the blog
Bathrooms are among my favorite parts of a house. So I was thrilled to write a couple of blog posts recently for CIRCA Old Houses about this most sacred room. Plumbing fixtures (clawfoot tubs, pedestal sinks, cross head taps) can be incredibly beautiful, even delightful in their quirkiness, and the palette of materials can range […]
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We’re back in the basement (and other parts of the house) with Desiree Lawlor from Hart Water Conditioning. Winter 2023 was pretty mild, but there were a few cold snaps that put everyone on high alert for frozen pipes, a destructive (not to mention expensive) nightmare we all want to avoid. Even in fair weather, […]
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On the heels of our happy and generously received collaboration for the 2022 Kingston Design Showhouse, Worth Preserving and Quittner joined forces again in Winter 2023 to refresh the dining room at a house that we (Worth Preserving, not Quittner because they were teenagers back then) rehabilitated in Germantown, NY, over a decade ago. In […]
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Desiree Lawlor from Hart Water Conditioning is the kind of great that words can’t adequately describe. You have to experience her for yourself. So I finally made the video I’ve been wanting to make for a long time. Just two women chatting underground… Below are some choice nuggets from our conversation. And then, please, watch […]
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I love summer. The smell of tomato plants, waking up to daylight and going to bed with the sky not quite deepest black, moving from inside to outside without bundling up or shrinking against the cold. My shoulders can finally collapse away from my ears. I need every bit of physical relaxation I can get. […]
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In the category of silver linings, 2020 is going to be an epic garden year. The greens are getting almost as much love and hand (er, leaf) holding as our 2nd-grade remote learner. Salad days are on their way…
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Germantown has so many wonderful things going for it (see our Connect page, for starters). Ah, but underneath! No, not some seedy cultural underbelly or local haunting. But something formed deep (alas not deep enough) in the earth, eons and eons ago, that burbles up and makes itself known…malodorously. Sometimes it is even accompanied by […]
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Get comfortable – this is a long post. The precarious state of the earth has been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe it’s because we have a 7-year-old son and scientists’ projections for his future are pretty grim. Maybe it’s because, as a real estate broker, I drive way more now than I ever […]
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Everyone poops. But not everyone knows how to take care of a septic system. Or even what a septic system is. If you own a house in an area without municipal sewer access, you need to know. Otherwise you could be up *rhymes with pits* creek. The name of our septic service provider, Royal Flush, […]
