How to turn your second home into a third one. And fourth one. And fifth one… 

By J.M. Stewart

There is a new kind of “key party” happening out there. Chances are, you already know someone who’s doing it. Hold on—it’s not what you think. The only things being swapped are the keys themselves. The Home Exchange industry has taken off in recent years, thanks to a combination of factors that have convinced thousands of vacationers to look at their vacation dollars in a completely different way.  

Technically, home swapping is nothing new. It has been around for a while. The basic idea is  trading vacation time in your home for vacation time in someone else’s. This can be done in a few different ways with different types of properties. In most cases, however, owners of second homes are bartering unused time in their vacation properties for unused time in other people’s second homes. Who wouldn’t want to trade that sparsely used month at the Jersey Shore for a Paris apartment or a hilltop mansion overlooking the Caribbean? 

More than 20 home exchange companies have sprung up in the last two decades, which tells you some-thing about which way this industry is headed. Not coincidentally, during that same time the timeshare industry has cratered. A major reason for the rapid growth of home exchange clubs is the Internet, which enables home-swappers to peruse vacation properties, read personal reviews, and upload comments and photos of their own after each stay.  

According to Steve Zacks, a principal at 3rd Home, a leader in the luxury segment that features over 1,700 residences with an average value of $2.25 million, “There is complete transparency in the program.” The company’s web site features comprehensive listings on each home, and guests are encouraged to write a review after each stay—which is then featured unedited on the property page and in the testimonials section.

There are three basic types of home exchanges:

1. Hospitality Exchange You stay in someone’s home while the host is there. This might be in a spare bedroom—bed-and-breakfast style—or perhaps a guesthouse. It is an interesting budget option.
2. Simultaneous Exchange This is when you literally switch homes—you’re in their home, and they’re in your home at the same time. Companies like IVHE Vacation Home Exchange, in England, function as facilitators. People who like this option find it interesting to vacation in a home filled with someone else’s personal belongings.
3. Non-Simultaneous/Non-Direct Exchange You “pool” your vacation home availability with like-minded individuals and then pick the property you want to visit, at a time when you want to travel. It is not your responsibility to find someone who wants to trade with you. This type of service is offered by the elite-level home exchange companies. The vacation properties in pooled exchanges can be valued from $500,000 into the millions, and have club rules, regulations and controls in place to promote a consistent luxury experience.

SO, WHO’S STAYING IN MY HOME?

Good question. Luxury companies vet potential members through referrals and social networking. Every member must comply with the terms and conditions set forth in a company’s guidelines. Non-compliance can result in expulsion. But according to Zacks, “Members pay it forward. It is a private club. Our members, all of whom have their vacation homes in the program, treat each property they visit as if it were their own. Many have created new friends in the process

In less-exclusive simultaneous exchange situations, it is up to the homeowners to work things out. This involves a fair amount of personal contact—and also being comfortable with strangers occupying your primary residence. It’s not for everyone, but for some this is part of the adventure. As one happy swapper says, “When I talk to my exchange partners either on the phone or over the Internet, I just use my gut to get a sense of them. And, I take common-sense precautions, like putting our valuables in an off-limits room when people stay here. My family and I have been doing this for years now, and we’ve never had a problem.” 

3rd Home is representative of the high-end home exchange companies in that it only handles second (or third, or fourth) homes. Love Home Swap, by contrast, will work with primary homes, which can involve some tricky logistics. Many companies do a little of both, including IVHE out of England. Others still, like Air B&B, can arrange a room swap. Needless to say, however you go, it is an economical way to travel because you are paying a tiny percentage of typical resort charges or house-rental fees

THINKING LOCAL

There is an ancillary benefit of home exchange to surrounding economies: An empty home generates no revenue for nearby businesses, while a home occupied for a couple of weeks by a family that has saved a bundle in rental fees will be a big win for the local shops, restaurants and other tourism-reliant enterprises. 

Business is booming in the non-simultaneous exchange sector. Among the many reasons for this growth is that a lot of people built or purchased second homes as investment properties during the real estate boom of the last decade, and now find themselves unable to resell, rent or use the homes as frequently as they had originally anticipated. Or perhaps they have had many years of enjoyment and now are ready for new experiences. Filling those homes with like-minded vacationers—while racking up credits for your own vacation adventures—makes sense. On the flipside, as the person doing the vacationing, you save thousands of dollars in a single trip, and can bring the entire family (and even a couple of friends) to boot. Indeed, in many parts of the world, you might be amazed to find vacation homes with between 5 and 10 bedrooms. 

Depending on the company, the cost of vacationing in a fabulous home in an exotic locale averages between 5 to 10 percent of the rental cost were you to go through a local realtor on a short-term stay. In addition, all companies charge some sort of membership fee to be part of the program 

POINT TAKEN

Trade to Travel and 3rd Home run on point systems. You get out of the program what you put in. For example, Trade To Travel requires a one-time-only initiation fee of$2,500, but if you make your home available right away (within the first six months of joining), this fee is waived. The more weeks you offer up your house—and the more often your home is used—the more points you accrue. These points are then “cashed in” for a trip. 3rd Home employs a similar kind of credit system that takes into account the value and location of your home, as well as the time of year the home is made available. A high season like Spring Break will garner more credits than a less in-demand time of year. One of the more appealing aspects of this arrangement is that homeowners begin racking up credits the moment unused blocks are deposited into the system, and thus can book their own vacations right away. It’s an economy unto itself.

Timing is everything, of course. If you are considering a home swap, it’s best to plan a trip to, say, Europe at least 3 or 4 months in advance, just to allow yourself the opportunity to pick from a greater variety of locations. Some of the choicest properties come off the board a year in advance. Remember that many of these homes are listed as vacation rentals with local realtors, and the owners of these homes still use them for their own vacation time, so it’s not just home-swappers vying for them. Most companies accept a one-week minimum visit to a home. One home exchange company reported a stay that lasted 6 months. Now, that’s a vacation!

When it comes to luxury properties, there are basically two distinct tastes among travelers. Some want the total residence-club experience, while the more adventurous prefer to go native and fly solo. No problem, several companies cater to both of these personalities. If you’re in the mood for a little pampering, but still want to live like a local, many vacation homes include a staff to cook and/or clean for you. And every home has some sort of local contact or caretaker to answer questions and deal with emergencies. Also, homeowners typically provide a long list of instructions and recommendations for their guests. For those who prefer the top-flight amenities a hotel offers, the higher-end companies have affiliate relationships with residence clubs and developments.

Special thanks to
3rd Home for supplying
the images for this story.

NOT FOR EVERYONE

As appealing as home exchanges sound, they are not for everyone. If you are the kind of person who needs to adhere to a strict timeline with a very specific locale, home exchange programs might not be for you. If you neurose over other people using your things—even if they’re just your “vacation things”—then, again, home exchange may not be a good fit.

However, if you are flexible in your schedule or location, you can go to top-notch destination spots with great frequency for a fraction of the price. 

3rd Home, for example, is affiliated with Trump International and includes Trump International Hotel and Towers in New York, the Reefs Club in Bermuda and The Residences at the Chateaux in Deer Valley. 

Thanks to home exchanges, enjoying the carefree life of travel and staying in some tremendous properties has never been easier. Pick a club t

o join, list your home, and then start looking for your next vacation destination. Not only will you save buckets of money but, as one homeowner put it, “It feels great to put my empty vacation home to work for me…instead of vice-versa.” 

Is wine storage in your home renovation budget?

By Hank Zona

Come on over for a glass of wine. It’s an invitation we hear more and more often in our vernacular. Small wonder—the United States is now the largest overall consumer of wine in the world, and here in New Jersey, wine drinking is well ahead of national trends. We rank comfortably in the top ten among states in total and per capita wine consumption and, not coincidentally, we are third in median household income. This is all more clearly reflected inside our homes, where the new “space race” is all about finding the safest, smartest, most convenient way to house our growing wine collections.

Photo Courtesy of Clawson Architects

Collectors have always sought to have showcase wine rooms and storage areas for bottles numbering in the hundreds, even thousands. They purchase fine glass-ware, often unique to different styles of wine, and the latest in gadgets and supplies, too. Most consumers, though, do not fall into the collector category. Yet many still desire some of the high-end trappings to better enjoy their own pursuits of the vine. It is this group’s purchasing interests that are greatly influencing the home remodeling market now.

Marvin and Rene Clawson, the husband-and-wife team behind Clawson Architects—a full-service architectural and interior design firm in Maplewood—confirm that accessibility to wine is a design request they hear a lot, as kitchens need to allow families to do more and more multi-tasking. “Ninety percent of all the kitchen designs we do now include a wine refrigerator in or adjacent to the kitchen,” says Rene Clawson.

Photo Courtesy of Susanne and Karl Rudiger

That refrigerator may be built somewhere into the kitchen design or as part of a separate beverage center, in the area that in the past was usually populated by a pantry. The cost of the unit itself—EuroCave makes several popular models—can run from the hundreds to the many thousands, not including carpentry, electrical, installation, etc. These modern conveniences are not just for new construction, but often they are retro-fitted and integrated into historic homes.

“We also help create efficiencies in larger homes for busy families”, adds Marvin Clawson. “In those homes, we are encouraging clients to include a beverage center on the second floor and, when the primary wine collection is a greater distance away, wine refrigerators in the master bedroom suite.”

Another trend in the home remodeling marketplace is transforming basement space into deluxe wine cellars. Not every homeowner, it seems, opts for a rec room or man cave. In most cases, a basement actually makes an ideal location for efficiently storing and enjoying a wine collection—subterranean basements work particularly well—and rates as a huge plus if and when the home goes on the market.

Depending on how homeowners plan to use the space (just storage…or perhaps something more ambitious, like a tasting area), a project like this can range from four figures to six figures. Work in a designer’s fee, as this is a renovation you definitely want to get right the first time.

Photo Courtesy of Clawson Architect

Enthused

Wine Enthusiast Companies, based across the river in Mt. Kisco, is the biggest wine storage and accessories company in the United States, shipping out over a half million products this past year. For over 30 years, they have been at the forefront of the market, selling everything from simple corkscrews to elaborate wine storage systems. Because of their Westchester location, the northern and central New Jersey markets are strong for them. Jacki Strum, the Director of Communications and Social Media at The Wine Enthusiast, says the company sells everything to do with wine but wine.

“We have a production development team that is focused on assessing the interests of our customers and then developing new products or identifying top-quality products made elsewhere,” she explains. Not surprisingly, they are a leader in wine storage sales. Demand for wine preservation (items and systems) and wine gadgets is on the rise, too.

Marshall Tilden III is a sales manager at The Wine Enthusiast who oversees a team of storage consultants that fields over one million calls and emails annually. “We ascertain our customers’ future wine purchasing goals, their storage needs and drinking habits and work within their budgets,” he explains. “Our customers often start off with us as apartment-dwellers and when they move to the suburbs, we help them to adjust their wine storage needs for bigger living space and bigger collections.”

What’s Cooking at Retail?

“In the cooking gadgetry world, wine is definitely a trend,” says Ben Salmon, proprietor of the South Orange kitchenware and home entertaining jewel box, Kitchen a la Mode. “We’re seeing tons of new gadgets to keep wine chilled after it leaves the fridge, both in the bottle and in the glass. Aeration is another wine gadget category that continues to be robust. Many more people are using gadgets to help their wines breathe as they’re being poured rather than using the traditional decanter method.”

Photo Courtesy of Susanne and Karl Rudiger

Elaborate wine openers are sometimes installed as part of a kitchen or wine room design, but as a rule consumers seem to be favoring simple openers that are made well with high-quality materials. As for glassware, customers are rethinking “a different glass for every wine” and picking one or two shapes that are versatile in highlighting a variety of wines. “People tend to be buying higher quantities of one or two types of glass than lower numbers of a variety of shapes,” Salmon reports. “I also see consumers moving away from the very inexpensive glasses that are not sturdy and have that horrible beaded rim, but also moving away from the very expensive glasses that can be too delicate for the price. I’m seeing sales surge in high-quality restaurant supply glasses—well-made glasses that drink nicely and don’t cost a fortune.”

Gifting of wine-themed items has seen significant growth according to both Tilden and Salmon, who also note the increasing popularity in the “upcycling” of old wine barrels and bottles for cheese boards, candleholders, tables, and wine storage. The boom in wine-themed products at trade shows is a good indication that more variety will be coming to market.

Editor’s Note: Hank Zona is a wine educator with a loyal following in New Jersey. You can read more of Hank’s work and peruse his event schedule at thegrapesunwrapped.com.

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So you finally decided to bite the bullet and invest in a generator. Three experts weigh in on the questions you need to ask yourself before you buy.

By Mike Kennedy

When Hurricane Sandy made landfall on the Jersey Shore last October, Brian Difiore was prepared. Unlike the vast majority of his neighbors, five years ago he outfitted his house with a 17-kilowatt generator, a unit large enough to keep everything running in his home, including televisions and computers. “Our area was without power for nine days,” Difiore says. “I have three kids, a four-year- old, a two-year-old and a one-year-old. My wife would have gone crazy without the generator.”

Those neighbors should have taken notice of the work going on at the Difiore home. He lives at the business end of the Shrewsbury River, where storm surges can snap utility poles like matchsticks, and hurricanes such as Irene and Sandy can (and do) leave entire towns powerless. Oh, and he’s also the President of Mid-State Heating and Cooling, one of the larger electrical contractors in central New Jersey. Difiore’s father started the company back in 1968. His grandfather operated a similar business in the northern part of the state in the 1940s and 50s.

Steve Fortier, General Manager for Weltman Home Services, takes a similar view. Sandy left his neighborhood in High Bridge without power for a week. This wasn’t the first time he and his family had experienced a prolonged outage. In fact, the freak snowstorm that pummeled the northern half of New Jersey in 2011 helped convince him to get a portable generator, which made life after Sandy much more bearable.

“We ran it in six-hour increments,” says Fortier. “We used it for our fridge, heat, and hot water, and to keep our cell phones and laptops charged.”

Gary Marmo, Manager of Market Development for Elizabethtown Gas, doesn’t have a generator at his home. Sandy left his family without power for a few days. “We were lucky,” he says. “There was no real damage to the house.”

Marmo still isn’t sure he needs a generator. “It’s a personal choice,” he says. “It’s sort of like buying health insurance or life insurance. How secure do you want to feel?”

More and more New Jersey residents are asking that question since Sandy. In fact, Difiore believes the storm may have permanently altered the state’s housing market. “It used to be that air conditioning was not part of the basic package in new home construction,” he says. “Now it’s a standard feature. In the very near future, I think the same thing will happen with generators, especially in more affluent areas.”

Marmo agrees. “After Irene, we saw a significant increase in calls from customers in terms of home house generators,” he says. “Requests have been on the rise again since Sandy.”

For companies like Weltman and Mid-State, this has been a busy winter. Mid-State is a certified dealer for Generac, the brand of generator that Difiore uses at his home. Sales have been brisk, and so have installation and maintenance calls. “The market has taken off like a rocket,” says Difiore.

Weltman, which also carries Generac products, has also seen a spike in the generator marketplace. “It has been crazy,” says Fortier. “Everybody is looking into generators. They have lots of questions.”

Answers to those questions vary depending on multiple factors. We asked Difiore, Fortier and Marmo to put together a checklist of things to consider. They agreed that a consumer should consider five primary issues.

1. How much power do I want?

According to Difiore, this is the first question that consumers should ask. Generators, he explains, range in size from portable units to the 17-kilowatt, whole-house model that powered his home after Sandy. “Do you want access to just the essentials?” he says. “Or do you want full integration where everything in your home is powered?”

Fortier says that portable units have drawbacks that whole-house units don’t. “They require gas to operate,” he explains. “Ours needed about 15 gallons to run for 15 or 16 hours. That can be a real problem when you have gas shortages like we experienced after Sandy.”

Fortier adds that there are ways to maximize your power supply. “A proper transfer switch can ensure that,” he says.

2. How much do I want to spend?

Marmo points out that the decision to purchase a generator typically boils down to economics. “A small, portable unit from Home Depot or Lowes will probably be in the range of $500 to $1,000,” he says. “You can buy these right off the shelf. You see them on construction sites all the time. A full home house unit can be $10,000 to $20,000, which includes installation and permits. These sit outside your home and look very similar to a home air conditioning unit.”

Photo credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

Weltman typically walks its customers through the three primary decisions affecting the cost of a hard-wired generator: the size of the unit, the location of the unit and the number of circuits desired. “In general, the larger the generator and the more circuits you want,” Fortier explains, “the more expensive installation will be. Installing a unit farther from your home will increase the cost, too.”

3. Where should I locate my generator?

Most people want a generator installed near their house, but that’s not always possible. “For example,” says Fortier, “you might have a deck or patio that makes that problematic. We’ve put generators up to 30 feet away from a home. That requires a lot more labor and supplies.”

Additionally, the location of a generator may be subject to zoning codes and electrical requirements. “Many towns are now re-evaluating the code process,” says Fortier. “Currently, the average time it takes to get the proper permits is four weeks.”

That has increased since Sandy, he adds.

4. How handy am I?

First, it’s important to note that any generator—whether it’s portable or a whole-house unit—should be installed by a licensed contractor, and all towns require some sort of permit before work can begin. That being said, a generator also needs regular maintenance. “It is absolutely necessary,” says Marmo. “A generator is an engine just like in your car.”

Fortier echoes those thoughts. “Remember that a generator of any size is not built to run 24/7 seven days a week,” he says. “Any generator will break down faster if it’s operated continually.”

According to Difiore, Generac units reboot on a weekly basis and run for 12 minutes to charge the battery. That short period of usage alone makes maintenance essential. Difiore says the oil should be changed after 60 hours of operation and the fuel and oil filters should be replaced after 120 hours of operation. “But just doing the basics isn’t enough,” he adds. “These are engines that burn oil.”

That’s why Fortier and Difiore advise consumers to buy their generators from a licensed dealer who will also provide a service agreement. “We see a lot of people who buy their generators over the Internet, because that’s the cheapest way to get one,” Difiore says. “They may even do the installation themselves. Then a storm hits, and we get a call because the generator doesn’t work. We offer a full-service program that includes your first 90-day oil change.”

Fortier agrees with the need for regular maintenance. “You never know what you might find,” he says. “Maybe a chipmunk or squirrel is living in your generator.”

5. How much noise can I tolerate?

Every generator is noisy; they average about 65 decibels. One of the advantages of larger units, offers Marmo, is they often run more quietly. “Noise isn’t as much of a factor because they come in a sound-proof enclosure,” he says.

Of course, a noisy generator will likely be the least of your worries the next time a catastrophic storm slams into New Jersey. Fortier was grateful to have a portable unit after Sandy and would like to upgrade to a whole-house generator. “We’re in the middle of a kitchen remodel, so it’s not in the cards right now,” he says. “But at a minimum, I advise people to get a portable unit.”

Editor’s Note: Mike Kennedy is EDGE’s Business Editor. He was born and raised in Ridgewood. Mike also edits the sports business website LicensingOutlook.com.

You think your boss stinks now? Just wait.

By Mark Stewart

Photo Credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

One in 75 home businesses will generate $1 million or more in 2013. The likelihood of a home business showing a profit over a 3-to-5 year period is double that of a traditional brick- and-mortar business. A recent poll of working-age Americans showed that roughly 7 in 10 would prefer to be self-employed. It seems like a no-brainer, right? Well, all I can say is be careful what you wish for.

As someone who has worked primarily out of a home office full-time for two decades, I have come to a couple of important conclusions. First, I am forever doomed to be one of the 74 people who isn’t bringing in a million a year. Second, I do know what I’m doing. I am successful in my field (publishing), my mortgage gets paid on time, the cupboards are full and I can’t recall the last time I had “nothing to do.” When my spouse or children invite guests over, they do not try to hide me, even unshaven, on my worst hair day. I guess the fact that I still have a wife and kids should count for something, too. I almost never get sick because my human contact is limited. And I don’t have a huge number of friends, probably for the same reason.

Photo Credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

It’s a life I thoroughly enjoy…however, not one I recommend to just anyone.

Invariably and somewhat regularly, I am asked by friends, acquaintances, business contacts and just random people for advice on starting or managing a home-based business. I may not be the brightest business person (my accountant is constantly reminding me of this) but as far as these folks are concerned, I have acquired enough experience to be of some use to them. Consequently, I feel comfortable answering questions, sharing anecdotes and insights, and encouraging them to be honest and introspective about whether they truly are cut out to work from home.

