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I’M UPSTATE THIS WEEKEND and made it my business to check out the architectural salvage warehouse operated by the Historic Albany Foundation.
My plan is to replace the screens on my porch with glass to create a year-round sun room, much like my friends Fran and Bob did at their house in Columbia County, N.Y., below.
Bob got the windows at the Historic Albany Foundation — actually they’re mostly French doors — and in just one day, with the help of a carpenter, transformed their screened porch to a glassed-in conservatory.
Arriving late on a rainy Friday, with just half an hour to go before closing, I didn’t have time to root through thousands of square feet of panel doors, multi-paned windows, moldings, sinks and tubs, hardware, mantels, lighting fixtures, etc., but I didn’t see enough of any one kind of window to make the matched set of seven I need.
Still, it’s a great place to know about, and everything is amazingly cheap (old panel doors in good condition for $40, for example).
Albany is not an unpleasant city in which to spend some time. It has a good art museum, a few streets lined with 19th century row houses that rival Brooklyn Heights for beauty, and on Lark, several of the kind of cozy, locally-owned coffee shops that East Hampton ought to have but doesn’t.
Photos by Zoë Greenberg
“EVER WONDER why our Yankee forebears seem to have been incapable of designing a bad house?” asks Rural Intelligence, a year-old culture website that is like a New York Times Styles section for the Hudson Valley and Berkshires.
It’s a point that will be abundantly illustrated this Sunday, June 14th, when the town of Canaan, N.Y., in northern Columbia County, launches its 250th birthday celebration with an historic house tour featuring eleven houses dating from the 1780s to the mid-1800s, some open to the public for the first time ever.
Isn't this missing some columns?
Upstate farmers may have built some fine vernacular dwellings in the late 18th century, but they went on to do some pretty strange remodels in the 19th (above). Many of the houses on the tour started as humble homesteads, usually two rooms up, two rooms down, with a central stairwell. As their owners prospered, they would either build a larger house adjacent to the smaller one, or remodel the existing house, often in the Greek Revival style.
Sometimes it is hard to discern the “hidden homestead,” but at Turning Leaf and in the Daniel Warner and Jason Warner houses, the original residence is a clearly defined 1790s wing at the back of the 1814 and 1830 main houses.
Daniel Warner House: a gem
The Daniel Warner house has halved logs supporting the second-floor floorboards of the older sections; the Jason Warner house has trimmed and incised beams in the older part of the house, meant to be seen and therefore decorated – an unusually fancy finish for an 18th century farmhouse.
Bradley House: spiffy eyebrow Colonial
The Canaan 250 House Tour runs from 1-5PM, Sunday, June 14; tickets ($20) and maps available at Canaan Town Hall, County Rt. 5, just south of State Rt. 295, starting at 10AM.
"The Shanty": Dutch roofline, Victorian porch
Domino magazine is folding, and I am devastated. Hard on the heels of Cottage Living, my other favorite magazine is ceasing to publish. Why why why why WHY??!!!???
As if it wasn’t enough to lose Cottage Living, Country Living, O at Home, the infant Blueprint — not to mention HG — now this lively, original, and inspiring magazine, that just made you want to go re-arrange furniture and paint a wall pink, is no more.
I never subscribed, because I just couldn’t wait to receive it in the mail if there was any chance of finding it at a newsstand a day or two sooner.
Domino was fun and and unpretentious — they never shied from IKEA furniture, if it was used well — and they featured mostly old houses, often in Brooklyn. In the February 09 issue (March 09 will be the last), there’s a 1930s brick row house in Brussels, Belgium; a gingerbread Victorian in New Orleans; and a couple of L.A. bungalows.
A few months back, irresistibly, they featured Chase Booth’s three-week makeover of a dank ’70s ranch with an acoustical tile ceiling in Columbia County, and made it look GREAT.
Is the economy really THAT bad?
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From today’s mediabistro.com: Conde Nast to Fold Domino (UnBeige)
Conde Nast is folding Domino, the young “Shopping Magazine for Your Home” launched in April of 2005. A final March issue will be published, and Dominomag.com will be shuttered. “This decision … is driven entirely by the economy,” said Conde Nast president and CEO Charles Townsend. BusinessWeek: Domino and the folly of the magazine spin-off. NYO: A spokeswoman said Domino editor Deborah Needleman and publisher Beth Brenner would both leave the company, but that some staff would be given new jobs at Conde Nast. NYP: Though the upscale shelter magazine was a money loser, Newhouse’s decision caught insiders and outsiders by surprise.
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