Day Four

Two questions have been ricocheting through the thin air in my skull today; the first is, when I’m reincarnated will I be a lawyer? The second is, who installed the original plumbing at The White House? Even in 100-degree heat when the swede tends to over-heat a little these are fair questions.

I met the HVAC man at the property this morning and reinterpreting his serious head shaking, sighs and “what on earth is this?” as we walked around the house attempting to follow the piping, I’ve made the very accurate conclusion that the plumbing was installed by a schoolboy whose girlfriend had ditched him the night before and had nothing better to do on a lazy Sunday.

The HVAC man wasn’t even there to look at the plumbing – the sheer marvelousness of its design just seemed to interest him.

Anyway, we are going for a Two-Stage, 16 SEER system with 10 registers. Beautiful. I have no idea what it is but I’m spellbound by the terminology. You simply have to buy something that you can tell people is 16 SEER and 10 registers – “Oh, you don’t have 16 SEER?”

 After all of that excitement I drove to Claymont, Delaware. Graham Greene can do wonderful things with language describing a location, a place. Claymont would defeat him. Tarmac and strip malls. That’s it.

I was there to talk windows with the window man at Home Depot. Why are windows so complicated? The window man was great but what was left of the thin air in my head was starting to become dangerously vacuum-like. Standard fit versus custom made, steel, wood, Argon, rain resistant glass (there is, really, such a thing) – but we got there, sort of.  Steel and wood windows are 3 times as expensive as vinyl. Vinyl windows take less than two weeks to construct; steel and wood take 4 to 6 weeks.

And we will be installing….

The photo below was taken by one of Emily’s students in Tallinn during their group visit to Estonia earlier this year. To me it’s a very simple and beautiful building that hasn’t been destroyed by vinyl siding and other formaldehyde products.

Day Three

The humble floor. Much like the window. Except there appear to be considerably more options – meaning choices, meaning a decision has to be made - swiftish.

Poured concrete? Beautiful, but the weight would probably cause the little Cottage to sink, never mind Cochranville shifting a couple of degrees on the compass.

Realistically it has to be wood. Sustainable wood. And bamboo is the obvious selection because it’s so fast growing and hard and durable.

Uncharacteristically for me searching on the internet, I found in half a morning a company in San Diego who produce organic vertical grain bamboo in both wide plank and classic (the vertical grain bit is important as it makes relatively small spaces appear larger - Emily told me that). 

Their salesperson called me this morning to say that they could deliver within 4 days as they have a distribution center in Allentown, PA. Remarkable. Are there no Shop Stewards in America?

The photos are from this morning.

Day Two

The window’s life is a pretty poor one – we look straight through them, open and close without a thought and generally ignore them. And if you’re an American window life is even worse, because I’ve never seen anyone here clean their windows – Illinois, Wisconsin, California, Pennsylvania – is the rain different? Nor have I seen an ad in the local newspapers offering a window cleaning service - so I think it’s safe-ish to assume that the old and noble English profession of being a Window Cleaner does not exist over here. Shame. There’s brass in muck lad.

That is a fresh thought, because until 7am this morning I lived happily in a world where windows demanded nothing of me and me not a great deal of them. We were happy together.

Sunday morning, sunny in West Chester, internet and brochures spread out before me, I began with a spritlyish spring in my step, and quickly came to a halt with the mental equivalent of a hamstring injury caused by NFL language – double-hung, geometric and radius, casement, operating segment head, pocket replacement. Yeah, throw the ball kid and see what happens, except I couldn’t just throw the sodding ball, I had to understand the language to make a half decent decision on what windows we are going to install.

It’s like rudimentary French – everyone knows “Oui, Non, Parlez vous Americano?” – after 7 hours I have rudimentary “Windows”.

So, it’s off to The White House tomorrow to measure the windows, then later to Delaware to talk prices - and then floors, doors and decking. Only will bamboo will do. James.

Day One

 Day one. This sweet, ramshackle, sorry-looking and much abused building at the junctions of Routes 926 and 41 in Cochranville, Pennsylvania, will be our new office before the snows arrive.


The new design is by Emily, the physical transformation will be done by Tom Savage and his team, and this poor attempt at capturing the process will mostly be by me - I know my rightful place.


The process started five or six months ago when we began to think about where to house the business and over that time has crossed from West Chester to Baltimore to New York City to Parkesburg and Cochranville. Well, there was only one choice given those options.


The building is in poor condition, but tough enough at it's important points (that's the technical term in my world) to withstand being renovated.


The first decision was made earlier this week when Tom discovered that the original wood siding was hidden under a horror, a sodding horror of vinyl siding but appeared to be in reasonable condition and restorable. Which was nice to hear, because the floor (what's left of it), ceiling and internal walls made me want to weep.


The old vinyl was taken off yesterday, the photograph above was taken today. 


This evening Emily and I and her cousin Paul met with Tom to finally decide whether the project made sense given the amount of work required in such a short period of time - yep.


The next step is for Tom's team to rip out the internals - this is good; perhaps the shockingly bad smell that hits you like a slap from above (when you push open the broken front door) will begin to become Alpine-breeze-like soonish.


Emily's design is for a very clean, uncluttered, white, open, space.


Frankly, I can not wait. James.