Over the years, I have  developed a very personal and totally unscientific list of Do’s and Don’t’s for people considering a home-based business. Some are common sense, while others are the result of trial, error, experience, and additional error. So without further adieu, I present the full-time home-based business Gospel According to Me:

HABIT FORMING

•             Wake up each day with a battle plan. No, make that Wake up each day prepared to go to war. This is the single greatest piece of advice I can offer, so why save it until last? The world owes you nothing; your home business is not guaranteed to survive. To succeed, you need to look back at the end of each day and be able to say, “I did everything I possibly could today to move my business forward.” It starts with an attitude, and includes intense focus, self-examination and discipline. It means making lists and crossing things off. It means using your time intelligently. It means not getting careless and shooting yourself in the foot. Like a soldier, you wake up every day prepared to go over the top and enter enemy territory. And like a soldier, when the sun goes down, you’re happy if you’ve gained a little ground and have lived to fight another day.

•             If you wake up, get up. When you run a home-based-business, there is no official start to the workday. If you are able to sleep to 9:30, kudos to you. But if your eyes are wide open at 6:30 and you’re already thinking of new ideas, get out of bed and ease into the day.

•             Dress before 10:00 a.m. It’s fine to start the day in your underwear, but at some point you will pass in front of a mirror and realize you look like a hobo. Getting dressed is a way of telling yourself it’s time to get serious.

•             Make lists. Make a new list each morning, prioritize the items that absolutely must be accomplished that day, and cross them off as quickly as you can. The feeling of accomplishment comes when you start crossing off things below the must-do’s. As you think of new items, add them. If new tasks or opportunities arise during the day, add them, too. Even if you don’t get to them, they will be there in writing for you when you make your new list tomorrow.

•             Shower or bathe at the end of each working day. Your significant other, offspring and pets will love you for it. More important, it helps wash away the working part of your day. It can happen at 4:30 or 7:00 or midnight—just don’t be tempted back to work after you’ve toweled off.

•             Learn how to power down. This is the second-most important piece of advice I can offer. A high percentage of the people I know who failed to make a go of a home business (this includes a lot of freelance writers and editors) tell me that the thing they simply could not do was shut their brain off at night. When you work in a traditional place of business, you leave it physically and return home. Yes, some people take their jobs home with them, but there is a physical separation that gives them an opportunity to recharge and be mentally ready for the coming day. When your business is in your home, it’s harder to empty your head before it hits the pillow. If you toss and turn worrying about a client who owes you money, or whether an important phone call went well, or how you can tweak your social media presence, then you will crash into a wall the next day, accomplish less than you want, and toss and turn even more the next night. And there is only so much Ambien you can take.

Photo Credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

THE WORKSPACE

•             Set up a clearly defined work area. It doesn’t have to be sealed off from the rest of the house, and it doesn’t have to be immaculate. But it must be a legitimate workspace. It tells you and everyone else that you are serious about getting things done when you are sitting or standing there.

•             Set up a clearly defined storage area. You need a place to put things that are important to your business, but which you don’t need to access every day. Invest the time required to organize, label, alphabetize—whatever it takes so you don’t waste time retrieving these items.

•             Establish boundaries. As the operator of a home-based business, accept the fact that you will never achieve church-and-state balance between home and business. There will always be spillover, especial if another family member is involved in your company. Nevertheless, explain openly and clearly to those who share your domicile that your home sometimes must adhere to basic rules of business, and that no one should take it personally if they feel ignored or underappreciated in some way. Also, your business workspace must be respected; it is not for them to use or disturb.

•             Clear your line of sight. When you chose a primary workspace—the place where your attention cannot wander—remove family photos and other items that will tempt you to daydream or lose focus. You should never have a window directly in front of you, even if there is a computer screen between you and the window. It’s okay to keep these things near to you, just not right in front of you. By the way, having a clutter • Sound off. You do not need a soundtrack for your life. Eliminate any noise that distracts you, breaks your concentration, or diminishes your ability to be productive. Recognize that your iPod, stereo, radio and television could be your worst enemies. Silence is literally golden. If you are working hard, you won’t notice the lack of music or news chatter. I feel the same should be true of the noises that alert you to new emails, texts, tweets or Facebook entries. They create too many temptations. Keep your phone ringer on, that’s it.

•             Choose a comfortable chair. A desk chair is like a pair of shoes. It’s worth spending a little time and money to find the right fit. Many a carpal tunnel case began with the wrong desk chair. The puffy leather reclining model at Staples may look good and feel great, but that doesn’t mean it’s the one you want. Start out with something that’s already around the house until you develop a sense of which features might enhance the way you interact with your workspace. In my case, I sit in a wooden armchair. Wheels and padding didn’t work for me. To each his own.

•             Backup everything. Invest $100 in a computer backup device and learn how to use it properly. If a database is compromised or you lose a month’s worth of emails, the impact could cripple your business. I speak from experience.

•             Get your phone situation straightened out. Designate at least one line and one physical phone to your business. If that phone rings, it’s business. If another phone rings, it’s not. You cannot imagine how this will reduce the anxiety and stress level in your home. If you have landlines, this is especially important. But even if you are an all-cell household, it enables you to “close your business” and devote yourself to family and personal matters when you need to.

•             Don’t use the phone for business when the little ones are around. A business professional does noted workspace is no crime. Some people simply function better that way.

interact with others while toddlers are screaming in the background. The same goes for babies, teenagers, significant others, dogs and birds. Plan your phone time for when you have quiet time.

Photo Credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

BODY & SOUL

•             Obtain insurance. Boring but important. If you do not have insurance coverage through another job or through a spouse, make this a priority. The peace of mind alone is worth it. Sadly, the cost of a half-decent health insurance plan in New Jersey for a small, independent home business is absolutely vulgar—$300 to $500 a week for a family of four. I am not a religious person, but in my 20 years of paying usurious, ever-escalating premiums, I have developed a belief system based on the idea that everyone in the health insurance industry will find themselves at the bottom of a fiery hole after they die. If I find out otherwise, I will be really disappointed. Did I mention that I’m not fond of health insurance companies?

•             Watch what you eat. And how you eat. I have gone 10 hours without eating or drinking anything because I was so absorbed in my work. Other times I have consumed five full meals in a day out of sheer boredom. It’s a good idea to have a general plan when it comes to breakfast, lunch and dinner. That has helped me stay within 10 pounds or so—up or down—of the same weight for the past 20 years. If you tend toward unconscious or binge eating, recognize that your new workplace is attached to a kitchen, and that no one is there to watch in horror as you down a tub of ice cream at 11 in the morning. Self-control, please!

•             Get regular exercise. This has always been a challenge for me. I don’t swim unless I’m drowning and I don’t run unless an animal is chasing me. I don’t like sports without a score and I have purchased at least three gym memberships in my life without ever actually having set foot in a gym. My solution was to set up an office in the attic of our house, and to take any opportunity I could think of to go to the basement or first floor, and then back up again. On an average day I’ll bet I go up and down 300 steps. My legs are like hardened steel (my belly is more molten). I have never had to blow $1,000 on a stairclimber. I am in pretty decent shape. That being said, I know someone who was so consciencious about regular exercise that she could not begin her day until she had completed the ritual of hitting the gym, showering, and eating a low-calorie breakfast. This was an admirable routine, except for one thing: These were her most alert and productive hours of the day. At 3:30 she was out of gas and worthless for anything other than menial tasks. Use your best judgment here.

•             Don’t drink. There are many ways to reward yourself, and many ways to decompress. None of these ways should involve alcohol. At least one person I know has lost a business (and more) because he started drinking alone when he should have been working. I strongly suspect a couple of others I know stumbled down the same path. Once you are done for the day, cheers, go for it. It’s your life and it’s a free country. Yes, we all know Hemingway did his best work with a bottle next to the typewriter, but his own story didn’t end very well, did it?

TIME MANAGEMENT

•             Stay off the Internet. It’s a tool. Use it intelligently. If you are not pursuing a goal relevant to your home business, leave the Overstock.com browsing, eBay bidding, eNews-reading, Facebooking and other stuff we won’t mention until you have officially called it quits for the day.

•             Identify your most productive hours. On a good day, the human brain probably can muster about six hours of optimum performance. And like any other business, a home-based business can really wear you out. So do yourself a huge favor and recognize the times of day when you are “locked-in” and then plan your schedule accordingly. My mental engine starts firing on all cylinders around 10:30 in the morning and keeps going until 3:30 or so. Then sometime after 6:00 or 7:00 I get a second wind and can work right into the night. The key for me is to assign myself the most important tasks at those optimum hours, and to have dumb-dumb work to do before and in between. What’s dumb-dumb work? Putting things back where they belong. Doing basic research on the Internet. Compiling information on the marketplace or checking out the competition. Going to the post office or the bank.

•             Make personal business into breaks. Everyone needs to take short breaks during the day. Avoid falling into the trap of turning on the TV or surfing the web aimlessly. You will lose too much valuable time. Instead, devote 10 or 15 minutes to taking care of personal business—throw a load in the wash, tighten the hinge on that cabinet, take out the garbage, floss.

•             Use downtime to plan ahead. When you’re not busy, or you’re tired, or you just need to switch gears, use these moments to broaden the foundation of your home-based business. If you have made a business plan, it should include where you’d like to be in 6 months or a year or 18 months—along with the steps needed to get you there. Downtime is the right time to chip away at the tasks required to move you closer to your goals. This has been incredibly important to my business. There’s nothing worse than finishing one job and going, “Um, what do I do next?” I know what I’ll be doing two years from now—which is rare in my business. Trust me, it didn’t happen overnight!

Photo Credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

Home Business by the Numbers

There are more than 15 million home-based businesses in the U.S., and more than 10 percent of American homes are used in some way as a place of business. Women appear to make up a majority of the home-business “workforce.” Start-up costs for most home-based businesses are under $10,000. Many begin with less than $1,000. Some start with the shirt on their backs. Although much of the income generated by home businesses goes unreported, estimates of the amount of money made by people working from home are typically upwards of $400 billion a year. Fewer than 5% of successful home businesses leave the home and move into office or retail space.

Home Office Feng Shui

The Feng Shui of a home office is practical and should mimic that of most business offices. The office should set the scene for your transformation from relaxed resident to reliable and focused professional. When you walk in, you should feel as though you are entering a different world, so that your mind shifts from home-related matters to help you concentrate on work.  Here are some Feng Shui do’s and don’t’s to create a positive work environment in your home office:

Do…

create a “professional” décor.  Hang positive business mementoes on walls, in full view, to reinforce your identity as a successful and skilled worker.

Don’t…

have the room double as a multiuse venue, or it will be difficult to seriously concentrate on your work.

Do…

set up your desk so that all intruders—big or small, human or animal—can be seen, and thus you won’t be startled and distracted from your tasks. Similarly, the computer should sit so the user can easily see the door or room divider.

Don’t….

underestimate the value of bright lighting.

Photo Credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

Do…

hang a mirror so that you can see the view from your home-office window.

Don’t…

go overboard on organization. Yes, feng shui tenets stress the wisdom of a clean, efficient office, but this writer ascribes to the sage words: “Out of chaos, comes creativity.”

—Sarah Rossbach, author of Feng Shui: The Chinese Art of Placement and Interior Design with Feng Shui.

Editor’s Note: Mark Stewart has managed the EDGE editorial team since 2009. He also writes books for the school and library market, and runs a successful sports web site. He wrote this article in his wooden desk chair, at a computer set up against a wall with a blue abstract painting, surrounded by clutter, with no music playing.

Yes, there is hope for your dumb home.

By Rachel Rutledge

Is there anything more flattering than the discovery that you’re being fought over? You may not realize it, but as a suburban homeowner, you are the object of intense desire on the part of a very active group of venture capitalists, who are snapping up patents for future “smart-home” products and technologies. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that they are fighting over the companies that will be fighting for your business in 2015 and beyond. The battleground? Your “dumb” home.

We’ve been hearing about smart homes for the better part of a decade. These are the fanciful dwellings that practically run themselves, or at least do our bidding with a minimal amount of hands-on technical expertise. They know when we’re home and when we’re not. They run the lights and heat for us. They brew us coffee, start the shower and warm up the car on a cold morning. They remind us of appointments or can’t-miss TV shows. They even let us know when something under the floor, behind a wall or out in the yard isn’t working quite as well as it should. Unfortunately, because most of us live in older homes or apartments, a smart home has been out of reach. It’s been too expensive or too complicated to consider.

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Well, no matter how tech-averse you may be, it may be time to reconsider.

This is where those battling venture capitalists come into play. They look into the future and see every home as a smart home. And as investors, they want a big piece of the action. They want to own the stuff that will enable you and me and the elderly couple down the street to make our homes super-smart. And the sooner that happens, the sooner the venture capital generates a return. The result has been an acceleration to near-blinding speed of the technology and products that can actually make that happen.

It’s available, it’s affordable, and it’s not all that hard to figure out.

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Opportunity Knocks

Why the sudden surge in smart-home products? The answer is the “smart phone.” The Apple iPhone and its imitators have penetrated the communications market so quickly and effectively that whoever doesn’t own one now will probably break down and buy one in the next few years. Smart phones aren’t really telephones in the traditional sense. They are small, handheld computers that link wirelessly with computer networks, enabling people to communicate by voice. What smart phones (and tablets) are really good at is functioning as remote controls and monitors for smart-home networks. In essence, most of us already own the remote control to a smart house…we just don’t have the smart house yet.

As a consequence, the competition to sell you the technology needed to make your dumb home smarter is heating up fast. If you’ve been to a Lowe’s or Home Depot lately, you may have noticed a lot of new products in this category. They are often situated in high-visibility locations.

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PICTURE THIS…

Your alarm clock wakes you up…it turns on the shower to exactly the right temperature…your flat screen clicks on to your go-to morning show…your cell phone gives you a head’s-up on a developing traffic or weather issue between your home and workplace…as you move from the second floor to the first, the thermostat lowers on one level and rises on another…your coffee maker grinds fresh beans and makes a pot of coffee in time for your arrival in the kitchen…your sound system plays your favorite morning tunes or talk station…a tablet lights up with the front page of your local newspaper… the car starts and warms up for you…the thermostat drops 10 degrees…and the house locks and arms its security system as you speed away.

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Many of the brands should be familiar. Among the companies moving into this space very aggressively are Honeywell, Stanley and Kwikset, along with names that are quickly becoming familiar, such as Lutron and Nest. Nest, which made a lot of headlines in 2014 after being purchased by Google, was started by two former Apple engineers. Not surprisingly, Apple, Google and other major companies—including Comcast and Verizon—are hoping to carve out a dominant position in the smart technology market.

Getting Started

Are we really at the point where every family with a high-functioning phone or tablet can make their home a smart home? Indeed we are. If you have an Internet connection and wifi (a wireless router) in your house, then you are good to go. Just using widely available plug-in devices and changing out a couple of items like thermostats, you can create a basic mesh network that can be controlled from your bed, your car or your office through an easily accessible web interface using your phone.

“A homeowner can create an effective mesh network with a couple of wifi-enabled thermostats and a handful of plug-in devices that control table lamps,” says Andre Conway, an industry consultant who works with commercial and residential security clients in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York. “The beauty of this technology is that the more devices you add, the better the mesh becomes and the smarter your home can be.”

“With a more advanced system,” he adds, “you can talk to your phone and instruct your house to turn down the heat, turn up the lights, start the dishwasher or even open the door for the UPS driver—and then lock it again once you’ve watched him drop the package in your house.”

A decade ago, none of this would have been possible without a hefty bill and a byzantine web of timers and controllers. Devices weren’t very good at talking to one another. Today, says Conway, with more open-code development, building a really good system yourself might set you back $1,000. More important than the bargain price is the fact that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to make it all work. Ease of use and affordability are the benefits to consumers from increasingly cutthroat competition.

So what can a smart home do that your dumb one can’t?As much or as little as you want it to. A smart home can be programmed to execute a variety of functions, saving time and money, or just providing added peace of mind. A smart home can even be taught to “anticipate’; there are sensors on the market that know who each household member is, where they are, what they are doing, and even what they might want to do next.

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PICTURE THIS…

You are busy at work or on an endless string of errands….you get a message from FedEx or UPS about a drop-off…the driver lets you know when he is at your door…you disarm the security system, unlock the door, and watch on a monitor as the package is dropped safely inside your home…you then re-lock and re-arm the system…on your way home, you decide to stop for a drink with a friend and tell your home to keep the heat down, plus turn on a couple of lights…later that evening you turn up the heat, turn on the music, run a bath at exactly 120 degrees, and preheat the oven…all from your car 20 minutes from home.

For those who want a smart home but don’t trust themselves to set it up properly, there are plenty of companies that will come in and do the job for a very reasonable price. As a rule, they don’t make their money selling you a system. Instead, they charge you monthly to make it work, much the way your cable companies charges you for programming and DVRs. The leaders in this field (for the moment, at least) are home security companies. The one you have now probably offers a smart-home package of some kind. If not, another security company will gladly rip out a competitor’s at no cost to secure your business.

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There are good deals out there right now, but those deals are likely to get even better as more players enter the game. In the near future, consumers considering smart-technology retrofits will most likely be choosing between their home-security company, their telephone company, their cable company or their Internet company. High-end audio/video installers will also be vying for a slice of the pie. Each will offer something enticing to get into your home. It is worth noting, however, that your existing security system won’t integrate easily into a smart-home makeover, unless your existing security company gets the job.

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PICTURE THIS…

You are away for a ski weekend and the mercury plummets…you get a text from your home that a pipe has cracked…the water to that part of that house is shut off…the heat near the pipe is turned up…you call a plumber to check the problem…using your smart phone, you let him into the house…you observe/record him as he works to repair the issue…you re-arm the security system after receiving a text that the plumber is done…you continue skiing…you return to a fully functioning plumbing system instead of a catastrophic flood.

Don’t Use Your Dog’s Name

What is the downside to all of this smart technology? Obviously, if you lose your connectivity, your home becomes dumb again in a hurry. A long-term power outage or Internet interruption means having to operate lights and appliances yourself until everything is up and running again. Every system is designed with manual overrides (and hopefully we can all remember how to operate a light switch), but there are some smart devices that become problematic during outages. After Hurricane Sandy, for example, some apartment dwellers with “smart” keyless locks felt pretty stupid when they couldn’t get into their units.

Perhaps the most significant potential negative in a world of smart homes is how incredibly dumb we are about passwords. Poor (or poorly protected) passwords in the hands of the wrong person could be catastrophic. Not only would clever criminals be able to disable your alarm system and open your front door, they could conceivably continue into your home computer and, through that, your work computer (Hello, Sony!). And because all of your devices will be part of a network, a smart lamp, smart dishwasher or smart garage door opener might be the softest point-of-entry for hackers.

Interestingly, in anticipation of this brave new world, Congress is working on a bill that would prevent manufacturers from selling you anything with a default password. In other words, before activating a product, you would be compelled to create a password. Currently, the percentage of people who never change the password from “password” or “12345678” is appallingly high.

If you are currently resistant to the whole idea of creating a smart home—either because of the aforementioned issues or simply on principle—be prepared to find yourself in the minority in a few years. It is easy enough to operate and cheap enough to afford right now, and the products will only get cheaper and more user-friendly. Soon, almost all quality appliances will be available with built-in wifi in order to integrate into a mesh network. And as your smart phone gets smarter, it will become the remote control you simply talk to and tell what to do.

Indeed, with each passing day, more and more people just like you will be walking through their front doors shouting, “Honey, I’m home…” only they’ll be talking to their house instead of their spouse!

When it comes to converting a dusty attic  

into a dreamy live-work space, be prepared to deal  with a dizzying number of variables.

Who among us hasn’t visited the house of a friend or relative, ascended into the attic and thought, Hey this could be a great extra floor? It’s fun to fantasize—to play architect, contractor and decorator—especially when it’s not your attic or your house or your bank account. Well, here we are in the new normal of the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, with greater emphasis on telecommuting and remote-learning. Suddenly that unoccupied square footage is looking pretty tempting, isn’t it?     

“Building up” is nothing new, of course. In fact, many newly constructed homes include unfinished attic space that can be easily converted into an office or an additional bedroom or two when the time comes. 

However, for the vast majority of single-family dwellings in New Jersey, that is the exception, not the rule. When it’s your attic and your house and your bank account, there is a dizzying array of costs and considerations involved—and you pretty much have to get every one of them right. 

HEAD SPACE

First and foremost, there needs to be enough room up there to accommodate the expansion. Understand, therefore, that looks can be deceiving. By the time a proper floor goes down and sheetrock goes up, much of that open, airy feel will be gone. Whether you are thinking of a home-office, an extra bedroom or two, a man-cave, a she-shed or some combination, you will almost certainly need at least 100 square feet of floor space, more than two-thirds of which has enough head room for a normal adult. Those minimums can be monkeyed with a little bit, but not too much, because every town in the Garden State has building codes covering this type of interior construction and—guess what?—you’ll need permits and an inspector to sign off on your work when it’s done.  

