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What a Crock!
My crappy house has no kitchen. OK, yeah. It had a kitchen when I bought it. This charming arrangement of smelly appliances and crusty cabinets:
Alive with bacteria, I killed it with my crowbar and buried it in a dumpster. Now, it sleeps with the fishes. Or rats, probably. Whatever.
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It’s Minus Forty Six Degrees in NY.
Happy New Year! It’s freaking cccold! I think we’re setting records here on Long Island. Global Warming my ass! I’d like to punch Al Gore in the face right now… So, let’s talk about something related to heat. Radiator covers! Woo hoo! A fascinating topic that I’m sure you can’t wait to read about!
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How to Get Landscaping Done For Free
Take My Trees. Please.
Did you know you can get landscaping done for free? Yup. There’s free labor out there. People can’t wait to come over and dig up your yard. As long as there’s something worth digging up. And as long as you let them take that something home with them…
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The Best Job EVER.
My house has three bedrooms. I turned one of them into a ridonkulous dressing room. I was planning on using the extra one for a guest room, but who am I kidding? No one wants to stay overnight at my crappy house. It’s just as well, because what I really need is an office.
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Brick Love, Part I
I see posts on design blogs all the time, written by people complaining about their brick wall “eyesores”. They’re seeking advice on how to remove/cover/disguise their brick. Personally, I think they’re nuts and should just replace those brick walls with padded ones. I love brick walls. Beautiful, vintage, NYC loft kind of brick. The kind of brick that looks like it’s been around the block a few times. (Metaphorically speaking, of course. Brick walls tend to stay put.) I guess you always want what you don’t have because, while those crazy people are taking brick out, I am putting it in. Like, on purpose…
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May the Floors Be With You
Wow. That title is awful and doesn’t even make any sense. (Sorry, George Lucas.) This post is about my subfloor. Sounds boring right? But I hope you’ll stick with me and read it to the end because I deserve serious props for what I’ve accomplished here all by myself and I need you to tell me how impressed you are. Even if you really don’t mean it. Fake compliments are OK. I won’t know the difference. And now here’s a cute picture of Egor (you can see the floor in the background, so it’s relevant) to keep you interested enough to keep reading…
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The Major Award in My Bay Window
It’s Fra-gee-lay
I’m so excited! A Major Award!!! I’m going to display it proudly in my new bay window for all the world to see. What did I do to get this Major Award?
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DIY Electrical Wiring
Sometimes I Like to Pretend I’m an Electrician
You know the feeling when you shuffle your feet on the carpet and then (accidentally!) touch the cat? (Sorry, Egor…) Touching a live wire is not like that. It’s more of a pulse than a shock. If you were thinking you might like to try it, my advice would be… do not. (I may have just saved your life. You’re welcome.)
So, why was I playing with electricity? Well, my crappy house had crappy wiring, of course. Aluminum…
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A Fig Tree in New York
What The Fig?
I have a big ass fig tree in my yard. I don’t know much about fig trees (I don’t even like figs), but people who do know about fig trees have seen mine and have told me it’s the biggest figging one they’ve seen in New York. They want to know my secret. How did my tree get so big and healthy in this climate? How does it produce so many figs? Here’s what I do…
Nothing!
I’ve heard that little old Italian men grow fig trees in the northeast and they’re small and fragile (the trees are – and maybe the little old men too) and they lovingly wrap them to protect them from the wind and cold of winter and then hope that they survive and then actually bear fruit in the spring.
My tree gets no blanket. No warm milk. No bedtime story. My tree is on its own. My tree is a bad ass. It scoffs at winter. It looks the cold square in the eye and gives it the middle branch. It thrives amidst adversity. In the winter, it looks like this:
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I Turned a Spare Bedroom into a Dressing Room
It’s More Than a Closet. It’s a Sanctuary.
What do you do when you’re somehow amazingly able to find an affordable house with three bedrooms and you really only need two? Well, duh! You turn that superfluous bedroom into a dream closet, of course! A dressing room. How many people actually get to have their own dressing room? Celebrities. Rich people. And me!
