing caberet tunes across the world. The big piece of land I bought before this was owned by Mrs. Vaughn, who was over 80 yrs old. I guess the older ladies really dig me.
We reshaped the upstairs pretty drastically - moving walls, raising ceilings, adding closets, etc... In this pic I am standing in the master bedroom and looking into the hall and nursery. Lisa is very concerned our huge king sized bed will not fit in the bedroom - maybe it will, but probably nothing else.
What makes an older house hard to renovate is the unstandard sizing of both timbers, and spaces between the timbers. New construction is about standard sizing - 16" from stud to stud, rafter to rafter - and most materials like insulation, sheetrock, durock, and even trim lumber comes in measurements of 16" - so when every stud and every stud bay is different, each trade most take their time and deal with a fair amount of aggravation to make everything turn out ok.
On this house we did our part, addressing each and every stud with firring strips, blocking, and the like so we have a somewhat flat and even surface. In this picture you can see the light colored wood over top of the dark colored wood - each one of those light colored strips is a different size and width in order to create a workable surface for the finish work. Mind you that there are probably400 studs or more in this house, so it was a bit tedious.
What you are looking at here is polyurethane insulation, a skim coat applied before the standard pink panther insulation is applied. The reason that I chose the added expense of this redundant insulation is because air penetration and heat loss is getting more and more expensive. With a new house, a standard insulation process can be pretty effective, but with an old house with unstandard framing and lots of weird places that are hard to get to, this spray foam takes care of the human error. I think it was a great decision, kind of cool to look at, and not that expensive.
We have designed and built 30+ homes in the past 4 years, and believe it or not, we have not installed air-conditioning once. And since no one is complaining, i don't plan to start. The really hot summer season is super short, and up here in the Catskills, the nights stay chilly, cooling down the houses.
In this house, we added a 'whole house fan' in order to draw the warm air out of the house, and circulate cooler air.
At a flip of a switch, one fan will pull the air out of main house, and the other will push it out the attic. Air circulation can be just as effective as air conditioning.