Why all the fuss? One word: Fire. 

Unlike other rooms in your home, attic space is not only a potential deathtrap during a blaze (remember, fire travels up), but a high percentage of home fires in the U.S. begin in the attic, usually because of old or faulty wiring. A live-work conversion means you’ll be bringing lighting and electrical outlets into a space that may only have a couple of bare lightbulbs right now. That work must be done up to code and by a licensed and insured professional; it’s no job for a DIYer or your cousin who used to be an electrician. P.S. there’s probably a reason he used to be an electrician. Additionally, there must be an obvious egress in case someone is working or sleeping in the top floor. Attic stairways act like a chimney and are not always great escape routes. A window big enough to crawl out of is practically a given. A windowless attic redo is not impossible, but it is obviously problematic.

Lofty Ambitions 

In years past, the pros and cons of converting attic space often depended on a three-variable calculation: What can I afford, what will it cost me and, most importantly, is it worth it? Say adding a live-work space comes with a price tag of $50,000. Many homeowners—concerned whether they would recoup that outlay, intimidated by  the disruption of major construction and tempted by low interest rates—considered buying another house nearby with a bit more room.  

In 2020, things got a bit more complicated.  Housing prices in suburban New Jersey soared, office workers were told to stay home and children (school-age and in some cases adult kids) were suddenly underfoot, all due to pandemic restrictions.

In short, people in need of more space were more likely to stay put. The only problem, as mentioned earlier, is that your existing attic might not be  big enough to become legal bedrooms. According  to architect Bob Kellner, RA, NCARB, you might not be out of luck. Almost any “found” space, he points out, can become something usable—even fun and interesting—with a bit of creativity. 

“Where a lack of height or overall space makes a third floor imprudent or non-compliant, consider a loft space,” he suggests. “If an existing attic allows—even if shallow in head height—it can often be accessed by a ladder instead of a staircase. You can make a sleeping loft or play area for older children or a cozy workspace. This can be done without adding expensive dormers, raising the roof or losing area  on the floor below. It’s a what-can-we-do-with-what-we-have solution. And loft space is always best when it overlooks adjacent space where the ceiling has been removed so that area is ‘vaulted.’ People are looking for fun and interesting design these days—that is the case whether it adds to a realtor’s calculated living area or not.” 

MOVING ON UP 

Speaking of stairways, that can be a major expense when it comes to incorporating the attic into your home. Odds are, however you access your attic now will not be code-compliant. In most towns, you’ll need something at least three feet wide, with a specific rise and run, usually 10 inches high by 7 inches deep. This creates a couple of expensive problems. If your attic space is currently accessible through a crawl-space opening or pull-down stairs (which is the case in older single-story homes), then you are looking at 100% new construction. If you already have a staircase leading to your attic, grab your tape measure before you shout Yes! Some of those old attic steps are far too narrow  to pass inspection. Also, adding or reconstructing a staircase to code may end up consuming precious hallway space on your current top floor. Truth be told, the cost and/or inconvenience of just getting up the  attic kills the dream before it even gets on to the drawing board. How lucky those long-ago homeowners are who renovated their attics before the building codes tightened, and who are now grandfathered in. 

The cost of a new staircase typically starts at around $3,000, but that is not necessarily your biggest “hidden” expense. Another costly fix is at the top end of the stairs, where the bones of the attic come into play. When you go up there and look around, do you see a lot of 2×4’s? If so, that’s not a good look. These days, building inspectors like to see 2×8’s, 2×10’s and 2×12’s. In newer homes, this shouldn’t be an issue. But if you own an older home, then you already know that it’s full of surprises.  

The expensive surprise here is that the house may not have been originally constructed to bear a load beyond what it does right now. Even if you only intend to throw a spare bedroom up there, you need to know the difference between a “dead load” and a “living load.” A dead load is boxes and other junk that piles up in the attic. A living load is people moving around and shifting weight into different places as a consequence of normal working or living activities. A minimally supported attic and/or roof may not only require all new joists and other retrofitting, you may need to address what’s going on in the basement, too. It is rare that a new home office in the attic creates foundation issues, or issues on upper floors, but it is by no means unheard of. 

That’s what structural engineers are for.  

Even if all you have to do is bring in 2×12’s under the roof and 2×10’s under the floor—and are okay with the additional costs of labor and materials—you will lose an astonishing amount of space with these upgrades, which might end up being a deal-killer, especially if you’re only trying to pick up a couple of hundred square feet of live-work space. 

RUNNING HOT AND COLD 

At this point, if you’ve checked these boxes and are still determined to plow ahead, you’ll need to consider the most economical way to bring heating, cooling and ventilation to the renovated attic space. An HVAC professional should be able to give you an accurate assessment of the viability and cost of extending your current system to the new top story. Since you (or a previous owner) installed a system meant for the space you have now, it may lack the oomph to go up another floor. That means freezing-cold winters and, more  likely, blistering-hot summers, which is not part of an acceptable live-work equation. You can certainly add another unit or upgrade your existing one (if it’s nearing the end of its lifespan), and add new ducts and vents. Or, depending on the space, you may be able to get away with a mini split system, which may run as little as $1,000 installed. Keep in mind that you could also need rafter venting to move air behind any insulation you install. 

Oh yes. Insulation. You probably have some kind of insulation in the attic already. Don’t assume that it’s good to go and just sheetrock over it. Have it checked by a professional, or at least call the company that manufactured it and make sure that it is good for your new space, and that there are no reported problems. If your roof is uninsulated, get some advice on the right material from your contractor, or from the dealer if you plan to install it yourself. You’re likely to get a recommendation of batt insulation with a vapor-retardant facing. This can be a DIY project if you want to save a couple of bucks—just remember the vapor barrier faces outward between the joists. Finally, don’t forget about the insulation under the attic floor. Check it to see that it hasn’t compacted. Your insulation plan should also include high-quality windows and, ideally, energy-conserving thermal curtains. 

UNDER FOOT 

Where flooring is concerned, you have a lot of choices. While insulating qualities are a consideration, you want to avoid the mistake most people make in not considering noise-reduction. The more insulation you install and the thicker the subfloor, the less sound will transfer to the rooms below. Before you even get to  that part, though, walk around on the current flooring in the attic. If it’s squeaking or making other noises that can be heard underneath, then you must figure out why and then fix the problem. A good subfloor also should be level and secure. Another consideration in flooring  is quality. 

Because even the best-insulated converted attic space experiences the most temperature fluctuations in the house, don’t go cheap on materials. Get something that won’t swell or shrink. And if you intend to put something heavy up there—say, a bank of bookcases filled with books—ask your contractor to evaluate whether the joists can handle the load without cracking the ceiling below.  

The finishing touches to a renovated live-work attic space involve lighting and color choices. If the job is done up to code, it may not include overhead lighting, but it will have electrical outlets at predetermined intervals. The darker the space—and attics do tend to be darker than the rest of the house—the more up-lighting you should consider and the brighter and whiter your paint choices should be. If the space is your new home office, think about situating your desk or workspace near a window.   

I haven’t delved into adding dormers or bathrooms to an attic renovation, which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. But it does bring me to a final point. Just because you can convert your unused attic into a great, usable live-work space, it doesn’t mean that you should. If the work-arounds and custom carpentry start piling up, the cost might well exceed what the new space is worth. Indeed, as crazy as it sounds, it might even exceed the cost of ripping off the roof and just adding an addition story to your home, which almost always comes with a six-figure tab. 

WHAT’S THE DAMAGE? 

The cost of transforming your dusty attic into a dreamy live-work space does indeed depend on a dizzying number of variables, which is why contractors exist. A talented one brings a mix of objectivity, subjectivity, foresight and experience to a project like this—most or all of which a typical homeowner lacks. The size and  age of a structure has an enormous impact on the budget, as does personal taste and flexibility with the “must-have’s.”  

What you must have is the financial wherewithal and the patience to get the job done right the first time, which means safely and legally. Can you squeeze out a renovation for under $10,000? Yes…a modest, utilitarian one—and that’s assuming your karma somehow shifts into overdrive and everything on the job goes exactly right. The real number to get everything you want is likely to start more at $20,000 or $30,000 (double  that if a small bathroom is part of the plan) and can skyrocket quickly from there, depending on quality, code-compliance and, let’s face it, dumb luck.

Thanks to a bumper crop of home hydroponic and aeroponic products, more and more New Jerseyans are growing their own.

Around the time I returned home to New Jersey from a COVID-shortened “vacation” last March, I and much of the nation experienced pantry panic—an undiagnosed anxiety related to food sourcing and hygiene. A trip to the grocery store, to feed our family, was fraught with fears of air-borne disease droplets lurking in the meat section and vegetable aisles. I had no idea what was safe and germ-free. Once home, this anxiety spurred me to clear all our window boxes and plant seeds of radishes, chervil, basil, parsley and lettuces. I also joined a local farm CSA (that’s short for Community-Support Agriculture) that weekly provided a seasonal assortment of lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini, potatoes, peppers and squash, all grown within five miles of our suburban house.    

With the pandemic wave rising in the autumn of 2020, the cold dark months of winter bearing down, my home and CSA-grown supply of fresh vegetables ending and no idea where our place would be in the vaccine line, I began looking at options for how to provide a safe and local food source. I already had a grow light in the basement, so why not try hydroponics?

Like Zoom, Netflix, Amazon, Peloton and Pfizer, hydroponics is a pandemic growth industry and, with 20-20 hindsight, might have been a prescient investment in 2020. If you google hydroponics, over 67 million results pop up. Products ranging from $99 Kohl’s and $73 Wayfair contraptions to state-of-the-art growing units costing in the thousands, promise a pandemic-free pantry, with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce. Producing this year-round, home-grown salad without having to venture into a potentially germ-ridden store, allows the indoor farmer to become the ultimate locavore.

Indeed, hydroponics lowers your carbon footprint: the produce is energy-efficient, wasting no gas for shipping from California or Peru or driving to the local green grocer. And in spite of the initial dollar outlay for a hydroponic growing pod, home-grown food, over time, is likely to be less expensive, healthier, fresher and more sustainable since you are employing only the water solution and the electricity for a grow-light, water pump and filter. The age-old parental advice of “eat your greens” might actually eat up less green… and there are many businesses eager to help you grow your own.

Tom Corvo, owner of Shore Grow Hydro, a three-year-old hydro-ponics retail store in Ocean, says there are many consider-ations that determine what sort of home-growing unit to purchase: Do you have the space, time Shore Grow Hydro and budget? Generally the lights are the most expensive purchase. One customer spent $50,000 to set up two rooms with hydroponics. Or you could invest in a simpler set-up of a lettuce raft floating in a 2 x  4-foot tray on legs with a grow light for under $500. The store smartly offers support: the last Thursday in every month, Shore Grow runs classes—from Hydro 101 for seed starting and fruiting to more advanced 201 classes for propagation, pest control and the finer points of automation.

I admit my mind glazes over when I learn that there are finer maintenance details to hydroponics than I’m used to (compared to outdoor gardening), such as checking the water for 5.5-6.5 PH and adjusting it, changing water every two to three weeks, choosing a nutrient (organic or not).  Yet, Corvo says that business is steady to good and expects an even greater up-tick in home-growing hydroponics, especially with marijuana now legal in the Garden State. 

On the opposite coast, there’s California-based Hamama, a micro-green growing system that pops up on my Facebook feed every day. The ads of this e-commerce hydroponics company are appealing and tempting. What intrigues me is the promise of healthful microgreens that grow quickly, easily and don’t take up a lot of space or energy—as well as no need for a water pump or filter. (So technically is this hydroponic?) Better yet, the company’s “starter kit” doesn’t cost a lot of lettuce: $35 plus free shipping. Costs can mount if you go all-in and purchase a “grow shelf” that accommodates six grow trays. I spoke with Camille Richman at Hamama, who reports that orders have increased during the pandemic and that their top-seller is the Super Salad Mix Seed Quilt, a growing medium that contains broccoli, kale, arugula, kohlrabi, cabbage and cauliflower seeds.  But the jury is out: Amazon customers either loved or hated the product—the seed strips worked for some and didn’t deliver salad for others.

By now, you may  have surmised that I’m in favor of low-maintenance systems. I gravitate to easy-to-use and safe products. So I also gravitated to a hydroponics off-shoot called aeroponics. Aerofarms Aeroponics is a growing system that combines aeration and nutrient misting that encourages faster plant growth. Newark is home to Aerofarms, a “data-driven” indoor vertical growing farm and company that has been in the news the last few years. This New Jersey “home-grown” business enjoys several partnerships around the state, nationally and globally. The company, which claims its growing systems need 95% less water than outdoor farms, has been selling its lettuces, herbs and microgreens to restaurants ranging from Red Rooster to Momofuku, as well as retail grocery chains including Whole Foods under the brand Dream Greens. Aerofarms also professes to be 390 times more productive per square foot than traditional agriculture. Privately owned, the company enjoys financial partnerships with Goldman Sachs, IKEA and Dubai Holdings.  Now Aerofarms is building the world’s largest aeroponic farm—90,000 square feet—in Abu Dhabi. 

On a much smaller, home-growing scale, Karen Campi sells the aeroponic Tower Garden to homes in New Jersey and partners with local schools in Summit and Bernardsville.  While hydroponics start crops from seed, aeroponics functions with starter plants.  Campi says the vertical growing units—an outdoor one ($620) and an indoor version ($970) with LED grow-lights—are selling so well she can’t keep them in stock. While Tower Garden offers a seed starting kit for $29, a first farming foray might be better served with $2 plant seedlings. The indoor tower can house up to 16 microgreens and 16 full greens at one time. Campi says that the plants last up to three or four months and recommends harvesting lettuce from the outside. Her enterprising college-age son Joe has started a Tower Garden Cleaning and Set-up business to help her clients maintain their towers. As a multi-tasker with a half-dozen projects in the works, I don’t want to think about upkeep. So perhaps Joe’s $120 maintenance fee per season for one indoor model, though pricy, could be worth it. 

If you choose to bypass Joe’s services, Beyond Organics Growers supplies the plant seedlings for Tower Garden. Theresa Reid, owner of the five-year-old company, says that the original business model was supplying restaurants and a few retail customers.  After COVID, the restaurant end of their business nearly dried up, but the number of home-growing customers grew. “The retail business more than made up the difference,” she says. 

During the winter months, Beyond Organics has been supplying Tower Garden customers with a wide variety of lettuces and herbs—romaine, arugula and spring mix being top sellers. Now the company is taking additional growing orders from tower owners (as well as garden patch growers) for its organic spring crops, such as tomatoes and cucumbers, which are incubated in a rock-wall greenhouse with radiant heated floors. 

Be it hydro or aero, the mere act of watching something grow during the stark cold months—and then harvesting it—is emotionally and nutritionally enriching. In the chaos of 2020, high-tech home-growing presented a wonderful opportunity. The question is, how many of us will stick with it—and how many more will double down when winter comes again in 2021? As vaccines tame the pandemic and marijuana becomes legal, it will be interesting to see how this business evolves this year and beyond.

The Garden State is fertile ground for heritage roses.

When Stephen Scanniello’s Great-Aunt Helen heard of his new role as a Rosarian, she sighed in relief that at least one member of the family had not strayed from the Catholic faith. Helen despaired for the souls of Stephen’s parents and six siblings. Not only had the Scanniellos left the Catholic Church and became devout Protestants (in reaction, he says, to a fall-out with a stern school nun); his father had taken on a second job at the local temple, where the kids spent every Friday night helping him in his custodial duties. Little did Helen know that the title Rosarian referred to Stephen’s job as curator of roses at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.

Photo courtesy of Stephen Scanniello

Today, Stephen Scanniello (right) is one of the top rosarians in the world.

While Gertrude Stein may have dismissed “A rose is a rose is a rose,” when Scanniello discusses heritage roses, he addresses each rose’s special, individual qualities and growing temperament as though it were a quirky, beloved member of his family (not unlike Great-Aunt Helen). In fact, Stephen’s first memories of roses can be traced to his Uncle Joe, an official rose tester for the Jackson/Perkins Rose Catalogue and his Aunt Joanne. Like clockwork, Joe and Joanne would prune their Blaze roses every St. Patrick’s Day, and then smear all the cuts with blazing red lipstick as a sealer to keep insects and larvae out. By the 4th of July, their garden was ablaze with magnificent, patriotic red roses.

Scanniello never dreamed of becoming a rosarian while growing up in the Bergen County town of River Edge. He practically stumbled into it.  After majoring in biology and working in a medical lab (which he claims was “fascinating for a week”), he was asked to photograph the lab experiments. The lab recommended he take a course in photography, where he met some BBG (short for Brooklyn Botanical Garden) employees. That led to a job in the BBG education department, after which he became a general gardener for a year. When the BBG’s rosarian retired and his successor lasted only a year, Scanniello won the job and worked there for 17 years.

Now Scanniello is curator of the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. The reach of his influence, knowledge and involvement in heritage roses spans the world. I first heard about his work when he ran a hands-on heritage rose propagation workshop for a local garden club, propagating roses from cuttings from a 19th century rose bush. In 2009, Scanniello won the Great Rosarian of the World Award. He also is President of the Heritage Rose Foundation, where he encourages a down-to-earth approach to preserving and propagating heritage roses. Loosely defined, a heritage rose is one with origins that can be traced back to the mid-1800s, before the advent of the hybrid varieties that are common today.

His thumbprints are on projects ranging from a rambling rose garden in Bellingham, Washington and a rose garden and propagation program on the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Southern Florida College campus, to a vast heritage rose collection in Chambersville, Texas and a children’s plant workshop a bit closer to home, in Harlem.

With the influx of genetically engineered roses, Scanniello’s approach to heritage roses is almost like a spiritual calling. “Rosarians have a responsibility to preserve species roses and their oldest known hybrids,” he explains. “Modern-day rose hybridizers are turning to these oldest roses for the key to creating healthy roses. Without the preservation of species and old roses, a valuable genetic link to disease resistance will be lost.”

The author of seven books on roses, Scanniello approaches his subject like a detective. His mission to find and preserve roses spans the world and is a bit of a race against time, as uneducated gardeners are planting newer breeds and eschewing the older roses. It is a mission that often leads him to some unexpected places. One source, for example, was discovered in East Germany, behind the former Iron Curtain. Sangerhausen Rose Garden—a time-warp, hermetically-sealed garden—had remained untouched from before World War II, offering healthy roses that had escaped the heavy-handed adulterations of modern-day hybridizers. Another fruitful, if macabre, source of heritage roses are old cemeteries. There, like ghosts surrounding old, unkempt graves, grow some of the best examples of heritage roses from another era.

Our own Garden State lives up to its name in this regard. Indeed, it is rich in rose history. Cities including Newark, Elizabeth, Jersey City and Rutherford were home to some of the top rose nurseries in the early 20th century. Prior to that, New Jersey was the primary source for the fresh-cut roses that brightened up the Gilded Age mansions of New York City. Lately, Scanniello—who owns a rose-covered weekend cottage in Barnegat—has been working on designing a new rose garden in a cemetery on the grounds of Christ Church, in Shrewsbury.  He also works privately in New Jersey, the Hamptons and on A-list estates.

It’s plain Scanniello loves his job. As we strolled around the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, he introduced me to beautiful, fragrant roses, their histories and peculiarities. Even the roses’ names seemed to evoke a mix of humor and pleasure in Stephen as he rattled off randy rose names—not the least of which are “Blushing Thighs of an Aroused Nymph” and “Spineless Virgin.”

Starting your own heritage rose garden, Scanniello insists, is not as daunting a task as one might imagine. For starters, he recommends planting a heritage rose in a 24-inch pot or wooden barrel, placed in a location that gets plenty of sun. It should be watered either in the early morning or late afternoon, near the mid-day sun.  He encourages New Jersey gardeners to plant roses hailing from New Jersey, such as a pink Jersey Beauty, which was created in South Orange, or South Orange Perfection, or New Dawn, a continually blooming genetic off-shoot of the Dr. van Fleet rose. Other good strains of roses that will bloom continually are the Parade or Dream Girl, bred by Martin Jacobus in Ridgefield in the 1950s and ’60s.

As for pruning, Scanniello returns to his roots, advising me to cut back the roses every St. Patrick’s Day.  Now to find the right shade of red to seal the cuts!

