Homeless

Well, it is official. Today my house sold. I am now (-)house. House begone. I have been very focused on getting it sold since I was laid off in December. It felt little like playing chicken with a financial train approaching on the track since December. Of course, since spring arrived, I have had a chance to really watch amazing changes go on in my neighborhood. New stores, cafes, bars. It has been great to watch and think..."Awww! Now I am leaving! Darn it!" Back in May I needed to get to the airport to pick up a rental car but no one was around to drive me. SO - I hopped on my bike and took the newly renovated River trail south out of my neighborhood and then connected up to the Erie canal trail and rode to the back of the airport and right up to the rental counter. All in 15 minutes? Some people take an hour to DRIVE to the airport!
Well, I am going to miss the house and the budding neighborhood. It has been a good home for the past 9 years. Before that, I had moved yearly for the previous four years and never bothered to unpack. i just re-moved the boxes. It was great to finally have a place of my own to stay a while. A home-sanctuary-nest-retreat-shelter-abode. I had an official box throwing out ceremony when i moved in.
















People said the house and the work we did reflected me well. You could walk in and get a big "WELCOME TO TOMLAND" feeling. I loved that. It was a great house to entertain in. I hosted the annual COAP Holiday party every year and even hosted my first thanksgiving 2 years back for 22 people! But with all good things, it was time to move on. That was apparent well before the (-)work thing. Picking up a second(!) hobby car without my own garage is straining my favors with friends and family. Also, [more importantly] after almost four years of making Eric commute to Rochester every weekend, it is time for us to try and make a home together. Of course, I am not sure yet what that home will actually look like.....but it will be another blank canvas to sketch on again! It should be very fun. AND I can go shiny appliance shopping again! Some selected pics from just before sale.

NYC weekend

The International Contemporary Furniture Fair rolled in to New York mid May. So i headed down again to meet up with friends to see the show and the city for the weekend. Thursday afternoon on my way downstate, i stopped in to see my friend Kirsten down in Pine Bush. Kristen and i were classmates together at the University of Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning. Kirsten was a bit busy getting ready for the National Odyssey of the Mind world finals in Michigan. Her daughter's team was competing in several days. We did however get the time to see some of her other activities during my visit. I told Kirsten i liked her kitchen floor. i thought it would a big hit down at ICFF. So you can see her demonstrating how she painted it. We also stopped in on Kirsten's store - The Clever Caterpillar. Lotsa of cool creative gifts and toys for kids.











Afterwards we headed over to her daughter's school to watch their team rehearse for their competition. [ Pics are a little dark..]





























After getting in to the city Thursday night, My friend Brian and I headed up to Central Park for a park hike friday morning. The day was a bit cold, so before we hit the park, Brian took me to a nearby outlet near Times Square to pick up a $5 sweatshirt.















Central Park was perfect for walking in the afternoon. I was glad to walk by the fountain i saw so much of in the movie Angels in America. I have seen both the play and the move and loved them both.






























We also managed to stop in at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum for their National Design Triennial. [ no pics of course] But I watched a pretty clever technique by the German tourists at the museum. Apparently if you act like you cannot speak English, you can do pretty much whatever you like. I will need to try that at a bank in Berlin sometime. While there, we also caught their other exhibition called Design for the other 90%. The juxtaposition was stunning. One exhibit showing design accessible to the poorest people on earth and the other showing what the other 10% get. [ including me..] In fact - you could say most of the weekend highlighted the luckiest 10%.
























Friday evening rolled in and so did my friends Cristian and Patricia. So everyone headed out to the Conran shop for a ICFF reception.


















I love the store. I fell in love with a set of retro black leather luggage. Apparently, it must be targeted for the super-lucky 5%, because the smallest piece cost more than my mortgage. So I guess I will wait till Target rips them off. We had a good time checking out some nice product design and taking pictures.

We found a great lamp that provided some fun photo op's. Apparently we were on to something because a total stranger started taking our pics as well. Soon we were taking to this guy who happens to be originally from Boston and is a stone mason/artist in Long island. He was obviously interesting to talk to because despite the 3 rum and cokes - i am still pondering an ancient fault line underneath Central Park referred to as Cameron's Line.
[ Those Rock people!]
Cristian's friend Jason caught up with us at the reception and then we headed to out to dinner.

Saturday morning we sat down to breakfast at the famous[?] Tick Tock diner in the lobby of our hotel. Afterwards we headed over to ICFF at Jacob Javits. The show was great this year. They had a special section for new designers. I got to talk to Adam Frank at his booth. He has a new lamp called Reveal that Eric really likes. [ i do too] Hopefully we will find a cool spot for one in our new place someday. There were lots of great booths to look at.













































I was really intrigued by 2 booths featuring sliding room dividers / barn doors / Shoji Doors. Another idea for the next house.












I also snapped pics of the Bocci Lamp [ again ] some Italian cooktops and some other interesting articles. Our friend Justin [ also from RIT ID ] meet us at the show with his girlfriend Judy. After the show [ and a small nap for me] We all caught up at another reception down in the Village. More fun, more friends and warm beer. Brian snagged us a reservation at a Brazilian restaurant nearby and we had a great dinner later that evening. We wrapped up the night at a famous cheese cake place near the hotel and called it night.







































I also took random pics over the course of the weekend.


































A very fun weekend

Bathroom finished

I completed the upstairs bathroom several weeks ago - but did not get a chance to post pics. Overall I am very happy how it came out. I really wanted to pull off a slick job to convince myself I could actually do this on a regular basis. I ended up subcontracting several parts to avoid a chance of a mistake due to my inexperience. So the shower base and the toilet were set by a plumber [$$$] Also - after i laid the floor tile, I had a friend Travis come over to help me grout. The required grout job was not rocket science - but i knew it would take me 4 hours and be an "OK" job - whereas it took Travis hmmm... 21 minutes to do it and it looks WAY better than I could have pulled off.


















































So lessons learned:

• Self leveling concrete does not always self level.
• Don't buy concrete in Barbie pail sizes to avoid a mess. [$$$]
• Lowes only charges $150 to install a shower door.
• Use only your Lowes and/or Home Depot Credit cards during a project to track expense better.
• I took WAY too long to figure out a couple of things