Frak it – I’m re-naming this blog “Cut and Paste from the New York Times on Division”.
Witness: A Second Home on a Starter Budget, the story of an abandoned cottage re-made with $10,000 of reclaimed lumber, thrift-store finds, and – wait for it - free things they found on the street. Don’t miss the slide show – that would be a mistake.
“Priced out of the New York City real estate market, the couple rent an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They decided to make their first home purchase a weekend house in the Catskills.
They had looked at about 30 houses during a four-month hunt for a country home last summer, and finally closed on the two-bedroom, one-bath home for $95,000 last September. Along with the house, a 700-square-foot 1920s cottage, the property in Sparrow Bush, a village in Orange County, N.Y., includes eight and a half wooded acres and a detached garage/barn 800 feet from the house.
Every weekend, starting in October, the couple drove two hours from their home in Brooklyn to the house, undertaking all of the necessary reconstruction themselves, except the re-roofing, which was done by a contractor. Both urbanites, neither had ever tackled a renovation before, but the project was thrilling to them.”
I loved that staircase picture when I saw it in the Times, but no railing?
Perfect!
This has motivated me to remove the railing on the wall that forms one side of my staircase. It is awful – I think the builder just angled the ends of a 2×8. I don’t know what to replace it with eventually, but at least I won’t be looking at it any more.
Now if I could just think of what to do about the ugly balusters(?) which run from an ugly board on the ceiling to the whatever it’s called at the other side of the stairs. They look like 1 1/2 inch on a side rectangles.
That’s awesome! Thanks for sharing!