GETTING STARTED

Stephen Scanniello’s 2006 book A Year of Roses features tips for the suburban rose grower, including…

• Become acquainted with your local rose society. Members love roses and tend to be willing to share their vast knowledge.
• The best way to purchase roses is from mail order catalogs; the quality of the plants is superb, you will find many species you would never find in your local garden center and your dollar stretches far.
• The roses you ordered in January will arrive in April. Plant them shortly after they arrive.
• Prune roses in early March and have all pruning finished by mid-April.
• In the winter, rose bushes look spindly and stark, so when planning your rose garden,

border it with evergreen plant material, such as boxwood, to add structure and winter interest to the garden.

• When in bloom, roses require some care. They need at least five hours of sunlight per day as well as regular watering during late afternoon.

• Roses need a well-drained site with friable soil—soil that breaks up easily and allows roots to thrive and water to pass through easily.

• Weed by hand! Never use weed killers in the rose garden. They damage the roses.

• Deer adore rosebuds. In early June, start protecting the blooms by applying a deer repellent to the rose garden area.

• Whenever possible, purchase roses that grow on their own rootstock and are not grafted on to a different rootstock.

• Some reliable sources for heritage roses with their own rootstock are:

antiqueroseemporium.com

vintagegardens.com

derrosenmeister.com

rosesunlimited.com

Editor’s Note: Sarah Rossbach has written for House & Garden, The Washington Post and Harper’s Bazaar. Among her many books is Feng Shui: The Chinese Art of Placement. She is an author and feng shui consultant who has studied and collaborated with Master Lin Yun, a revered figure in Chinese culture and spirituality. The Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, designed in 1916 by landscape architect Beatrix Farrand, features 670 varieties of roses. For directions and hours log onto nybg.org.

Five of the Costliest Legal Mistakes You Can Make

A recent poll revealed something we all secretly knew. More than half of the people who make a list of New Year’s resolutions fail miserably when it comes to following through… and nearly one in five blows it within the first 24 hours. 

There are some lists, however, that you would be wise to tuck away. As lawyers, we are often asked about the kinds of legal mistakes people commonly make that are either costly to resolve, or impossible to undo. Many, if not most, of these mistakes involve being “penny wise and pound foolish.” Then again, diplomacy aside, some of these mistakes are just plain stupid. And yet we see them made again and again.

Photo credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

If you must make a list of resolutions for 2014, try this list of the Top 5 legal blunders to avoid. Although they may not sound as exciting as dropping 20 pounds, or getting around to organizing your basement, we promise that your year will turn out all the better for being safe rather than sorry.

Hitting the “Reply All” (and Send) Button When You Don’t Mean To

We’ve all done it. We receive an email that has been cc’d to a group of other recipients who may be friends, (or not), or co-workers (or not), or—in a business situation—on “our side” (or not). Often we are tempted to make a snarky comment to one of the other recipients, but instead mistakenly hit the “Reply All” button. Oh no! Well, you can’t take it back. Usually this is just embarrassing, but in the context of a business transaction or litigation, it can be devastating, especially if the “Reply All” reveals confidential information, such as strategy or facts unknown to the unintended recipient(s). Imagine you are selling a company and you receive an email from one of the bidders. Your “Reply All” message, intended for only one of your partners, says, “I hope the dope doesn’t know he’s bid twice what anyone else has.” Enough said. Bid withdrawn!

Photo credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

Venting on Social Media

Social media is a blessing and a curse. Venting your rage at someone or damning something online may feel good at the time, but before you tweet or post in anger, consider the consequences. If the target of your rage is a person or group of people, or even a company (indeed, especially a company), you could be sued for harassment, libel or defamation. Most of the time, you cannot undo what you’ve written, which will live forever somewhere on the Internet. Rage, exaggerations, negative commentary or false statements—these can lead to reputational damage, negative employment consequences, and a costly legal mess. You may recall in the headlines the case where Donald Trump sued a contestant in the Miss Universe Pageant (which Trump owns) for making defamatory statements about the pageant on Facebook. Trump won a $5 million judgment! Even those without such means can take to the Internet and respond in kind, or file an action publicly in the courts. A few words can cost you thousands.

Failing to Document Contractual Relationships

Ah, trust. How quaint. So-called “handshake” agreements are very dangerous things. This becomes frighteningly apparent when a dispute arises among the parties. It can be very difficult to establish the existence of a valid oral agreement (as opposed to an agreement in writing). And even if an oral agreement is established, its terms are often difficult to interpret or define. It is not uncommon for us to see a client who believed he or she was a “partner” in a business only to discover he or she had no rights at all. Or, take someone who thought he or she had purchased or sold an order of goods or services, only to discover the other side was not obligated to provide or pay for the order at all. Handshakes are yesterday’s news, today’s blues. “Get it in writing!” We like to see written agreements as road maps, with clear directions and goals on which the parties can agree at the outset of the relationship are reasonable and fair. In nearly all cases, both parties benefit from putting pen to paper after that handshake. 

Using Legal Documents Downloaded from the Internet

Really? Think you can save some money this way? Think again. This is not a matter of professional jealousy or “guild mentality.” We are constantly having to do remedial work, which is far costlier than the original work that might have been performed, for clients who have used downloaded documents. The fact of the matter is that there is very little that is “cookie cutter” in legal relationships. A well-drafted legal document requires the attorney to fully understand the circumstances and desires of the client and, the client’s counterparty, to suggest key provisions or alternatives that should be in a contract—be it an employment contract, a lease, or a limited liability company operating agreement. The location of the parties is relevant; the place of business is key; and many laws vary from state to state. We have found that these “one-size-fits-all” documents are incapable of that. In addition, they often contain poorly drafted language or outright errors. A lay person attempting to modify a document to suit his or her circumstances can often miss key issues or alternatives that are available to a competent attorney. The result can be disaster when key elements work in favor of the other party or the document itself is invalid. 

Photo credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

A couple of years ago, we were presented with an agreement obtained by the Executive Director of a non-profit organization, laudably trying to save his organization money. But in the end, he cost it a bundle and lost his job in the process. The E.D. had fired another senior employee (who happened to be female, older than he, and next in line for the top spot), using paperwork obtained “for free” online. His first mistake (perhaps after the termination decision itself) was having downloaded the Separation Agreement from the Internet. Bad enough the “free” legal form related to a different state—but it was not actually applicable to a senior executive, it omitted legally required terms, and it involved a terminated employee under 40 years of age. In short, it did not apply to the organization’s situation where a female senior officer, 40 years of age or older, was being let go without any prior notice. It was the wrong agreement.

Federal, state and local requirements kick in to require that certain terms be included in a Separation Agreement that has a general release of claims following the termination of an older female…none of which were reflected in the downloaded form agreement the E.D. had obtained. Making matters worse (for the organization), he had already handed the employee whom he was firing the downloaded Separation Agreement during the actual termination meeting. Now that was warm and fuzzy. The E.D. then told the soon-to-be-ex-colleague that the (incomplete and illegal) Separation Agreement was a “take it or leave it” offer that would expire in three days. (What was he thinking?) Among other things, the federal age discrimination laws permit older employees who are being terminated from employment to have 21 days within which to review and consider a Separation Agreement and, after signing, seven more days to revoke it. This was one of numerous omissions in the “free” downloaded version. (We suspect a different agreement was used when the E.D. was later fired.) In the end, the misguided effort to save his organization some money cost the non-profit tens of thousands of dollars to forestall a lawsuit by the ex-employee and fix an agreement that a seasoned employment lawyer in the right state would have taken just a few hours to prepare.

Photo credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

Founding a Company without Having an Employment Agreement

A company founder/CEO should always consider having an employment agreement, because once the company has taken in substantial amounts of outside money from any sophisticated investor, he or she may become an endangered species. We know of a situation involving a senior executive who was in distress after he had just been fired by the company he founded. Bad enough that he got squeezed out of his own company, but it got worse. Without an employment contract, he had no rights, no severance and no recourse. He had founded a tech company with an innovative concept that was just beginning to achieve wide acclaim. As is the case with many others in his circumstances, he needed more funding and brought in a well-known venture capital firm. The founder still controlled the largest block of stock and thought he was set. He avoided signing an employment agreement because he did not want to be subject to restrictive covenants like non-compete and confidentiality agreements. However, a typical executive employment agreement also contains protective provisions, such as an employment term of years, or severance if things don’t work out—which can be a multiple of the executive’s compensation if he or she is terminated without cause or quits for “good reason.” 

In this case, as is typical, the venture capital firm took two seats on an already small board. The (now fired) founder had handpicked two other directors and, with them and himself as a director, believed he controlled the board. Within less than a year, however, the venture capital firm had co-opted one of the founder’s handpicked directors, and convinced him that the founder was not the right guy for the job of leading the company to success. The company was in an “at will” state where the laws provided that an employee could be terminated for any reason (or no reason) at all, at any time, without notice or severance…which is exactly what happened to the founder, who thought he was pretty crafty to keep away from signing an employment agreement. So much for being the smartest guy in the room.

Still think you’re the smartest guy (or gal) in the room? To read about five more legal mistakes that intelligent people make every day log onto edgemagonline.com. 

• Hiring Unpaid Interns or Otherwise Misclassifying Employees
• Failing to Protect Your Intellectual Property (or Infringing on Someone Else’s)
• Collaborating on Original Work without an Agreement
• Getting Married (or Remarried) without Consulting a Lawyer
• Failing to Take Action When One Employee Is Harassing Another…or Creating a Hostile Work Environment EDGE

Editor‘s Note: Helen D. (“Heidi”) Reavis and Neil Patrick Parent are Partners with Reavis Parent Lehrer LLP, based in New York City. The above does not constitute legal advice; readers are urged to seek the assistance of a qualified attorney in their location in connection with any of the areas of law discussed generally above.

Read this story before you buy that painting!

Art is a very personal thing. You must like it when you buy it, because you may have to live with it. The chances of an average Joe (or Jane) finding something exceptional out of pure, dumb luck are probably less than 5 percent, meaning you’d have to gamble on 25 or 30 paintings before finding a monster bargain. Who’s got that kind of time? Or money? Or wall space?

www.istockphoto.com

If you are someone who has decided to invest a few thousand dollars (or much more) in high-quality art, and are determined to go it alone, the places you are most likely to encounter the painting that sings to you are an antique store, auction, estate sale or a gallery that specializes in older works or works of listed artists. Often, like true love, you find that special work of art when you aren’t even looking for it. An unseasoned buyer may panic and pass…or panic and overpay.

Things can get especially complicated if there is no signature and no attribution. How in the world do you get a value? How do you know the price a gallery or dealer or antique store slaps on a mystery painting is fair? Unfortunately, the answer is, “It’s a muscle you work over time.” Experience, research, some wins, some losses. Usually, the first thing I’ll ask myself in these situations is, “Does this painting accomplish what it’s supposed to accomplish?” That being said, my husband and I have both bought paintings that passed the basic sniff test, but ultimately weren’t what we wanted them to be.

If I form an emotional attachment to a painting, often that’s enough to spend $500 or $700. I have works of art that I adore with no signature and I couldn’t care less. They serve me well. And sometimes that’s okay. Again, buy what you like. That’s a decent starting point.

So what’s my magic formula for buying smart? As I look back on my career and experiences as an art historian, dealer, appraiser and collector, I think it’s a little bit of patience, a fair amount of scholarship, and being in the right place at the right time. I offer as evidence four war stories…

YOUTH IS SERVED

When I was starting the field in the early 1980s, the gallery owner I worked for purchased an unsigned American impressionist painting for around $1,000. I felt it had been executed by John Leslie Breck (1859–1899), the artist who is often considered the first American to bring the French Impressionist art movement to the U.S., after befriending Monet. Breck died at 39, so his body of work was very small. I implored him not to sell it; I told him I had this hunch. This took me on another adventure. I knew someone in Boston at the St. Botolph Club, an exclusive arts club which, at the time, was still restricted to male membership. He arranged a private viewing of several Breck paintings and drawings they had in their amazing collection. I left completely convinced that the $1,000 painting was by him, which made it a $30,000 painting. Today, it might sell for over $300,000. I was just 22 years old at the time.

ART BUYER’S CHECKLIST

The more you know, the less money you’re likely to blow so, as mentioned earlier, a little bit of scholarship can go a long way. However, anyone who comes across an old painting that “speaks to them” should be armed with a checklist to help keep a potential investment in perspective:

• Does it appeal to me?
• Is it likely to hold the same appeal to others?
• Does the subject matter make sense?

The old saying that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing applies here. You may know that an artist’s work is prized, and make an educated guess on value. But have you considered what the subject of your painting is? If an artist is known for seascapes and you find a painting of his or her grandmother, you are not comparing apples to apples. You are comparing apples to oranges (or worse).

• Is the condition acceptable?

Here you have a little wiggle room. If a painting is centuries old and has damage or evidence of in-painting, you can live with that. If a painting is 50 years old and in poor condition, as an investment you really can’t tolerate that. Remember to check front and back.

• Has it been repaired?

Never ever compare a painting that’s been restored to one that is in pristine condition. The most obvious signs of repair is if a painting has been re-lined or if there is an application of another material. So for instance, reinforcement behind an oil on canvas means the integrity of the painting has been disrupted. There was a tear, or mold or water damage. Also, don’t spend serious money on a painting older than 1960 or so without first seeing it under a black light (a handheld one is a modest investment). New paint fluoresces. However, be aware that masking varnishes can be used—if it’s worth faking, it will be done.

• What info is on the back of the painting?

Are there numbers in the corner, drawn or written in chalk?This suggests that has been up for auction at some point and you may be able to find out more about it—including the selling price. Is there a label that says it was exhibited at a gallery or museum? Or is there some record of ownership? All of these details can be very helpful in your sleuthing; your goal is to extract the painting’s provenance, which can dramatically affect its value.

• Is it in a quality frame?

A period frame signed by the artist (usually just initials) indicates that he or she went to great expense to showcase the work.

• What does the seller know about the painting?

Never buy a painting without asking the seller what he or she knows about it. It is not out of bounds to ask where the seller bought it, either. Provenance can be critical in determining the fact behind a work of art, not to mention its value.

• Have you done any research?

A lot of people are discouraged researching art because auction sites generally don’t reveal selling prices unless you subscribe to a service, like Artfact or Artnext, that gives you access to this information. And auction sites are often among the first entries to come up in Google searches. The good news is there are some great free research sites, including ones run by the Getty Research Institute, the Smithsonian (Siris), the National Portrait Gallery, the Guggenheim, the Louvre and the National Gallery of Art.

• Is my information current?

Don’t assume that something that was worth “X” 20 years ago will be worth “2X” today. In the late 1990s, people were killing each other to buy Louis Icart. Now I can’t give them away.

www.istockphoto.com

FAIRY TALE ENDING

Once upon a time, we bought five small illustrations of nursery rhymes at a local auction. They were from the late 19th century and were exquisitely done. They bore no signatures. For the better part of 10 years, I tried to get attributions. I didn’t even know if they were American or British. I did feel strongly that they were done by a female artist. There were fingerprints—not literally, of course, but tantalizing clues. I did extensive research and contacted many colleagues in the art world, but could never get an exact match to an artist. We have a particular client who really likes unpublished illustrations. I pulled them out for him because I thought he might recognize the work. He loved seeing them, yet even he couldn’t shed any more light on their origin.

Some time later, we were up in Massachusetts visiting an art dealer friend. She happened to own a book from the same period that had never been published. She asked if I’d like to see it, and the instant I saw just the title page I knew exactly who my artist was. It was someone with whom I was well acquainted…I could have kicked myself! The artist was Laura Coombs Hills (1859–1952) and it turned out my illustrations were meant to be Christmas cards published by Louis Prang & Co. circa 1897. And with this new information, the value of the five pieces went up about eight times.

www.istockphoto.com

BUT I BOUGHT IT IN AN ANTIQUE STORE

Overpaying for art in antique stores happens from time to time. That doesn’t surprise me. There is not as much crossover in the fields of furniture and art as there should be, so some dealers don’t know a whole lot more about a painting than what they paid, and maybe what someone paid for something similar at an auction. That can lead to overpricing. However, it also means you can stumble past a phenomenal bargain without even realizing it. You may also have more negotiating room than with a dealer of fine art. Antique stores often try to buy items with a 100% markup in mind. This is because they deal with decorators, who take a big bite out of the pieces they purchase on behalf of their clients. It’s built into the business, so why not haggle a little?

STEALING ONE FOR A C-NOTE

We were at an auction among people we knew had a lot of knowledge about fine art. A William Brice (1921–2008) painting came up. He was a California modernist. The pure quality of the painting drew us in. But the front of a painting tells you only so much. If you don’t look at the back, you’re missing a crucial part of the story—maybe even the whole story. In this case, there was an exhibition label on the back. That told us this particular painting was well recognized in its time, which was the 1950s.

No one else noticed. No one else bid. We got it for $100. Now his work is taking off. A well-advised collector would expect to pay in the neighborhood of $20,000 in today’s market for a piece of this quality, subject, size, condition and period.

I have to say, there’s a special satisfaction when you’re with the art mob and you manage to eke one out like that.

People know us and were watching us all auction to see what we were and weren’t bidding on. In this case we kept things very low-key.

A BEAUTIFUL CIRCLE

My husband attended a garage sale and the owner turned out to be friendly with a New Yorker illustrator. She had ended up with a lot of belongings from the illustrator’s estate. The collection was being housed in her garage. At the time, she wasn’t really ready to sell off her trove of illustrations. Our interest never waned.

The artist was Barbara Shermund (1899-1978), and she had been on the original team of illustrators for the magazine. My husband put me in charge of the research and inventory process. What a complete pleasure it was. We even had a retrospective exhibition for her witty and wonderful pen-and-ink original images.

We periodically looped back to her.  We learned that she had gifted some of the works to her kids.  And then, about two years later, we found out her garage had been broken into and also had experienced some minor flooding issues. That was the decisive moment; we convinced her to sell what remained—about 800 illustrations in all.

The Houghton Library Collection of American Illustrators learned about our find and a benefactor purchased more than 100 pieces and donated them to that library at Harvard. Liza Donnelly, a current illustrator at The New Yorker who was writing a book called Funny Ladies of The New Yorker, found out, too. She interviewed me for her very successful book. The artist’s great niece contacted me and wants to write the definitive book on her. There is also interest now from a museum in San Francisco to mount an exhibit of her illustrations.

SMARTPHONES LIVE UP TO THEIR NAME

You’ve found the painting of your dreams. It looks right, the price seems fair, but you’re just not sure. Time to whip out your smart phone. If you are a seasoned buyer, then you are already logged into a subscription service (AskArt costs $100/month) to help you determine its value. If not, don’t underestimate the power of eBay. You’re looking for “completed sales” (they’re in green—don’t look at the red prices—this recently changed). Type in your search words, go to refine, then show more, then sold items. What I like about this is that it shows you the good, the bad and the ugly. Look for the most recent auctions, and take note of any regional differences.

QUICK! WHICH WOULD YOU PICK?

Musicians or Venice? One is wall candy, the other runs into serious dollars. Made your decision? Okay, here goes…

The Musicians painting on the left is what I would refer to as a decorative piece: pleasing to look at, easy to interpret and utilizing only a moderate degree of skill. It’s not a deep image, but it’s light, dynamic and charming, albeit somewhat superficial. The signature is completely indiscernible (this could be intentional) so I cannot look up the artist’s bio or see any type of track record. A closer look indicates materials that would not be considered high-quality or archival (stretcher wood, frame, canvas). In spite of this, it’s an enjoyable decoration, but that is its only value.

Venice, on the other hand, is a serious piece by Ida Dengrove (1915-2005)—a trained fine artist who is listed and easily researched. A bio reveals her schooling, exhibitions and many accomplishments. The painting itself employs a beautiful balance of perspective and color values, and is a homage to cubist painters who came before her.

There is a rhythm and an emotional tangibility to the scene. This view of busy Venetian streets is complex. Her deliberate brush strokes evoke a time, a place, a temperature, and so much more. Looking at the “verso” of this painting, you’d immediately see the finer quality materials as well as the labels and notes indicating a serious-minded artist.

This was a great find, and a team effort that turned out to be very profitable. To me, as an art historian, however, the more important piece was that through luck and persistence, I was able to re-open and re-invent an artist whose life’s work was relegated to a suburban garage. Wow. This amazing journey has made me now want to shed more light on other artists from the first quarter of the 20th century. It also got me more interested in illustrations. It was a beautiful circle.

My first piece of advice to friends and clients who are embarking on this journey is don’t get discouraged before you even get out there. Very good art can slip through the cracks because of generational swings of taste and interest. It can pass down into the hands of a family member who doesn’t appreciate its quality.

And yes, sometimes it’s just sitting there, for no good reason at all, waiting for the average Joe (or Jane) to snap it up for a song.

Unless I beat you to it, of course.

