I Love Lamp: Room Sneak Peek

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Guys, it's been BANANAS. So, yet again, I'm just gonna show you a little sneak peek of something at the Inn. Here's the breakfast nook in one of the Kitchenette rooms:

Steven, my in-house carpenter (when and how did that happen by the way...?!) built the table from barn wood and pre-made legs. He's also the master painter behind the art. We've had a good laugh several times about how he's making hotel art nowadays... Perhaps the classiest hotel art around!

I Love Lamp: Painting the Motel Exterior

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I have been aching to paint the motel exterior since the day we bought this place and now, with the interior work practically done and warm weather, its finally TIME! The day before yesterday we bought a boatload (ok, a Subaru-load) of paint and taped everything off.

I worked section by section, rolling over the old red then using a brush to get in the ten thousand nooks and crannies. OH MY GOD THE TEDIUM of that second step. And I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit how physically taxing it was. I'm sore.

Meanwhile, Steven was hard at work acetone-ing then painting the north side of the motel where we're going to have a small patio area.

And guys, that ladder is REALLY TALL. After we finished, beers in hand checking out our handiwork, we both admitted how nervous we were about it. But look! So worth it!

Next up are the doors which will be a glossy version of the same blue and all the window trim in white. Plus the five million other things we have to do before opening...!

As tiring as all this painting was, it's crazy pleasing to have such an obvious, visible result of my labor. So much of the other work that goes in to opening this place happens in notebooks and computer documents (or in my brain at 2 in the morning). I'm looking forward to waking up tomorrow morning, looking out the window and seeing this progress.

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

 

I Love Lamp: Spruceton Inn Sneak Peek!

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We got the beds delivered for the inn the other day so I immediately set up a room! Obviously I've been making décor plans/purchases throughout our renovation, but I've been reluctant to buy too much in bulk for all the rooms until I could see things together in person. Being able to actually fluff and drag and move things around is infinitely helpful.

It's kind of silly but having BEDS in the rooms has made it feel all the more real. Next step: guests! We've gotten our first batch of reservations so we're on our way. Book your room for July 1st on here. Or enter this Brooklyn Based giveway and win a two night stay AND other great stuff like a $25 bar tab and brunch at the Pheonicia Diner and free tubing!

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

Stop Being So Critical

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I loved this Op-Ed by Michael S. Roth in the NY Times: "Young Minds in Critical Condition."

He says:

Our best college students are very good at being critical. In fact being smart, for many, means being critical. Having strong critical skills shows that you will not be easily fooled. It is a sign of sophistication, especially when coupled with an acknowledgment of one’s own “privilege.” [Bold emphasis my own.]

Yes, how many times did I hear "critical thinking" thrown around in my education? SO MANY TIMES that's how many. But, like he goes on to say, it's not that great of a life skill. And in fact, it could be a hindrance to a more open and creative learning process:

In campus cultures where being smart means being a critical unmasker, students may become too good at showing how things can’t possibly make sense. They may close themselves off from their potential to find or create meaning and direction from the books, music and experiments they encounter in the classroom.

And why do I care? Out of college? And not a professor? Because it resonates with something I've been thinking a lot about since moving up here and that is:

The value of exploration and support over tunnel vision and criticism. 

Opening this inn has been a learning a experience in a thousand ways. But I've especially appreciated having the opportunity to get better at being flexible, and at being able to work towards the big picture of something while not letting small, daily frustrations, inconsistencies, and unforeseen situations stress me out or throw me off course.

We knew things would get complicated, we knew things wouldn't go as planned. But instead of feeling critical (of myself and my team and this property) we've been able to come up with solutions that will make this place even better than we first planned.

I'm not saying I'm an ace at it, but there's something about the folks we're working with and the pace of country life that's opened me up this way.

I've talked about how living up here has cut down on the rat race of constant comparison, how it's made me reconsider things like being a "city person" at heart or how I think I might want to raise kids. Every day I'm surprised by what a difference this surrounding has made in how I feel and interact with the world. And it's funny because I've spent years abroad and when you're out of the country you expect these kind of changes and this kind of reflection, but not so much when you move within the States.

