Tag: Friends

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The Three Martini Renovation Or How To Piss Off Bloggers

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The Wall Street Journal has a article title “The Three Martini Renovation” in which the the article can be summarized to this

But when novices who’ve had a few drinks get a hold of crowbars, drills and Sawzalls, the results are sometimes less than satisfactory.

A number of house bloggers were interviewed for this article, including myself. Many bloggers believe the reporter of the story, Jennifer Saranow, misrepresented herself.

The reporter told me she was writing a story about such work parties. People helping people. That sort of thing. When I described the plaster party to her on the phone, she expressed the usual polite surprise that people still help each other like that.

Then the reporter admitted the story was not a feel-good story about people helping their neighbors. It was a story about people throwing renovation parties to save money and inviting inexperienced friends over to mix alcohol with demolition – friends who ended up screwing things up or getting injured.

1902victorian.com’s account of the story is pretty good. I recommend reading the whole thing.

I was contacted via my blog, but I took several weeks to get back to the reporter. By the time she had interviewed me, I think she pretty much had the story written and didn’t dig too much. I did have a demolition part with plenty of beer but there was no excitement like some drunken friend taking out the wrong wall. I’m not mentioned in the story.

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A look At How Houses Are Built In Israel

Friends of mine are moving to Israel for a few years. They will be living in a newly built house during that time. Although they are living in a relative safe area, the houses are built to withstand an assault. Here are some interesting things to note about the construction (and a few pictures).

  • The house has an alarm system.
  • Some windows have a metal shutter system. Others have a roll down protection system.
  • The windows and doors all appear to be heavy duty in design and made of metal.
  • According to my friend, “By law, every new house in Israel has to have a security room – lockable from inside and airtight.”
  • “All houses and building here are made out of concrete – this is good for shelling protection as well as taking advantage of cooling.”
  • “This means all interior walls are also concrete.”
  • “I think they simply tile everything they want tiled, then smooth the walls with plaster and paint it.”

Interesting how a constant threat of a terrorist attack dictates the building materials and design of housing. I assume that there aren’t a lot of McMansions there either.

Side of the house. Nothing too unusual looking here

north side yard

Safe room. I guess you fill it full of important papers, food and guns

safe room

Metal security shutters. Where can I get these in the US?

secuirty shutters