Editor’s Note: The author’s husband, Chris, penned one of our most popular articles a couple of years back: Storage Warrior. Like all of our past stories, this one can be accessed at edgemagonline.com. Rose says he hasn’t shot himself recently with a gun-pen (now you’re curious, aren’t you?). The Myers own Shore Antique Center in Allenhurst.

Your front door matters a lot more than you think.

By Mark Stewart

My first job out of college in the early 1980s was a sales position and the first thing I was told by my manager was to buy a decent pair of shoes. A customer, he explained, is most likely to decide what kind of person you are and what kind of product you’re selling by the quality, condition and style of your footwear. My $20 Thom McAns, in other words, weren’t going to cut it. 

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For whatever reason, I didn’t last long in sales—the company happened to be the one Glengarry Glen Ross was based on (second place is steak knives, third place you’re fired) so I count myself fortunate. I’m not sure I ever entirely bought the shoes idea. However, I do believe something similar applies to a home’s front door. The choices you make related to the entrance of your home can say as much or more about you than the cars you drive, the clothes you wear, the school your kids attend or all of the other traditional clues about substance, status and taste.  

Think about the last time you attended a party at a new friend’s house, or went home- or apartment-shopping. Aren’t you guilty of passing judgment on what’s inside based on what’s outside? It really is human nature to judge a book by its cover, despite the idiom that says you can’t. So I’ll say it: Your front door matters

According to the Internet, which as we know is right about everything, the average American will own three homes in his or her lifetime. That means, statistically speaking, if you’re on your first home, then you’ve got two more front-door decisions left. If you’re on your third home, well, you can probably skip to the next story. But wait! You can always shop for a new door—in fact, many people do. Which is kind of the point of this article. It’s a fact, in fact, that not everyone sticks with the front door that “came” with their current abode. As with other parts of a home, there’s always impetus for change or room for improvement

I have owned two homes and was fortunate that each one came with a magnificent and unusual front door that would have cost somewhere in the high four figures to duplicate. Fortunate because my spouse (who as a juror would be more likely to convict on the basis of a cheap, ugly front entry than on the basis of criminal evidence) would not have allowed us to move into or, perhaps, even buy our two homes had the doors not checked all of her boxes. As a side note, I have been endlessly amused when I catch people staring at our doors and wondering what kind of freaks live in our house. I mention this only to underscore how very personal a choice it is that we make when we choose  a front door

If you actually are in the market for a new door, or maybe just considering a different look, you don’t have to drive through too many neighborhoods to realize that there are a dizzying number of sizes, styles, materials, colors and hardware. Sometimes you’ll see a wow-factor entrance on an otherwise ordinary home. Sometimes you’ll see an utterly featureless front door on a really interesting house. Then there’s that door with a splash of color that’s maybe trying a little too hard. And of course, the door that announces to the world that you don’t care and, by the way, mind your own business. Which is also a choice, in its own way,  I suppose

I once talked to a builder who claimed a front door should be like a baseball umpire: you know it’s doing a good job when you don’t notice it at all

High Sierr Custom Door

The basic material choices for a really good-quality front door include metal, fiberglass and old reliable wood.  As wooden doors go, it’s difficult to go wrong with mahogany. It is substantial, durable and resistant to insects and rot. Another wood that is popular in areas where insect life is abundant is cedar, which actually repels wood-eating bugs and is full of natural preservatives. It also has an aroma that most people like. Oak is a popular wood for similar reasons, while cherry is known for its strength, density and ability to hold its finish. That’s why cherry is a popular wood for kitchen cabinetry

Round and Round

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In 1881, a German company introduced the concept of a revolving door, which was meant to solve the problem of winter drafts and summer dust getting into commercial lobby spaces. In 1888, a Philadelphia inventor named Theophilus Van Kannel patented the three-panel revolving door, which made him a wealthy man. He also designed amusement park rides at Coney Island, which is probably why small children love to play in revolving doors…or are utterly terrified by them.

In terms of whether to stain or paint your wooden front door, the argument for staining is that it shows off the natural beauty of the wood. Painting gives you an infinite number of color choices, of course, and also offers added durability. The main argument against staining is that a natural-wood door with a lot of direct sunlight may need a fair amount of maintenance, whereas a painted door is likely to hold up better over the long haul. If you know for sure that you’ll be painting your new wooden front door, you can also get away with a less expensive grade of wood

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Wilt’s Place

When Wilt Chamberlain played basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers, he built a glass-walled mansion atop an old WWII anti-aircraft emplacement in Bel Air. The home featured a  14-foot rolling slab of redwood as the front door—supposedly it contained enough wood to frame 17 small homes. He claimed there was no need to lock it because he was the only one strong enough to open it. Gotta love Wilt.

The roller idea was cool, for sure, but also a nod to the realities of gravity. There may not be a side hinge on earth that could bear that weight. The lesson here is that traditional door hinges come with a weight limit, so when choosing hardware, know the weight of your door. An inexpensive door runs just over one pound per square foot, but an oversized oak door could weigh as much as 150 to 200 pounds.

STEPPING INTO THE 

Before we move on to other materials and options,  let’s do a quick dive into the history of the door. Logic suggests that doors have been with us since humans moved from caves into constructed shelters. That’s not entirely accurate, in the sense that for many millennia, the typical front door was really just a couple of layers of animal hides. Hinged or pivoted doors that swing smoothly open and closed (what we all think of as proper doors) are probably less than 5,000 years old. Archaeologists have found evidence of functioning doors in ancient Egyptian tombs and temples throughout the Middle East, as well as paintings of doors at burial sites, which presumably were meant to represent a passageway to the afterlife. These ancient doors were made of wood or stone, depending on their purpose and available materials. It appears that wooden doors were also being used in Europe around this time

Barbara McManus VRoma Project

The Romans took doors to the next level, using various metals, including bronze, and even creating sliding and folding doors. They actually had a God of doors, Janus, who also covered archways—another architectural specialty of the empire—as well as broader symbolic concepts, including beginnings, endings, time and duality. Roman sculptures of Janus often depicted him as having two faces looking in opposite directions.  A small temple, the Janus Germinus, was located at one end of the famous Forum, and was depicted on  a coin minted during the reign of Nero in the first century. At about the same time, during Rome’s occupation of Egypt, a Greek engineer known as Heron of Alexandria, designed an “automatic” door. Heron was quite the inventor. He is credited with developing the first steam-powered engine, the first windmill and the first vending machine

Guillaume Piolle

Doors became especially important after the fall of Rome, when order gave way to chaos (or so we are meant to believe). The Dark Ages actually weren’t as bleak as they sound, but a good, solid door was definitely important—whether you owned a castle or just a modest home. For large structures, such as  forts and cathedrals, Medieval architects favored oak  as a material, joining layered planks together with  metal reinforcement bands and fashioning heavy iron strap-hinges that functioned for centuries before wearing out. The wealthier or more important the home- or castle-owner, the more elaborate the door and doorway were likely to be

During the Renaissance, front doors became canvases for skilled craftsmen and often reflected the artistic traditions of different countries and regions. 

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Michelangelo described the heavily adorned doors  of Tuscany as “gates to paradise.” The entrances made for French cathedrals were perhaps the most elaborately conceived doors and doorways in history. These monumental passages were often left open during the day to let in light and air, and then “locked” at night with a big, wooden or metal bolt that fit into or slid across an iron bracket. Mortice locks (a lock system cut into the door and door jamb) were fairly rare at this time for exterior doors

From a technological stand-point, doors and doorways didn’t change much after this. Windows were incorporated into exterior doors in places where the chances of an attack were remote. In the 1700s and 1800s, interior doors began to find their way into everyday homes. Prior to that, families tended to live in one

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large, partitioned room. Doorknobs, door handles, door latches and other durable “modern” hardware began appearing during the Industrial Revolution, both in the U.S. and abroad. These finished goods were expensive prior to the days of mass production; in modest homes, doors were operated by pulling on a leather strap attached to a wooden drop-latch that was threaded through a hole in the door. In the latter part of the 19th century, during the Victorian Era, ornate hardware such as ceramic, brass or mirrored mercury-glass knobs came into vogue

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One Good Turn

The modern lock-and-key set

Craftmaster

, unveiled by Linus Yale in 1848, is called a pin tumbler (or cylinder) lock. His son, Linus Jr., improved on this design in the 1860s. Since then, door locks have remained essentially the same, while most door keys have looked pretty much like the ones you see hanging on displays at your local hardware store. Here’s the Yales’  little secret: They actually built their empire on a concept originated in the 1780s by Englishman Joseph Bramah, a prolific inventor whose crowning achievement was the hydraulic press, a technology still in use today

Jen-Weld

OTHER MATERIALS 

Okay back to the 21st century. Wooden doors are not for everyone. From a maintenance, security and energy efficiency standpoint, a metal door (below) might be a better choice. The industrial look is very popular now, too, so for certain modern homes, wood doesn’t make a lot of sense. One crucial caveat about a metal door is that it either must fit the existing framing exactly, or you’ll have to rip out the entire front entrance. Hanging a new metal door on an old frame is asking for trouble; remember, you can’t plane down metal if it rubs or sticks somewhere. In terms of durability, metal doors are great but they don’t necessarily last a lifetime. Depending on how they are constructed and the climate conditions they face, even the most expensive steel doors can “peel” over time. They can also be marred or dented, which is difficult to repair and can invite rust. 

Modern Steel Door Co.

So what about fiberglass? Well, a fiberglass front door (above) would be a deal-breaker for my wife, but I wonder if she could honestly tell the difference between painted wood and top-quality painted fiberglass from more than a foot or two away. (I’m sure I’ll find out before she even finishes this story). I’m just saying “wood-grain” fiberglass products can look pretty convincing, if you ask me. The main drawback of this material is that it’s not one of the other two materials. The pros of fiberglass are many. Fiberglass doors have great insulating properties, they are more scratch- and dent-resistant than metal, and they have a similar “feel” opening and closing as wood does.   

If you’re keeping score, here’s where we are: fiberglass is best from an upkeep standpoint, metal (steel) is the best for strength and security, while for most people wood holds the aesthetic advantage.  

Price-wise, there are significant differences. A big, beautiful wood door can run $5,000 or more. Because they do absorb moisture, wood doors also need to be sheltered from the elements, under a porch or portico, so there may be an added expense there. Our current front door is almost four feet wide and nearly eight feet tall. It is magnificent. It is priceless. It is one-of-a-kind. However, on a humid summer day, you need to put your shoulder into it to get it all the way closed.  

A top-of-the-line thick-gauge steel door will run you less than half of a comparable-quality wood door, although it’s not really fair to compare them. As I mentioned earlier, the cost may rise significantly based on what you’re replacing and the condition of the door jamb and surrounding framework. You also need to hire someone who’s done a bunch of them, and done them well. You don’t want some jack-of-all-trades learning on your dime.  

Fiberglass comes in somewhere between steel and wood, even though you’ll see some advertised at bargain prices. Trust me, they are no bargain. You want a door you won’t have to think about for 20 years, and that may run you $2,000 or more installed.    

One final word of advice: Be smart about choosing your installer. If you are undergoing a wallet-ectomy to buy a top-quality manufactured door, regardless of the material, give a lot of thought to who is installing it for you. Most of the top brands have trained or certified contractors to deal specifically with their doors. Really, they do. So even if you have a favorite carpenter or handy-person, you might want to look at a list of recommended installers.     

What about the DIY route? Well, many years ago, I attempted to install a brand-new kitchen door in a very old house. I was young and stupid (in other words, still in my 20s) and figured a rectangle is a rectangle, a tape measure is a tape measure…how hard could this be? That door never closed without emitting the same exasperated groan my wife did the day I announced I could “do it myself.” 

Later, when we were selling the house, I could sense that the prospective buyers were spending a lot of time looking at that door and wondering what else I had “fixed.” I learned my lesson: When it comes to doors, skip the Thom McAns and go for the Ferragamos. It is money well spent.  

Toy Story 0.5 (aka Surviving the 1960s)

Once upon a time, in a foreign country called the 1960s, there were no au pairs, soccer moms or helicopter parents. City kids rode public buses to school and back. In the suburbs, children roamed neighborhoods like packs of feral animals. Uncle Frank might slip 12-year-old nieces and nephews fireworks and cigarettes and a gulp of his beer every now and then—and make them promise not to tell mom and dad (or Aunt Shirley). Granddad would take you out in his Pontiac Bonneville at dawn on Sunday morning and teach you to drive on the Pulaski Skyway and the New Jersey Turnpike. Believe it or not.

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If, like me, you were born in the United States between 1954 and 1964, you belong to an exclusive demographic: The Late Baby Boomers. We were born smack-dab in the middle of what economists have dubbed The Thirty Glorious Years, an epoch of prosperity and abundance unparalleled in human history. We were the progeny of the can-do New Frontier. We were expected to grow up fast and, in large part, do it on our own. More and more of us were children of divorce, with two or more working parents. The term invented for us was latchkey kids. A close friend who’s a bit older and wiser observed that a lot of us suffered from benign neglect. He maintains that we didn’t get enough time with our folks, who were always working. And that they couldn’t wait until we were old enough to start working, too.

www.istockphoto.com

So many of the toys produced and marketed to us in the 1960s, and that our parents bought for us, are looked upon a half-century later with horror and disbelief. If you’re a Late Baby Boomer, however, you also harbor a certain nostalgia for all those hot, sharp and toxic playthings. I think this is because they reflected the cultural philosophy of our parents. Life is full of risks, kid—here’s some dangerous stuff to get you used to taking them. And don’t come crying to us unless you need stitches.

Mattel, Inc.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’

I was born in San Francisco in 1960 and was a toddler in Santa Monica. My parents relocated back to Manhattan before I turned three. On weekends, I’d kick around my grandfather’s car dealership in Jersey City. In March of 1968, my mom put me on an American Airlines flight from JFK to LAX, alone, to meet up with my copywriter dad, who was shooting a series of KOOL cigarette ads in Southern California. The stewardesses pampered me like a lost puppy.

For an eight-year-old kid who only knew the gray, gritty streets and harsh winters of New York, Los Angeles in 1968 was like paradise. Perfect concrete streets, fantastic googie architecture, Hollywood studio backlots, dayglo and hippies and surf music and Kustom Kars. And the Valhalla of all 1960s kids: the Magic Kingdom of Disneyland in Anaheim. On the way to D-Land, on the I-5 Golden State Freeway, we passed through Hawthorne. Right there along the side of the freeway was Disneyland’s not-so-distant cousin, the Magic Factory of Mattel Toys, where just about everything cool—from Hot Wheels to Creepy Crawlers—were actually made.

In San Gabriel, five minutes off the I-10 Santa Monica Freeway, just about everything else that was cool was made at the Wham-O factory: Hula Hoops, Frisbees, Super Balls, Slip and Slides, Instant Elastic Bubble Plastic, Silly String and Silly Slime. If it could be made from some potentially toxic new plastic polymer, you could be sure that Wham-O would serve it up.

Think about it. Pretty much all of today’s extreme sports were birthed by us Late Baby Boomers. We built jumps for our Sting-Rays and Tarzan swings at lake shores. We snuck into neighbors’ backyards to skateboard in their empty swimming pools. Cowboys & Indians seemed quaint and outdated to us. We played war…how much more “extreme” can you get?

Not that we had many options. Growing up in the 1960s, there were no video games, just a black & white screen (only the seriously affluent had color TVs) with a handful of channels that actually ran children’s programming. Most of the shows I watched had product tie-ins with toy companies like Marx, Transogram, Mattel, Ideal and Topper. Most of the action toys—particularly for boys—launched projectiles like rockets or grenades, using springs or water/air pressure. A few in particular that stick in my head are the Fireball XL5 Space City Playset, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Napoleon Solo gun, and the James Bond 007 Attaché Case, which shot a hard plastic bullet with the press of a hidden button in the handle.

I grew up a Junior Mad Man. My dad was an advertising copywriter, my mom an account executive and stepdad an art director. Basically, I was hardwired to consume from the cradle. Television was the gift that never stopped giving. It brought the money into the house, and then showed what you could exchange for it. For me, it was invariably the latest dangerous, worthless plastic piece of junk as seen on TV. Surviving examples are still dangerous and toxic, but the ones in mint-condition are far from worthless. Spend five minutes on eBay and you’ll see.

It occurs to me that the much-maligned Helicopter Parent might be the indirect product of these toys. Maybe these are the boys who were bludgeoned or terrorized or used as guinea pigs by their older siblings. Or the girls who scorched themselves cooking cupcakes with 200-watt lightbulbs. In one generation, the protection pendulum swung from one extreme to the other.

I look back at the halcyon days of irresponsible parenting and no longer ask What were they thinking? I’m halfway through my 50s now and I get it. All is forgiven. The folks who designed and marketed the toys we played with, however, are another matter entirely. I don’t think I’ll ever understand how some of these products found their way on to store shelves. Here then are my Unlucky 13:

I NEVER INHALED

Which is a good thing, because the Gilbert Glass Blowing Kit—manufactured until the early 1960s and available at garage sales for another decade—was permanent lung damage waiting to happen. Lest you forget, molten glass has a temperature of 1000º F. A sure litmus test to see if your parents were cheapskates (or simply out to maim you) was whether or not they’d cough up the additional coin for goggles, a pair of welder’s gloves, and an asbestos table board. Because, you guessed it, safety equipment was “sold separately.”

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BIG BANG

Introduced in the 1940s and manufactured until the early 1970s, Chemistry Sets put the boom in the Baby Boom. Blowing yourself up or poisoning yourself was no problem thanks to entry-level basics Potassium Permanganate and Ammonium Nitrate, Tannic Acid and Sodium Ferrocyanide. Bomb- and poison-making made simple and fun! Refills available. Some of the most popular and dramatic things a kid could do with a deluxe set was to perform magic tricks, like turning water (aqueous solution of sodium carbonate and bicarbonate) into wine (adding phenolphthalein), then into milk (adding barium chloride), and then into beer (adding potassium dichromate and hydrochloric acid). The grand finale? Persuading your “assistant” (younger sibling, idiot neighbor) to drink it.

BURN NOTICE

Why squander precious nickels and dimes buying rubber bugs out of gumball machines when you could make your own? The economics of Mattel’s

Mattel, Inc.

Creepy Crawlers seemed obvious to anyone with a first-grade education. And that’s about how old kids were when their parents handed them a box containing a 300ºF hot plate, cast metal molds and a semi-liquid “non-toxic” substance in plastic squeeze bottles that everyone called “goop.” Creepy Crawlers hit the market in 1965 and were incredibly popular. Unfortunately, they weren’t edible. So in 1968, Mattel unveiled Incredible Edibles—featuring the same equipment along with semi-liquid candy called Gobble-Degoop in six colors and flavors: root beer, cherry, licorice, butterscotch, cinnamon, and mint. My friends and I got some very nasty burns and blisters from these child scar-makers. We’d become impatient for the bugs to finish cooking solid, and get splattered with super-hot molten plastic and gummy sauce trying to pry them out of the burning-hot molds with tweezers and sewing needles. On the plus side, visiting the emergency room was very educational.

SHOP TIL YOU DROP

Sand off your fingerprints! Lose a pinky! Drill-press the cat! The Mattel

Mattel, Inc.

Power Shop, introduced in 1964, offered dozens of possible projects and hours of fun. All of the big, noisy machines those lucky big kids were allowed to use in junior high were now within your seven-year-old grasp (at least until you started severing tendons).

HONORABLE MENTION

For two years in the early 1950s, parents could purchase at the then-astronomical cost of $50 the

A.C. Gilbert Company

Gilbert Model #U-238 Atomic Energy Lab. The sell copy says it all:

• Most modern scientific set ever created!
• See paths of alpha particles speeding at 12,000 miles per second!
• Watch actual atomic disintegration—right before your eyes!
• Prospect for Uranium with Geiger-Mueller Counter!
• 10,000 Dollar Reward: That’s what the United States Government will pay to anyone who discovers deposits of Uranium ore!
• Full details in the book Prospecting for Uranium, packed with this Atomic Energy Lab.
• Includes: Geiger-Muller Counter, Wilson Cloud Chamber, Spinthariscope, Electroscope, Nuclear Spheres, Alpha Beta and Gamma radiation sources, radioactive ores.
• Three illustrated books: Prospecting for Uranium, How Dagwood Splits the Atom, Gilbert Atomic Energy Instruction Book
• All Samples of Radioactive Materials are Completely Harmless!

I can’t imagine why this was pulled off the market. By the way, if you want a mint-condition original today, get out your gold coin. They can sell for thousands at auction.