Regardless of exactly what is bringing these questions to the surface, I'm happy to be asking them.

I Love Lamp: Mini Barn

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Now that it's fiiiiiiinally getting warm out, Steven and I have started to get our hands dirty tackling some projects like the Mini Barn aka No-More-Goats-Gazebo aka Goatzebo. See, the previous owners had lots and lots o' goats:

Fifty-two to be precise. And they used what was once a hotel bunk room as a pen to separate some of the more aggressive male goats. Steven and I are now de-goat-ing it to turn it into a gazebo of sorts for guests to hang out in.

First we removed the beat up windows and door, and the particle board that was nailed up over the back.

Then with our maul and crowbars, we took out parts of the pens. I say "parts" because we're leaving the walls for a booth-feel. And I say "we" even though this part was clearly all Steven.

Next we swept out all the cobwebs and hay and thought about how on earth we were gonna get rid of the goat-y smell from the particle board floor. I decided to look under the building itself to see if there was perhaps a better sub-floor beneath all the goat grime and there was! So with crowbars we painstakingly removed the rotted particle board floors to reveal a much more people-friendly wood floor.

We got about halfway done with the floor before we decided to call it a day. Sometimes it's best to quit when you're ahead!

Our next steps are to finish ripping up the rest of the floor, give the whole thing a hearty power-wash then paint the shit out of it. And while I'm a total sucker for whitewash, that seems like a bit of a dangerous choice for such an indoor-outdoor space so instead we're going for a "Notre Dame" grey.

Hopefully I'll have some more progress to report next week!

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

I Love Lamp: New Floors

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Like I said on Instagram, I call this one "Before and Almost-After":

New floors to go with our new windows and freshly painted white walls. You better believe I took my shoes off, padded around barefoot, laid down on it. And the verdict is I LOVE IT! Hopefully you will too when you come for a visit.

Things are coming along.

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

I Love Lamp: Plastic Rugs

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I came across this photo today from SFGirlByBay and it re-awoke this weird love I have of plastic rugs:

I think it was when we were living in Mali that I first fell for them. People use them indoors and out, as often for a party as for prayers.

We bought a few when we were living at a radio station in the little town of Segou. (I know I know, it was a super crazy situation! Read the book I wrote about our travels and you'll know all about that and plenty of other weird stuff we put ourselves through...)

And we've held onto one through the years which is currently living in our kitchen:

Quite a distance that one has traveled. Who'da thunk.

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

Man Repeller on the Perfect Instagram Account

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Have you seen the Man Repeller post on the perfect Instagram account? HILARIOUS.

She (Amelia Diamond), like me, wants to create a second Instagram account. Although where I want to fill mine with all the boring and stressful and entirely unappealing things in my life, she wants to indulge in all of the sunsets, macarons, and humble bragging that she can.

I say GO FOR IT. I'm all about having more subversive Instagram accounts out there.

I Love Lamp: Swings!

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I've had a thing for swings for a while now.

So much so that back in Brooklyn I insisted on hanging a hammock inside.

Which was mostly a noble attempt to deflect my true desire: to have a yard with a swing.

So imagine my joy when yesterday reached an insanely balmy 60 degrees--

And Steven built me a swing!

Like just about everything we've had a hand in here, it's made from barn wood. (And some climbing rope threaded through two drilled holes.) Not to downplay Steven's fabulous craftsmanship but, boy was it easy!

As we develop the grounds for the Inn, I'm gonna be sure to have some swings for guests because we shouldn't be the only ones enjoying the view of Mt. West Kill like this.

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

The Danger of Inspiration

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A friend of mine gave me a copy of Annie Dillard's famous book The Writing Life last year and I both love and loathe the advise she gives. So I was excited see this Op-Ed in the Times by Thomas Chatterton Williams that circles around her warning that a writer is "careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write".