DIGITAL DIVIDE

Say what you will about Mattel’s electric-powered toys. At least they were certified by Underwriters’ Laboratories. No such luck with Jig Saw Junior, which hit the market in 1958 courtesy of Burgess Industries, with this bit of marketing gold: “It will vibrate well enough to cut balsa or other thin soft woods without taking off your child’s finger.” You can practically hear Dan Aykroyd’s sleazy Irwin Mainway character pitching this product on SNL between Bag o’ Glass and Johnny Human Torch.

BLAST FROM THE PAST

Water Rockets were our gateway drug to the Space Race. For a couple of bucks, every child could do his or her part to beat the Russkies to the moon—and get a refreshing, explosive splash of water on a hot summer day. So let’s do the Newtonian calculus: Two pounds of air-pressure water sealed in hard plastic, accelerating to a velocity of 40 miles per hour within a few yards. Just what a kid needs to crack the windshield of the family car. Or dent the skull of his nerd cousin Elaine.

Transogram Company, Inc.

WEARABLE WHIPLASH

The

Swing Wing, introduced in 1965, was one of those toys that made absolutely no sense, but how could you not beg your parents for it after seeing those head-twirling kids on the commercial? It was a plastic chin-strapped beanie, with a long weighted cord attached to a pivot on top. It was meant to be a cranium-mounted spin-off of the Hula Hoop. Which translated to permanent neck vertebrae damage and—for the accomplished Swing-Winger—potential paralysis. From Transogram…Where the FUN comes from!

Photo by Santishek

STRING THEORY

The idea was elegant in its stupidity. Klik-Klaks were two hard-plastic spheres attached by thin cords to a central ring, which slipped over your finger. Move your hand up and down at just the right speed, and they crashed together at 12 o’clock and 6 o’clock again and again and again. They were outlawed in schools for noise and safety reasons, but that just made them more alluring, and in the late-60s companies rushed cheaply made competing versions to market with no regard for quality. This led to two basic outcomes: String failure, leading to property damage, or a shattered ball, leading to eye damage.

SLIPPERY SLOPE

Wham-O introduced the Slip and Slide in 1961as the backyard progenitor to the waterslide theme park. It was nothing more than a garden hose attached to a long strip of slick vinyl. Millions were sold before anyone gave a second thought to safety. If you broke a toe on one of the stakes that secured it to the lawn or caught a major raspberry on the driveway because you slid off the end, well…that was your problem. Kids who limped away from these injuries were the lucky ones. Adults who found this toy irresistible relearned much of what they had forgotten from physics class, like “a body in motion tends to stay in motion” (Newton again) even when you run out of Slip and Slide. Eventually, words like “spinal cord injury” and “death” were included in the instruction manual’s safety warnings. A handicapped access icon should have been added, too.

Louis Marx & Co.

NO BRAKES NO STEERING NO PROBLEM

Introduced in 1968, the Krazy Kar from Marx was an ill-conceived kiddy car compounded by a near-total absence of control. Kids sat in a circular plastic frame and propelled themselves using two oversized wheels with handles. Two pivoting shopping-cart wheels at the front and rear ensured kraziness. The children pictured on the packaging seemed blissfully unaware of their fate. Perhaps they lived in a hilltop subdivision or at the end of a steep driveway. Its more-than-passing resemblance to a “krazy” wheelchair should have been a tip-off to parents. And yet, the Krazy Kar has endured, careening back into stores during the 1990s to inure a whole new generation of kids.

TRIGGER HAPPY

The category of Projectile-Firing Toy Guns could fill an entire issue of this magazine. Their heyday was roughly 1955 to 1970, and they ranged from easily concealed pistols to hefty weapons of mass destruction. As a boy, I owned the Zebra Pistol, which fired small rubber pellets, and the Star Trek Disc Pistol, which zipped out nickel-sized, multicolored hard-plastic disks. (An admission here and long-overdue apology: In the hands of an expert, these pellets and discs could be ricocheted off plate glass with an astonishing degree of accuracy, tailor-made for terrorizing the East Side society matrons and their tiny dogs out window shopping on Madison Avenue.) Meanwhile, it was the big guns—like

Photo by Mike Evangelist

Johnny Seven OMA and Johnny Eagle Magumba big- game rifle—that transformed innocent child’s play into a Photo by Mike Evangelist  magnificently destructive experience. Hummel and Staffordshire figurines, proudly displayed Royal Doulton china, or really anything perched on a mantle or étagère, made for an irresistible target—at, I might add, an impressively long range. Finally, for those of us who couldn’t wait to get to Vietnam but were a dozen years too young, there was the ultimate in heavy artillery: the REMCO Marine Raider Bazooka. It fired a hollow blue hard-plastic two-inch “USMC” bazooka round with a muzzle velocity of at least 60 miles per hour. At point-blank range, well, Farewell, My Lovely—eyesight or baby teeth, that is.

A MIGHTY WIND

For parents who had absolutely no common sense, the go-to toy had to be the Air Cannon. As their names imply, the Agent Zero-M Sonic Blaster and Wham-O Air Blaster, both introduced in the mid-60s, were a blast. Kurt Russell proved it to us in an early commercial, which you can easily find on YouTube. The wisdom of handing a small child one of these products is best illustrated in a black & white snapshot of my oldest friend, who was photographed shouldering an Agent Zero-M. He was probably blowing a squirrel out of a tree. The photo made him something of an internet sensation. If you wanted to give your enemy a sporting chance, you could opt for the handheld Wham-O blaster. Both toys were meant to blow down cardboard targets with a massive puff of air, but clever kids soon figured out that just about anything—from ping-pong balls to prune juice—could be loaded into either one and fired “to great effect” during a grownup dinner party.

INCOMING!

No story on dangerous toys would be complete without a few words about Lawn Darts. The name itself tells any sane person all they need to know. Seriously, is there any lawn in the world that is improved Irwin Sports by the introduction of

darts? Essentially, these were hard-to-see mini-javelins made for people with dubious athletic skill and depth perception—never a good combination. There’s an old saying that “close” only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. In lawn darts, getting close to your target often precipitated a trip to the hospital.

Editor’s Note: Luke Sacher is a documentary filmmaker and an avid collector of antique and classic toys—an expensive habit he picked up from his mom, who amassed a spectacular collection. Luke authored Apocalypse Wow for our Good Earth Issue, a compendium of noteworthy end-of-the-world movies. Check it out at edgemagonline.com.

New Jersey’s ‘Kitchen Cousins’ have a lot on their plate in 2015.

So you thought your kitchen was a train wreck? Anthony Carrino and John Colaneri, HGTV’s ubiquitous Kitchen Cousins, pride themselves in transforming hopeless residential and commercial cooking spaces into spectacular, high-functioning showplaces. This summer, the cousins embark on their newest reality venture, America’s Most Desperate Kitchens.

www.istockphoto.com

Back in late-2014, HGTV asked viewers to send in 90-second videos that proved their kitchens were totally hopeless. The network received a flood of submissions that ranged from shameful to catastrophic, picked the most challenging (and funniest) and then dispatched Carrino and Colaneri to make a little magic. America’s Most Desperate Kitchens marks the fourth series for the talented and likeable duo, who run Brunelleschi Construction in Jersey City. They have gained a legion of fans with Kitchen Cousins, Cousins On Call and Cousins Undercover.

Fans of the cousins are already setting their DVR’s for the opening episode, which airs on July 1. In the meantime, one can enjoy their latest renovation creation on Erie Street in Jersey City, where Carrino and Colaneri recently opened Carrino Provisions, a gourmet market with a family-style Italian restaurant housed in a reclaimed 19th century factory building.

Authenticity is everything in the Reality TV game, and the cousins have taken their lumps on more renovations than they care to remember. Prior to their new show (which has them traveling all over the country), they had worked almost exclusively in New Jersey. What better proving ground for construction and design skills than the old (and not-so-old) homes of the Garden State? As much as they love the challenge of updating antique houses, both agree that falling in love with an old home can be a slippery slope.

“I love a good old home or structure, but they can very quickly become money pits,” Carrino cautions. “The important thing for buyers is to get a really good home inspection prior to purchase, so you understand what you’re getting into.”

Courtesy of HGTV

A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS

What are the Kitchen Cousins’ favorite materials to work with?

John Colaneri: Wood, metal and stone. All three of these materials give any space a warm and unique feeling. I love using natural materials when designing and building homes. I always try to incorporate these three elements into my designs.

Anthony Carrino: I use myriad materials depending on the project. It’s my job to know what’s out there, so I have a good stockpile of materials I love to work with. If I had to pick three I would say live edge wood slabs, raw steel and concrete. Raw materials just speak to me.

www.istockphoto.com

“I love old homes and the history they have,” adds Colaneri. “You find architectural features that are so hard to come by these days. The only downside of an old home is that nothing is up to code, and it’s going to cost a lot of money to renovate.”

Brunelleschi Construction only does restoration work. According to Colaneri, the blending of old and new is what fuels the cousins’ passion. They find New Jersey to be an ideal place for their specialty because of the large number of older and historic homes. They also find it amazing how little most owners know about their dwellings. Nine out of 10, says Colaneri, have no clue as to the condition of the mechanical systems.

“These are the things that are not in front of your face or too glamorous, but they will cost you the most in the end,” he warns. “If you are buying an old home, make sure the air conditioning and heating systems and the electrical have been maintained and updated over the years. It’s just like a car—what’s under the hood makes a big difference.”

Courtesy of HGTV

AN APPETITE FOR HISTORY

Prior to launching their new show, Carrino and Colaneri completed a major project in Jersey City in partnership with Chef Dale Talde: Carrino Provisions, a food destination that features a market, coffee bar and Osteria. The market space, which was designed by the cousins, has an old-country feel with white brick walls, hand-painted signs, fresh-baked breads and pastries, artisanal meats and cheeses, and local produce. The Osteria offers Chef Talde’s take on Italian cuisine, with large shareable portions of handmade pasta.

www.istockphoto.com

Dale Talde made a name for himself across the harbor in Brooklyn, where he and partners John Bush and David Massoni operate TALDE and the Thistle Hill Tavern, both in Park Slope. His take on Asian-American cuisine earned rave reviews and a loyal following. The trio opened TALDE Jersey City a stone’s throw from Carrino Provisions, with a major renovation assist from Carrino and Colaneri, who incorporated the circa 1880 building’s elevator wheels into the restaurant’s industrial chic design. Meanwhile, the lighting has a distinctly Asian influence, with silk-and-wire lanterns illuminating the main dining space. Both TALDE Jersey City and Carrino Provisions are located on Erie Street, between Bay and 1st Street.

Anything having to do with the foundation or structural integrity of an old home is a potential deal-breaker, adds Carrino. “Along with a roof that’s in poor condition, those are things that can suck your budget dry before you even begin your renovation.”

When is a house a tear-down? Everything is fixable, the cousins claim. It’s just a matter of time and money. However, if the structural integrity of a home is profoundly compromised, it may not be worth saving. On the subject of newer homes, Carrino and Colaneri tend to be tepid. They are not fans of the boxy “McMansions” popping up where farms and forests used to be. Will they one day qualify as older homes? Better yet, will they even outlast their 30-year mortgages?

“That’s a hysterical question!” Carrino laughs. “Not that I want to avoid it, but without knowing the builders or walking the homes, I wouldn’t be able to comment as to the build quality.”

“Hey, if the local municipality approves the plans, then they have to deal with them down the road,” smiles Colaneri.

Courtesy of HGTV

“I hope towns realize that they do not look good and put a stop to it.”

Obviously, neither cousin would think of purchasing a brand-new house. After all, one has to keep up appearances. But would they consider buying an older one that needed absolutely nothing done to it?

“Never,” insists Colaneri.

“I don’t think so,” Carrino agrees. “I couldn’t buy something I couldn’t gut…or rebuild from the ground up.”  EDGE

Editor’s Note: John and Anthony were discovered by an HGTV producer who lived in Hoboken. Their all-time favorite New Jersey build was a firefighter’s home flooded during Sandy, done in conjunction with Ellen DeGeneres. The cousins can also be seen in the online series Chill & Grill (Ulive.com) and MANuSCRIPT (AOL).

New Jersey’s ‘Kitchen Cousins’ have a lot on their plate in 2015.

So you thought your kitchen was a train wreck? Anthony Carrino and John Colaneri, HGTV’s ubiquitous Kitchen Cousins, pride themselves in transforming hopeless residential and commercial cooking spaces into spectacular, high-functioning showplaces. This summer, the cousins embark on their newest reality venture, America’s Most Desperate Kitchens.

Back in late-2014, HGTV asked viewers to send in 90-second videos that proved their kitchens were totally hopeless. The network received a flood of submissions that ranged from shameful to catastrophic, picked the most challenging (and funniest), and then dispatched Carrino and Colaneri to make a little magic. America’s Most Desperate Kitchens marks the fourth series for the talented and likable duo, who run Brunelleschi Construction in Jersey City. They have gained a legion of fans with Kitchen Cousins, Cousins On Call, and Cousins Undercover.

www.istockphoto.com

Fans of the cousins are already setting their DVR’s for the opening episode, which airs on July 1. In the meantime, one can enjoy their latest renovation creation on Erie Street in Jersey City, where Carrino and Colaneri recently opened Carrino Provisions, a gourmet market with a family-style Italian restaurant housed in a reclaimed 19th century factory building.

Authenticity is everything in the Reality TV game, and the cousins have taken their lumps on more renovations than they care to remember. Prior to their new show (which has them traveling all over the country), they had worked almost exclusively in New Jersey. What better proving ground for construction and design skills than the old (and not-so-old) homes of the Garden State? As much as they love the challenge of updating antique houses, both agree that falling in love with an old home can be a slippery slope.

“I love a good old home or structure, but they can very quickly become money pits,” Carrino cautions. “The important thing for buyers is to get a really good home inspection prior to purchase, so you understand what you’re getting into.”

Courtesy of HGTV

A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS

What are the Kitchen Cousins’ favorite materials to work with?

John Colaneri: Wood, metal and stone. All three of these materials give any space a warm and unique feeling. I love using natural materials when designing and building homes. I always try to incorporate these three elements into my designs.

Anthony Carrino: I use myriad materials depending on the project. It’s my job to know what’s out there, so I have a good stockpile of materials I love to work with. If I had to pick three I would say live edge wood slabs, raw steel and concrete. Raw materials just speak to me.

www.istockphoto.com

“I love old homes and the history they have,” adds Colaneri. “You find architectural features that are so hard to come by these days. The only downside of an old home is that nothing is up to code, and it’s going to cost a lot of money to renovate.”

Brunelleschi Construction only does restoration work. According to Colaneri, the blending of old and new is what fuels the cousins’ passion. They find New Jersey to be an ideal place for their specialty because of the large number of older and historic homes. They also find it amazing how little most owners know about their dwellings. Nine out of 10, says Colaneri, have no clue as to the condition of the mechanical systems.

“These are the things that are not in front of your face or too glamorous, but they will cost you the most in the end,” he warns. “If you are buying an old home, make sure the air conditioning and heating systems and the electrical have been maintained and updated over the years. It’s just like a car—what’s under the hood makes a big difference.”

AN APPETITE FOR HISTORY

Prior to launching their new show, Carrino and Colaneri completed a major project in Jersey City in partnership with Chef Dale Talde: Carrino Provisions, a food destination that features a market, coffee bar and Osteria. The market space, which was designed by the cousins, has an old-country feel with white brick walls, hand-painted signs, fresh-baked breads and pastries, artisanal meats and cheeses, and local produce. The Osteria offers Chef Talde’s take on Italian cuisine, with large shareable portions of handmade pasta.

Dale Talde made a name for himself across the harbor in Brooklyn, where he and partners John Bush and David Massoni operate TALDE and the Thistle Hill Tavern, both in Park Slope. His take on Asian-American cuisine earned rave reviews and a loyal following. The trio opened TALDE Jersey City a stone’s throw from Carrino Provisions, with a major renovation assist from Carrino and Colaneri, who incorporated the circa 1880 building’s elevator wheels into the restaurant’s industrial chic design. Meanwhile, the lighting has a distinctly Asian influence, with silk-and-wire lanterns illuminating the main dining space. Both TALDE Jersey City and Carrino Provisions are located on Erie Street, between Bay and 1st Street.

Anything having to do with the foundation or structural integrity of an old home is a potential deal-breaker, adds Carrino. “Along with a roof that’s in poor condition, those are things that can suck your budget dry before you even begin your renovation.”

When is a house a tear-down? Everything is fixable, the cousins claim. It’s just a matter of time and money. However, if the structural integrity of a home is profoundly compromised, it may not be worth saving. On the subject of newer homes, Carrino and Colaneri tend to be tepid. They are not fans of the boxy “McMansions” popping up where farms and forests used to be. Will they one day qualify as older homes? Better yet, will they even outlast their 30-year mortgages?

“That’s a hysterical question!” Carrino laughs. “Not that I want to avoid it, but without knowing the builders or walking the homes, I wouldn’t be able to comment as to the build quality.”

“Hey, if the local municipality approves the plans, then they have to deal with them down the road,” smiles Colaneri.

“I hope towns realize that they do not look good and put a stop to it.”

Obviously, neither cousin would think of purchasing a brand-new house. After all, one has to keep up appearances. But would they consider buying an older one that needed absolutely nothing done to it?

“Never,” insists Colaneri.

“I don’t think so,” Carrino agrees. “I couldn’t buy something I couldn’t gut…or rebuild from the ground up.”  EDGE

Editor’s Note: John and Anthony were discovered by an HGTV producer who lived in Hoboken. Their all-time favorite New Jersey build was a firefighter’s home flooded during Sandy, done in conjunction with Ellen DeGeneres. The cousins can also be seen in the online series Chill & Grill (Ulive.com) and MANuSCRIPT (AOL).

A green landscaping strategy demands planning and perseverance. 

In today’s culture of heightened environmental awareness, our gardens, yards and other outdoor living spaces not only have to look good, they have to make us feel good, literally and figuratively. Calling a lawn or landscape “green” doesn’t necessarily make it so, just as calling food “organic” doesn’t guarantee that it is. The quest for personal landscape perfection traditionally focused on irrigation, pesticides, weed control and maintenance, all weighed against the various associated costs.

www.istockphoto.com

Now, however, more and more New Jersey homeowners are raising the bar and demanding that their landscape design gives back more than meets the eye. Not only do we seek healthy and hardy plants, we want our outdoor living spaces to help keep us healthy and happy. Professional landscapers are being asked to apply holistic principles in designing both softscape plantings and hardscape elements, such as fire pits and places, outdoor kitchens, and child- and animal-friendly zones.

In a modern context, the key to successful landscaping lies in sustainability. To get the most from an often-sizeable investment, homeowners look for a landscape design that is low-maintenance, drought tolerant and filled with native specimens. It may also include edible, herb, and specialized flower gardens, cultivated for their health and healing qualities as well as their resiliency and eye appeal.

Growing in popularity, especially in urban areas, are container- and raised-bed gardens that offer complete control over soil conditions. For city dwellers, options include roof gardens and living  walls. There also are bee gardens, which focus on pollen-rich planting to support bees, as well as gardens that cater to hummingbirds, butterflies, and certain bats that feed on flower nectar. Then there are special gardens that lend romance and mystery, such as a night garden featuring plants from the noctiflora group, which release their fragrances only after sundown. If aroma is a prime consideration, then a scented garden is the ideal.

www.istockphoto.com

The value of the vegetable garden should not be underestimated. Even the staid British Royal Botanic Gardens elevated this timeless genre by presenting a special event in 2013 called IncrEdible Edibles. Some gardeners have gone “beyond edible” to incorporate vineyards on their property to assure a supply of organic grapes for their wine cellars (and a possible agricultural tax exemption, as well).

Needless to say, there are certain practical elements that go into successful gardening. Every garden, for example, should be season-appropriate, with staggered blooming periods to assure the garden shows to best advantage throughout the year. In challenging cold-weather situations (such as New Jersey this past winter), consideration should be given to some architectonic elements, such as trees that present well even when leafless and snow-blanketed.

A $73 Billion Industry

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Paul Martoccia points out another interesting aspect of the trend toward environmentally friendly landscape design. He runs Martoccia Landscape Services in Somerset County, a business started by his father in 1962. In the past 10 years, the company has completed 800 projects. Its typical client five years ago was age 50-65 and anticipating retirement, with women as the primary decision-makers. Today, the clientele is younger (late-30s to 40s, he says) with men and women on an equal footing about their landscaping expectations. Rather than the simple patio of 10-15 years ago, Martoccia adds, homeowners are interested in creating what he calls a “backyard destination.” These projects involve a lot of client interaction and site analysis—terms that were not exactly part of the landscaping lexicon back in the early ’60s.

All told, the annual price tag for landscaping in the U.S. is$73 billion. According to a 2014 Ibis World market research report, there are almost 400,000 U.S. companies with almost 900,000 employees. Companies range from small multi-generational father & son residential operations to billion-dollar commercial firms. Projections indicate that the biggest increase in consumer spending will be in the design/installation area. And within that growth sector is a rising demand for environmentally friendly designers.

www.istockphoto.com

So does that mean more companies are bringing aboard workers who understand how to create a healthy, sustainable outdoor space? According to Burke Honnold, owner of T. Burke Honnold Landscaping in Monmouth County, it does not. “Today, there are more landscape ‘designers’ with far less landscape education out there,” he says. Honnold’s greatest challenge, in fact, is hiring qualified help. He considers himself fortunate to have three core employees on board with a decade or more of experience.

GARDEN VARIETY

To start a…                                         Look for…    

Hummingbird Garden                 Flowering plants that are red in color and tubular in shape (e.g., Bee Balm or Cardinal Flower).

Butterfly Garden                            Tropical Sage, Butterfly Bushes, Phlox,  Purple Coneflower, Zinnias, and Sedum.

Bat Garden                                       As an organic pest control, they need shelter (trees and large shrubs), water features, and night-blooming flowers  (e.g., Moonflower, Primrose, and Nicotania).

Moon or Night Garden                Night-bloomers such as Moonflowers, Four-o-clocks, Angels’ Trumpets and even some grasses to add soothing swishing sound effects.

Healing Herb Garden                   Culinary: (Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, Mint)

Medicinal: (Motherwort, Passionflower, Echinacea, Wild Bergamot)

Aromatic: (Lavender to calm, Eucalyptus to invigorate)

Often, homeowners will engage a landscape architect to create an environmentally friendly outdoor area. The landscape architect’s credentials are relatively more rigorous, so it is not surprising that the fees are usually higher. That being said, the modern mission for both the landscape architect and landscape designer is much the same, and many landscaping companies tout their eco-consciousness in their company names (e.g., Keep It Green Landscaping in Bergen County and Landscape Aesthetics in Somerset County).

Recent statistics indicate 80 percent of Americans consider themselves to be environmentally conscientious when it comes to their private grounds. No surprise then that Feng Shui consultants have found new opportunities in our backyards. Laura Benko, who has taught design at the Pratt Institute and was recently named Best Feng Shui Consultant by New York magazine, applies her expertise to create a more meaningful outdoor environment. “Landscaping with Feng Shui principles allows for a deeper meaning and connection to your environment,” she says.

www.istockphoto.com

“It’s not just sustainable landscaping, but emotional sustainability too.”

Gone are the days when a rolling, weed-free, golf-course-quality lawn represented everyone’s suburban ideal. Back then, you hired a lawn service, installed a sprinkler system, planted a few geraniums, and assumed you were done. Homeowners today tend to have a more cultivated vision for their property, as well as a greater awareness and concern for the environment. Indeed, we may still peer over the fence and wonder why the grass is greener on our neighbor’s lawn. But now we are asking the right question: At what cost?

INSIDE OUT

Some relatively common plants offer a surprising array of cleansing and air-filtering attributes. They live outdoors in warm weather, but need to be moved indoors with the first chill.

Common Name

Aloe Vera                                          Aloe Barbadensis

English Ivy                                       Hedera Helix

Boston Fern                                     Nephrolepsis Exaltata Bostoniensis

Gerbera Daisy                                 Gerbera Jamesonii

Mums                                               Chrysanthemum Morifolium

Peace Lily                                         Spathiphyllum

Philodendron                                    P. Cordatum

Weeping Fig                                     Ficus Benjamina

Snake Plant                                      Sansevieria Trifasciata

Editor’s Note: Chris Gibbs writes about a wide range of home- and wellness-related topics, and also edits EDGE’s It’s A Gift pages. Special thanks to the experts who contributed to this story, including Laura Benko (laurabenko.com), Paul Martoccia (njlandscaping.com) and Burke Honnold (honnoldlandscaping.com).

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Drywall*

*BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK

By Jim Sawyer

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Drywall giveth and drywall taketh away. If you’ve ever had to build a new structure, add to one, or repair one that’s old or damaged, you probably understand the myriad advantages of using drywall. Relative to traditional construction and plastering techniques, drywall is inexpensive, light, safe, and requires far less expertise to install. And when it comes time to knocking something down, drywall is just as quick, easy, and inexpensive.

The disadvantages of drywall? It is easily damaged, it can be tricky to repair, it doesn’t do much to baffle sound or to insulate and, if it gets wet, well, there’s that nasty mold issue. In areas of the country (including our own) where floodwaters have inundated homes constructed with drywall, the result is almost always a gut job. Left to mold, a drywall home can quickly turn into a lung-choking teardown. By contrast, older historic homes featuring traditional plaster just need a basic hose-down after a flood; a splash of paint and they are good to go. No mold. No problem.

So it’s a trade-off. But on the construction industry’s big balance sheet—where the speed of construction and demolition can make the difference between a big profit and a razor-thin one—drywall is a no-brainer.

That certainly accounts for the tens of billions of square feet manufactured in North America each year. Say what you will about the ups and downs of the housing market in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, but the population of this continent continues to boom and people need places to live. So until some better material comes along, drywall is here to stay.

WHAT IS IT?

Drywall goes by many names: wallboard, plasterboard, and sheetrock among them. Whatever you call it, there isn’t a whole lot of science to drywall. It typically comes in a 4’ x 8’ sheet, usually 3/8” or 1/2” thick, encased in paper or a paper-pulp material. Thinner sheets are sometimes used to negotiate curved surfaces. Drywall is attached with special screws to wood or metal studs, and sometimes glued as well (especially on ceilings).

The white-gray material sandwiched between the paper is gypsum. Among its many qualities, gypsum is inherently fire-resistant. In addition, some drywall products come impregnated with glass fibers in order to further slow the spread of flames and smoke. Local building codes usually require that this type of board—which is 5/8” thick—be used in furnace rooms and garages, or homes heated by wood stoves.

Structures prone to flooding (either by Mother Nature or from plumbing or roofing mishaps) or in high-humidity areas are often built with mold-resistant or moisture-resistant drywall. Note the use of the word “resistant.” It does not imply mold- or moisture- “proof.” Mold-resistant boards are treated with a special coating and generally do not have paper, which is a favorite home of fungus. Contractors typically use mold-resistant drywall in bathrooms and kitchens. Sometimes this material is called “greenboard,” which technically is incorrect. Greenboard is slightly different (although it can be used in the same situations); it performs best in high-humidity areas of a home, such as a laundry room or damp basement.

What should you do if drywall is no longer dry? Tear it out and replace it. What if you detect mold? Do not dither, especially if someone in your home or workplace is allergic to the spores. The drywall should be replaced and the mold remediated. There are obviously professionals who do this, but an Internet search can show you ways to do it yourself. Proceed with care and caution. As with many dangerous organisms, the mold you see isn’t always the stuff you need to be most concerned about. If moisture has entered the back of a sheet that has been primed and painted, it has already had a lot of time to grow and spread before you start breaking it up. In these situations, trust your nose over your eyes—you’ll be able to smell the mold before you see it. And keep in mind that tearing it out is likely to release spores back into the environment and possibly into places it hadn’t been before, such as your HVAC system.

The British Museum

WHO INVENTED IT?

Now that the basics are out of the way, how about a little history? The use of gypsum as a wall material dates back more than 3,000 years. It is easy to get out of the ground, simple to process, and holds colors really well.

It was quarried for plaster in ancient Egypt in the Old and New Kingdoms—in 2017, archaeologists identified one quarry on the east bank of the Nile that measured three square kilometers. The ancient Egyptians discovered that gypsum could be ground into a fine powder and mixed with water to produce a bright, durable skim coat of plaster that could hold paint extremely well on interior walls in homes, temples, and tombs. Thousands of years later, it still looks great. The mineral owes its name to the ancient Greeks, who used it in much the same way. Gypsos actually means “plaster” in Greek.

www.istockphoto.com

Gypsum or lime were used more or less interchangeably as a component in plaster in the ensuing centuries. One of the most famous sources of plaster was in the Montmartre section of Paris, hence the name Plaster of Paris. The French like to say there is more Montratre in Paris than Paris in Montmartre.

They’re speaking literally in this case—the gypsum and lime deposits there were used in plaster and paint in the city for centuries. In the hands of French artisans, it was made to look like wood, metal, and stonework when those materials were either too cumbersome or expensive, or just unavailable.

US Gypsum

The process by which gypsum becomes plaster has remained relatively unchanged. It is heated to about 300 degrees, until the moisture is released and it becomes a dry powder—which is then reconstituted with water to be applied or shaped as needed. Gypsum being a mineral, it has other uses, too. For example, it was used in colonial America to improve soil quality; Ben Franklin was a huge proponent of this particular use, which reduced runoff and delivered additional nutrition to plants. In the early days of Hollywood, shaved gypsum was sometimes trucked in to mimic snow. Although gypsum is used in the manufacture of Portland cement—making up two or three percent of the mix—it is not what makes sidewalks sparkle (that’s mica). In case you’re wondering, Portland cement gets its name from the Isle of Portland, on the southern coast of England, not from Portland ME or Portland OR.

Getting back to drywall, the world’s first “wallboard” factory actually opened in England, in 1888, in the English town of Rochester, about 30 miles east of London on the River Medway. The Industrial Revolution was shifting into high gear and an alternative to traditional lath-and-plaster construction for interior walls intrigued British homebuilders: Wallboard used far less wood and required limited plastering expertise, and also avoided the weeklong drying process of traditional plastering. In addition, it could be put up in a poorly heated environment, which was a Godsend in England with its cool, damp climate (and historic issues with central heating). By the 1920s, it was the material of choice in most new construction in the UK.

In America, the plasterboard revolution came a bit later, and shifted into high gear during the post-WWII building surge. The first drywall factory in the U.S. dates back to around 1900, in upstate New York. According to the web site gypsum.org, the product was initially favored because of its fire-resistant properties and featured multiple layers of gypsum (which was cheaper and more plentiful than lime plaster) sandwiched between two pieces of wool-felt paper. In 1917, US Gypsum Corp. debuted “Sheetrock,” the now-familiar single, non-layered sheet of gypsum plaster completely encased in paper, which could be joined with smooth, even seams. At the 1933 Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago, several building were constructed almost entirely of Sheetrock, which was a huge marketing coup.

By the Baby Boom years, when more than 20 million new homes were constructed in America, drywall was the cheap and easy workaround for traditional plastering. It has continued on as the material of choice for new homes, renovations, home repair projects—you name it.

FEMA

WHAT IS “CHINESE” DRYWALL?

In the seven decades that drywall has been widely available to homebuilders and homeowners, the domestic supply has had no problem keeping up with the demand, as gypsum is plentiful and easy to process in North America—until the early 2000s, that is. You probably remember the housing boom, but do you also recall that no fewer than nine major hurricanes smashed into Florida in the span of two-plus years, and then Katrina inundated New Orleans in 2005? Demand for drywall soared and caught North American manufacturers by surprise. With the supply low and prices high, many builders in the Southeast turned to a new source: China.

Unfortunately, drywall factories on the other side of the Pacific were focused on production and profitability rather than safety, and as a result, countless millions of square feet of defective or contaminated product found its way into American homes. The first sign that something was wrong came in the form of complaints by homeowners that exposed copper surfaces were turning black and “ashy.” Also, new refrigerators and air conditioners (which contain copper coils) were malfunctioning.

New West Gypsum Recycling

This made people wonder what was happening to their copper pipes and wiring—and they were right to wonder. The cheap drywall was giving off volatile gases, including hydrogen sulfide, which corrodes copper and also created health issues that included a range of upper respiratory problems. By the time the problem was identified, the tainted drywall had been used in somewhere between 50,000 and 150,000 homes; no one can say for sure because much of the product bore no markings that could be traced back to a specific manufacturer. One manufacturer that did pop up fairly often was Knauf, a Tianjin-based company with a deceptively European-sounding name. Some estimates put the amount of Knauf drywall unloaded in New Orleans and various Florida ports at close to a billion pounds between 2003 and 2009. In the aftermath of this debacle, a New Orleans court ruled that homeowner’s policies had to cover the remediation of contaminated drywall. The IRS also provided tax relief for people who suffered property damage because of the tainted product.

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They Did What?

While the substandard Chinese drywall flooded the market in the mid-2000s, domestic drywall producers—who had been ramping up production since the late-1980s—doubled down and invested heavily to further increase their output. Consequently, the deflation of the housing bubble in 2008–09 devastated the industry. North American drywall companies were suddenly stuck with huge supplies and withering demand. Many were in no shape to wait for the economy to rebound.

All was not lost, however. As the housing market receded, a growing number of builders, flippers, and rehabbers began snapping up cheap properties and foreclosures and demand for drywall began to creep up again. However, contractors noticed a rise in cost on drywall at a time when it should have been bargain-priced. This was accompanied by an inexplicable reluctance on the part of manufacturers to compete on price. Obviously, since the manufacturers could not boost profits by increasing volume, they had to raise their prices.

There is nothing illegal about this…unless they plan to do it together. Which, apparently, they did. The result was a class-action suit against eight companies near the end of 2012 that ended with a nine-figure settlement. It wasn’t the first time drywall companies had been slam-dunked by the courts; price-fixing litigation dates back to the 1920s in North America.

WHERE ARE WE NOW… AND IN THE FUTURE?

We are in good shape. Today, the drywall supply is safe and sound—which is good to know in an era of increasing environmental sensitivity. Unused sheetrock scraps can actually be recycled, keeping thousands of tons out of landfills each year. Also, a steady demand for installation provides jobs for millions of people who do not have traditional construction skills, creating an entry point into an important trade. The retail price in New Jersey for drywall is $10 to $20 for a 4’ x 8” sheet (depending on type and quality) and another $50 or so per sheet to install professionally, including labor, supplies, and equipment.

Since you’ve made it this far, you are probably wondering, “What’s in the future for drywall?”

I’m so glad you asked.

The industry is aware that its product is somewhat problematic in the climate-change picture, in that it does not insulate particularly well. A new material called ThermalCORE, developed by the German chemical company BASF and National Gypsum, a U.S. company formed in the 1920s, could be a game-changer for builders and consumers. The new drywall material is impregnated with tiny wax beads encased in plastic shells. During the day, the wax melts and absorbs heat. At night, the wax hardens, releasing the stored heat.

Builders in Europe have been testing a version of this technology and it has demonstrated an ability to reduce energy bills by as much as 20 percent. The cost of using ThermalCORE in a typical home in New Jersey would probably raise its construction cost by $5,000, which would be recouped in about five years.

Wow factor in Westfield

By Mark Stewart

James and Tina Wissel’s single-story, three-bedroom, 4,000-square-foot home is not the only structure in Westfield that fits that general description. However, it is most definitely the only one of its kind. The Wissels designed their modern, single-story structure to take maximum advantage of their wooded, ¾-acre lot—pulling the outside in, and making the interior an open and inviting space for their family, friends and pets. They are living the dream few of us have the courage to pursue: a residence custom-built to accommodate their personal comfort, design sensibilities and family culture. 

The more time one spends in the Wissels’ home, which was completed in 2009, the more apparent it becomes that every detail, from the daring to the mundane, began with an original thought—hardly a shock, as James and Tina make their living as original thinkers. James’ father was a home-builder, and as far back as he can remember he was good at bringing ideas to life with his head and his hands. Tina’s mom and dad were clothing designers; function and form are coded into her DNA. James and Tina designed computer animation and editing systems in the 1990s. Today, they co-own Pure Couture, a thriving ready-to-wear fashion business.  

“We used our expertise and experience in design to create our home on a computer over the course of several months,” James explains. “From those drawings we made 3D scale models, and eventually these were translated into architectural plans.”

Their list of must-haves was extensive, Tina recalls. The majority of the space needed to integrate living areas—the kitchen, living room, dining room and family room—into a long, deep open design. 

“Our goal was to create space we’d use every day,” she says. “We didn’t want to end up with a dining room we use twice a year.”

The Wissels achieved this goal with 11-foot ceilings throughout the home, including three 11’ x 18’ glass walls, floor-to-ceiling mitered corner windows, and a kitchen nook featuring a curved glass window that offers a panoramic view of the oaks, maples and wildlife in their back yard. The kitchen features sleek stainless steel, with a sink and stovetop that can be covered to integrate with the rest of the appliance surfaces. The home’s ambiance is heightened by an interior waterfall that separates the living and bedroom areas, creating a natural sound barrier in the process. An exterior waterfall obscures the massive 42” x 11’ front door and creates a unique little entry alcove.

The home required the extensive use of steel; engineered lumber was used to create a spectacular unsupported 33-foot span.

“From what we first imagined, we achieved 85 to 90 percent of our initial vision,” James estimates, adding that although the goal of a designer is to marry form and function, sometimes one must be sacrificed for the other. “That’s how I come up with 85 to 90. We chose some details that are aesthetically pleasing but not very functional. However, in terms of what we wanted the house to be, we achieved.”

Which choices best met the form and function equation? Tina says the window walls work especially well. 

“They bring you closer to nature,” she explains. “We did a lot of landscaping before we built, and the way the outdoors pours in is breathtaking. I don’t think we fully appreciated the positive effect this would have on our children and pets when we were designing the house. The sunset, the moon, the hummingbirds—they’re out there free for everyone, but in other homes, you don’t always notice them. Here, they are at our fingertips.

Different smokes for different folks

By Mike Cohen

Most New Jerseyans live in “smoke-free” homes. That may change soon, but probably not the way you’d think. While the typical backyard cooking set-up includes a grill and possibly a barbecue, relatively few have incorporated a smoker. Smoked meats are nothing new, of course, but recently they are showing up on the menus of some of the region’s top restaurants. Chefs are paying top dollar for artisanal smoked meat, fish and poultry (and passing that cost along to their patrons); some have even assembled their own smoking operations on-site or nearby.

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So how hard can it be for an average homeowner to add a smoker to the mix? Unlike grills and barbecues, which are fairly simple to operate, smokers can be somewhat counterintuitive. Before burning rubber to Home Depot or Lowe’s to get your new gear, it’s important to understand and respect the process. Unlike grilling (which involves direct, high heat from start to finish) and barbecuing (lower temperature and longer cook time), smoking is essentially the process of “preserving” food with a low temperature while adding salt and smoke. The smoke infuses flavor, while the salt pulls water out of the meat.

HOT VS. COLD

Most of the smokers on the market are “hot” smokers. They operate at a temperature of 160° or higher and are aimed at backyard chefs who want their food done relatively quickly. This type of smoking doesn’t really preserve the meat, as there isn’t enough time for the moisture to be removed. The pros tend to go for “cold” smokers, which involve a little more pre-planning and patience. The results are well worth it.  

Cold smoking typically is a two-step process. Salt is added to remove excess moisture and then the food is subjected to a long, slow smoking process. It involves cooking below 86°F for up to 32 hours. The heat source is kept away from the product and the smoke is pipped in. Some of the newer smokers can be dialed down to work this way. Both methods of smoking brown the meat, as amino acids in the food interact with some reduced sugars to produce the desired color. To create that “smoke ring,” nitric oxide from burning wood combines with the myoglobin in the meat to penetrate a centimeter or so in from the surface. You won’t see a smoke ring if meat is cooked in an oven.

Smoking is more than just heat and smoke. There are essentials to consider, such as sugar and salt for curing and brining, which add just the right combinations of sweet, sour and bitter flavors to your meal.

Curing your protein before smoking helps remove moisture and stop the formation of harmful bacteria (that’s a good thing) and will also enhance the flavor (that’s a better thing).

Brining meat in a mixture of water, salt and perhaps spices and herbs, dramatically impacts the flavor profile. There are many rules about brining, but a simplistic rule is 1 hour of brining for every 2 pounds of product.

For those who have medical concerns about sodium, there is another option. You can salt your meat prior to smoking. A mix of salt and pepper, herbs, sugar and honey can be rubbed over your food anywhere from 2 to 24 hours beforehand (which needs to be removed before it goes in the smoker). The idea is to draw out the moisture without the BP bump. Whichever method you prefer, the purpose of salting is the same: less moisture actually allows for a better absorption of the smoky flavor.

Not to be excluded from the conversation is marinating. Mixing spices, oils, vinegars and even citrus to meals both flavors and tenderizes your final product. Some marinades work best before smoking, while others work best after smoking and right before eating. Meats do particularly well with marinades, which can be as simple as applying Worcestershire sauce just before smoking. Technically, dry rub is a type of marinade. This spice and salt mixture, worked into the food prior to cooking, seals in flavor and softens the texture. This is a tad more subtle and delicate than salting, so get a feel for your particular taste-bud tantalizers before rubbing this all over your Whole Foods purchase. Finally, just for the record, air-drying your meat is another option. This will surely impress your guests, but your neighbors may wonder what the heck you’re up to when they peek over the fence the day before.