Cutting to it: Williams goes on a Game of Thrones watching and reading binge and he can't shake that style and voice out of his own writing.

"I do not mean to sound presumptuous: There are far worse things than crafting a massively successful, carefully plotted and highly lucrative series of fantasy novels. The problem for me was that I wasn’t writing anything close to as good as the books whose language and thought patterns I was so haplessly aping. Nor was I any longer making the kind of work I’d set out to create in the first place. I was somehow pumping out a terrible sausage of the two."

Williams, I have BEEN THERE man. I am a total language ape. I'm one of those people who has to resist putting on an Irish accent when in Irish company. Which is why, when I'm writing, I don't avoid reading all together (impossible, unpleasant) but rather, I read things that are sooooo far from my voice that it would feel ludicrous and immediately unnatural to mimic it. It's easier to catch the straying this way.

Williams has a similar solution:

"Salvation arrived (knock on wood) when I decided to give Teju Cole’s “Open City” another go. This was a streamlined book I had tried several times to start without any traction. Coming back to it in the middle of “A Song of Ice and Fire” was a revelation. No matter how much Martin I had ingested, 15 minutes with Cole was like a palette cleanser on my mind, a spoonful of cool sorbet after a long and heavy meal....The solution, I’m convinced now, isn’t to read less (that would be boring) or even, as Dillard suggests, to censor what is taken in. On the contrary, the answer seems to be to take in more."

(Bold emphasis my own.)

All of this makes me think about a conversation I've been having with our various friends who come up and visit on the weekends--

A lot of them ask what's different up here in the country vs. back down in Brooklyn. What do we like, what do we dislike, how does it affect our writing/art/motivation. And doing leftover dishes one morning with my friends Dominique and Mary I stumbled upon the realization that a hugely important change is:

I've stopped constantly comparing myself to other people.

Part of that is that I very literally do no see other people that much. (It's nearly noon and so far and I've seen only Steven and a guy in a phone service truck.)

And naturally that will change once we're running a business that's sole focus is having people around--

But I think there's really something to be said for NYC's particular hustle, bustle, and rat race bullshit. It's a place where people come to WIN. To be THE BEST. And right now I'm really and thoroughly enjoying living at my own pace, in my own way. I don't feel guilty about getting up "late" at 8am because I see people coming back from their runs around Prospect Park, I don't feel unstylish next to that perfectly hip woman on the G train, I don't feel like a failure going to book events for famous young writers, or on the brink of poverty for not being able to afford a $16 cocktail.

It's one thing to feel inspired by other people, but quite another to feel inadvertently dragged down by their "success".

I'm doing things on my own, for their own sake and value, not in comparison to what I think I should be doing or what other people are doing. AND OH MY GOD IS IT LIBERATING.

All of this is not to say that I was desperately unhappy in New York. It's more like I no longer have this anxious hum in the background of everything, and that silence lets me focus on what's actually in front of me. And oh my, it can so be inspiring.

Santorini to West Kill

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I came across these gorgeous photos of Santorini (Greece) in Cereal Mag today, shot by Kate Holstein.

I've been thinking about Greece a lot this week because that's where Steven and I took a honeymoon-esque trip last summer and Wednesday was our 1 year anniversary. (!)

And while we didn't take any photos quite as stunning as the ones above, I believe this poolside one from Santorini is pretty epic, no?

AHAHAH! It still cracks me up.

We eloped down at Brooklyn City Hall then came up here to the Catskills for a quick honeymoon, because like I said back then, it would have seemed weird to just go back to the apartment and what, answer some emails? Rent a movie?

And this Wednesday we celebrated in the Catskills again, but this time as residents and future business owners and we just kept marveling about how if you had told us on our way out of City Hall what our lives would look like together a year from then (the big move! the house! the dog! the business!) we would have laughed.

A big hearty "I can't wait to do that!" laugh of course.

Here's to more ADVENTURE!