KNOW YOUR SMOKER

Not everyone is ready to do battle on a basic-cable barbecue throwdown, so it’s good to know which smoker best suits your lifestyle and circumstance before handing over your credit card or clicking the BUY button. Compact, stainless steel electric smokers, for example, tend to be economical and fairly mobile. Two popular brands are Southern Country Smokers and Masterbuilt (immediate right). They can cook food fairly quickly if that’s a priority—say, if your Thanksgiving guests are waiting for that smoked turkey to hit the table.

Kettle smokers (aka hinged-lid cookers) are the ones you often encounter at home improvement and hardware stores. Weber makes a popular model I see everywhere. This type of smoker (far right) also can double as an oven for larger pieces of meat or poultry. This is your basic charcoal- or gas- fired smoker that uses wood chips to create the smoke. Soaking your chips, or a portion of your chips, prior to burning will produce a longer, slower burn time—a critical component to backyard smoking success. In this variety of smoker, consider placing a water tray alongside your meal to prevent your food from drying out.

One caveat is that kettle smokers are not good for guys I call “Larry the Lifter”—who can’t resist taking periodic peeks at the meat. Every time you open the lid, all the smoke that’s supposed to go into the food goes into the air. It adds about 10 minutes per lift to your cook time.

Cold smokers make up a wide-open category that includes everything from purchased products to funky homemade devices. Their advantage is that it enables you to smoke a large variety of meats at the same time, or accommodate large cuts, and food can be smoked subtly and over a long period of time, which allows the smoke to penetrate without overpowering. The ProQ from Mac’s BBQ (left) is a good model, as it allows you to set up a heat source that can be monitored by way of a built-in temperature gauge. It also doubles as a water smoker. Water smokers are ideal for lean products, such as rabbit or quail, as well as soft and delicate fish.

For those who need to get their smoke on 12 months a year, gas smokers are the way to go. They offer hot and cold smoking with racking and hanging capacity. Easy to move and carry, they can be placed anywhere in the backyard, as long as they are far enough away from objects that you don’t want to sacrifice to the barbecue gods. Make sure there is plenty of ventilation around all sides of the smoker. The propane unit from Camp Chef (above) is a popular example of a gas smoker. Its temperature gauge enables you to switch between hot or cold smoking by dialing in the right temperature. Another benefit is not having to worry about overcooking or drying out the food, as you can control this like an oven.

TOASTING THE CHEF

In the prophetic words of Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh, “The smoker you drink, the player you get.” I’m still not sure what he meant, but I can say with some authority that what you pair with smoked meats can dramatically enhance the experience. Chardonnays are quite the standard around backyard get-togethers, which is fine, but consider taking things a little farther. Get some advice on a barrel-aged gem from Napa or Sonoma that will match with the woody undertones of your meal—one that has a little malolactic fermentation will also add some buttery notes to soften the bitters of the smoke. Look for Far Niente, Cakebread, Frank Family and Neyers. Champagne-wise, the Blanc de Blancs are all chardonnay with the best coming from Cote des Blancs.

If you favor reds, resist the temptation to bring out the monster cab; with all the smoke in the air, the rich fruits may clash with your meal. Syrah from the Rhone Valley in France, with its characteristic pepper aroma leading you into the spice corridor is absolutely stunning with smoked meats. Think of JL Chave, Paul Jaboulet or Chapoutier for your selections. Washington State makes killer syrahs, even better than their cabernets, but don’t tell anyone— it’s the sommelier’s secret. Dunham Cellars, Gramercy Cellars, and Reininger come to mind as superb syrahs for your feast.

Zinfandel usually makes an appearance at most barbecue events and for good reason. Sweet raspberry with some spice hits the spot when taking down some smoke. Napa offers some real value, believe it or not. Consider Elyse, Summers and Chase as brands to trust without breaking the bank. Russian River and it’s cool climate seems to me to be the perfect spot for zin. Check out Williams Selyem or Joseph Swan.

Finally, if you have doctored up your smoky creation with a fiery rub and added some chilis to the wood, the great fill here is one of those fabulous sweet German Rieslings. Sugar puts out the fire, alcohol does not—it makes it worse—so do not grab that high alcohol content wine you think will pair power with power. Grab the good stuff from St. Urbans Hof or JJ Prum. 

INTO THE WOOD

Wood chips for the accomplished smoker are available just about everywhere. So too are wood pellets, but do your research as some pellets use binders, which is not good because binders can influence the food in a bad way. A safe way to ensure you are getting the good stuff?Go to your local lumber yard and ask for some sawdust. It’s cheap and effective. If you want to get adventurous:

Alder Wood Delicate and good for smoking fish—pork, poultry and game birds, too

Almond Sweet and nutty taste that goes with all meats

Apple Wood Sweet and fruity taste that works best with poultry, ham, beef and game

Cherry Wood Mild, sweet and very fruity—ideal for poultry, fish and ham

Grape Vines Aromatic and excellent with all meats

Hickory Best known and most widely distributed—very pungent and good for bacon and other dense meat products

Maple Wood Light and sweet taste, best for poultry and ham

Mesquite Expensive and also quite intense, as it burns very hot—best to mix with lighter woods as it can be a little bitter

Oak Strong flavor that’s good for longer smoking times, including brisket and thick cuts of meat

Walnut Heavy smoking wood that can often be mixed with other lighter woods—perfect with stronger red meats and game

SPICE, GIRL

Prepping your meat for smoking almost never requires a special trip to the grocery store. Most of these spices are already in your kitchen cabinet…

Allspice That nutmeg, cinnamon and clove aroma is perfect for brining and also for rubs

Aniseed Sublime with seafood and game meats

Basil Pungent and sweet—reserved for lamb, tomatoes and chicken

Bay Leaf Can be added to your smoking woods Caraway Peppery and perfect when making sausages

Cardamom Lemony and slightly bitter—perfect with salmon and brines

Chervil Fragrant and delicate, so use it with seafood and white meats only

Chili Add to your smoking chips—sparingly

Cilantro Sweet with some sandalwood notes and perfect with brines and rubs

Cumin Strong, so best in marinades

Dill Sharp, fragrant and sweet—where would our salmon be without it?

Fennel Anise flavor that is perfect with chicken and vegetables

Ginger Hot and pungent—works best with chicken and fish

Juniper Sweet and aromatic, ideal for brining veal

Lemongrass Mix it with your wood for seafood and white meats

Mint Refreshing when rubbed or brined with lamb and vegetables

Mustard Seed Use it whole in brines and rubs Oregano Spicy and sweet for seafood and light meats Paprika Sweet and peppery—produces a smoky taste

Rosemary Great to place atop the smoking wood or into brines

Sage Pungent and best with chicken, venison and mushrooms

Tarragon Very flavorful and palate-cleansing to mix with game and strong seafood

Thyme Perfect with lamb, beef, pork and sausage

BEER ME

Sometimes, that big slab of smoking beef deserves nothing less (or more) than a great beer. The rule of thumb is drink what you like, but if you are interested in tracking down some special suds, try Full Sail Session Black beer. Dark but deceptively light, with flavors of chocolate and roasted malts, it cuts through the fat like a hot knife through butter. With Texas-style brisket it is a jammer!

Got a leg of lamb going? Try Ommegang Abbey Ale from across the river in NYC. It’s high in alcohol but you won’t taste it, as the richness of the lamb will dumb it down. For all those fowl folks, a lighter quaff such as Saison Dupont from Belgium works. Its lively citrus and light carbonation with some pepper will clean your palate quite nicely, thank you.

Last but not least is pork, the stock in trade of all smokers and backyard grillers. Go with a smoky porter. Stone Brewery makes Stone Smoked Porter (right). A peat-smoked malt with the backbone you are looking for…along with a little coffee and chocolate!

A look ahead. 

By Christine Gibbs

Over a lifetime, the average person will probably spend close to 20,000 hours in the bathroom. If you bother doing the math it comes out to almost an hour a day. When weighed against the time spent, say, in bed, it pales in comparison. However, what you do in the bathroom you couldn’t (or hopefully wouldn’t) do anywhere else. Which is why the bathroom gets a lot of attention but not always a lot of respect. In recent years—thanks largely to home buying and home improvement “reality” shows—Americans have started looking at their bathrooms with a more critical and creative eye…and wondering what the future might bring to that most intimate room in the house

First a little history. Humankind has made commendable progress when it comes to taking care of our business.

Black Book Archives

Though some would say we still regard the world as our toilet, the truth is that people have been thinking and rethinking the john for thousands of years. Historians have traced commodes to the Indus Valley civilization some 5,000 years ago, while some experts believe primitive toilets date back 7,000 years earlier than that. Leave it to the ever ingenious and pragmatic Romans to install the first pay toilets in Rome, in 74 AD. The first flush toilet was a royal one, installed for Queen Elizabeth I by Sir John (the original “john”) Harrington, in 1596. And, yes, the modern toilet really was designed by Thomas Crapper (left), in the late 19th century

In the 21st century, the trend has been toward transforming the bathroom from a traditionally functional space into an opulent retreat that more closely resembles a high-end spa than a place for personal hygiene. Indeed, the bathroom label itself may be going the way of quaint terms like powder room, water closet and loo. Today’s bathroom is morphing into a sort of sanctuary that could conceivably rival the kitchen as the most expensive room in the house. Above and beyond the soaring cost of fixtures and finishes, bathrooms today overflow with gym-quality treadmills, touch-screen televisions, surround sound equipment, and other high-tech digital paraphernalia.

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The Cost of Fine Bathing

Whether designing a new bathroom or renovating an old standard, cost is always a bottom-line factor, and the typical bathroom project is never cheap. Why? Five-figure invoices often are a result of the fact that renovating or adding a bathroom involves plumbing, electrical and tile work that needs to be done by talented and experienced professionals. The guy who shows up on a Saturday afternoon to unclog your drain is not necessarily someone you want to trust with a more elaborate project. Furthermore, today’s new bathroom will have more equipment, more appliances, and more leisure-time gadgets per square foot than any other room in the house. An ambitious “reno” or a new build can eat up as much as 10% of a home’s estimated value, especially if you do not budget wisely

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Is it worth the time, money and trouble? US News & World Report actually ran a story a year ago that estimated the return on investment for a gold-standard bathroom. First of all, that should tell you something about who can afford such a project. Second of all, the numbers are good but not great: sellers can expect, on average, to recoup about 70% of their investment upon resale. That’s more than 2 percent higher than the average kitchen remodel. Of course, most experts agree that a high-end kitchen and master bedroom with master bath is almost guaranteed to sell a house faster and at a better price (in some markets, the ROI can be as much as 90 to 100 percent), so it’s not an either/or decision. And updating one bathroom may not be enough.

“Homeowners are seeking a balance among all the bathrooms in the house,” says Elisabeth Woomer, Showroom Manager at General Plumbing Supply in Green Brook, NJ. “Everyone looks to economize, whether it’s a renovation or a new build—economizing more on the family bathroom down the hall, while splurging on the private en suite master bathroom

Costs are often dependent on geographical location and can range from as little as $12,000 to $15,000 in hard costs for a standard hall bathroom (not to include labor) to as much as $50, 000 to $80,000 for an all-out luxury master bath, she adds. “We find out what the client is passionate about and then lead them to the best options that satisfy their passions…without breaking their budgets.”

Although New Jersey tends to be a more expensive state in terms of labor and materials, those numbers are right in line with national averages. The National Kitchen and Bath Association annually publishes its Bathroom Planning Guidelines, developed by a committee of experts who analyze statistics, lifestyles, trends and building codes to present recommendations that “promote the health, safety, and welfare of consumers.” In a recent NKBA survey, 50 percent of responding members confirmed the cost for a bathroom ranged between $10,000 and $29,000, while 31 percent said their average price was higher than $30,000

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To Remodel or Not to Remodel…

That is the question. Given the considerable cost of turning an old bathroom into a modern miracle, when should you finally decide to take the proverbial plunge? First, take a look in the mirror. Is it part of a creaky medicine cabinet over a pedestal sink? Now look down. Is that dingy linoleum or, worse, pastel tile that matches the toilet and sink? You may be able to kid yourself into thinking your bathroom is hip and retro, but you won’t be kidding anyone else. It’s old. 

The mistake some homeowners make at this point is to embrace a bathroom trend that’s already on the way out. A little homework is required here and, needless to say, opinions differ from expert to expert. But a quick look at interior design magazines and web sites can give you a sense of what’s in and what’s out. The Coastal Cottage motif? Out. Clean and contemporary with a touch of traditional is in. Bowl-shaped sinks sitting in the vanity? Out. Under-mounted sinks in leggy cabinets are in. Granite tops?Out. Quartz is the current choice for baths (as well as kitchens). Clean, white tile? Boring. Out. Daring, moody designs are in. That being said, with the current emphasis on clean lines, geometric shapes, and minimalist color schemes, a few small touches can make a big statement:

• Skip the “pop” of color and limit even accessories like bath towels to white or gray tones.
• Spring for a freestanding tub that you can strategically place within the bathroom to take full advantage of Feng Shui principles.
• If space is at a premium, consider placing the tub inside a walk-in, no-threshold shower.
• Showcase quartz and wood elements (yes, there are waterproof wood tubs).
• Connect with the great outdoors by bringing in potted plants from your garden and adding a skylight, budget permitting.
• Create an atmosphere with your lighting—it’s as important as the actual light fixtures you select.
• Emphasize that geometric feel by hanging framed prints and personal photos.

Gadget Inspector

With the decision to re-do a bathroom comes a dizzying array of technology options. Brooklyn-based Watermark manufactures a Luxury Shower System ($7,000) complete with a full-color digital touchscreen tablet that lets you select from among nine different shower “scenarios” that program water temperature, pressure, volume, lighting and timing. Kohler makes a $299 shower head with an embedded wireless speaker that delivers music, news and sports. For$750 more, you can purchase Kohler’s Underscore VibrAcoustic Bath, which turns your tub into a Bluetooth-enabled system in which music vibrates through the water when the tub is full and fills the entire bathroom with sound when empty. If you’re into New Age chromotherapy, Tubz Hydrotherapy makes a product that turns bathwater into an array of colors that elevates ordinary bathing to holistic ritual. Light also plays a part in Graff’s Ametis faucet (below), which features an LED display that ranges from blue to red, indicating the temperature of the flowing water ($3,528). Hansa’s Canyon faucet ($1,490) works much the same way over the basin. The Airblade tap, from Dyson ($1,800), doubles as a hand dryer.

And it doesn’t stop there. Showers are now programmable. The RainBrain by Hansgrohe ($4,750) (right) takes total shower jet control to a whole new level, creating the equivalent of a stand-up body massage. How about a laser razor? Skarp makes a slick, minimalistic shaver that emits a powerful light to cut off your facial bristles. Its recent launch on Indiegogo (a crowdfunder for startups), raised almost $500,000 and is targeted to be available this year at $289. FitBit devotees will enjoy the Aria scale, which can be synched to a smartphone to record not only poundage, but also body fat percentage, body mass index (BMI), heart rate, and even let you know about the day’s weather forecast

And then there is the centerpiece that no one likes to talk about: the toilet. I’m not sure how this is calculated, but the average person supposedly spends about five years on (or in front of?) the throne over a lifetime. Not surprisingly, just about every major plumbing manufacturer is rethinking, redesigning, and reengineering it. The Kohler Numi (left) is a case in point. It does just about everything except attend to your most personal hygiene. Its seat senses your approach and raises and closes all by itself. It contains heating elements to warm delicate derrieres and doubles as a self-adjusting bidet with vented airflow. Upgrades include Power-Save mode for energy efficiency and emergency flush for power outages. And if that’s not enough to justify the $6,338 price tag, then there is Numi’s tastefully illuminated panels, its powerful yet pleasant deodorizer, its touch-screen remote, and its wireless speakers

In addition to the various technological bells and whistles they offer, manufacturers are also looking at the safety component of bathroom design. One of Jay Leno’s tried-and-true jokes is about how more people die each year in bathroom falls than in plane crashes (the punch line is, “Yeah, but when you fall off the toilet you’re not falling 30,000 feet!”). Still, it’s no laughing matter. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly a quarter-million people over age 15 visit the ER annually as a result of a bathroom injury; 14 percent require hospitalization. Two-thirds of bathroom injuries are sustained in or near a bathtub or shower. The injury rate for women is 72 percent higher than for men. And, interestingly, you’re more than four times likelier to get hurt getting out of a tub or shower than getting in. Even if you’re not springing for the big bathroom reno, its worth doing a quick safety assessment. Look for poorly fitting shower curtains, slick tile floors, soapy tub or shower beds, antiquated or improperly installed glass shower doors, area rugs without non-slip backing, and space heaters. These are items worth an immediate upgrade.

Finally, there is the issue of ecological soundness. Most people undertaking a bathroom renovation opt for products and technologies that are environmentally friendly. There’s even a word for it now: Greenovating. The focus is on saving water, using fewer paper products, and avoiding dangerous cleaning agents. There are actually a lot of ways to “green up” our bathrooms. From Moen, we have a shortlist of ideas that don’t require much time or money:

• Install Low-flow Toilets and Showers

Toilets use on average 27 percent of household water consumption; older toilets can use up to about 7 gallons of water per flush. Older model showerhead will use 5 to 8 gallons of water per minute, while a low-flow head can reduce that to 2.5 gallons or less without compromising water pressure.

• Motion-Sensing Faucets

A mind-boggling amount of water is wasted by leaving the faucet running when washing hands or brushing teeth. A faucet with a built-in motion sensor remembers to shut off running water when you don’t.

• Change Light Bulbs

An LED bulb consumes 80 percent less energy and lasts 25 percent longer. That can translate into a cost savings of $160 per bulb on your electricity bill over its lifetime.

• Upgrade Bathroom Fans/Vents

Replace that old bathroom fan with one that is Energy Star-rated; it can provide up to 60 percent in energy savings.

• Shop for Eco-friendly and Sustainable Products Look for the Certified Organic label on everything from bath towels to toilet paper. Any increased cost is more than offset by a lower environmental footprint.

Open or Closed?

Among the many decisions that must be made in advance of a major bathroom renovation, the one that catches many people by surprise is whether the new loo’s design will lean toward privacy or open space. More and more, the line between the master bedroom and master bath is becoming blurred. Did you ever think someone would ask you whether or not you wanted a door on your bathroom? It’s a personal choice, to be sure, and doorless bathrooms don’t yet qualify as a widespread trend. But don’t be surprised if you start seeing homebuyers on one of those reality shows saying, “We love the bathroom, but the door’s gotta go.”

Whether open or closed, large or small, his, hers or available to the entire family, one thing about the bathroom will never change: It is essential to daily living. 

In fact, all this talk of bathrooms has only made me yearn to retire to my own (rather retro) retreat. There I’ll draw a tepid, non-jet-propelled bath and I will relish the downtime despite the fact that there will be no lights and no music. There is nothing masterful about my bathroom, its shortcomings now only too apparent. But one of these days…  

TRENDS FOR 2016 

According to a National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA) study, these are some of the top bathroom trends for 2016:

• Neutral Color Palette

Earth tones rule the day, with off-white and beige not far behind.

• Undermount and Trough Sinks

The undermount style continues to be the most popular selection by a wide margin, but the trough type is gaining ground.

• Free-standing Tubs

Selected as a key trend by 67 percent of NKBA members in 2015 and predicted to increase this year.

• Shower Accessories

Special lighting, convenient seating and hand-held showerheads top the list.

• Polished Chrome Finishes

Selected by 80 percent of NKBA members as the most popular finish in 2015. Satin finishes in gunmetal and brass are growing in popularity.

• Pampering Luxuries

Radiant floor heating, steam showers, smart toilets, and even coffee and wet bars were cited as trends by 25 percent of NKBA members.

• Aging in Place Amenities

Seniors are focusing on age-friendly safety and other conveniences, including comfort-height toilets and no-threshold showers, in addition to traditional grab bars, taller vanities and lever door handles for easy opening by arthritic hands.

A LITTLE BUDGET CONSCIOUS 

A year ago, the Huffington Post addressed the issue of how to put your money to best use when renovating a small bathroom. 

With $500… 

• Apply a new coat of paint, preferably in a soothing, neutral earth tone.
• Take down fluorescent or incandescent lights and put up energy-saving LED bulbs.
• Buy some fresh, inexpensive accessories such as towels, plants, and prints.
• Expand storage by installing shelving and hanging racks.
• Rip up that germy old flooring and replace it with light and bright economical new tile.
• Consider investing $20 in a Glow Bowl, the motion-activated mechanism that transforms any toilet into a dazzling nightlight.

With $5,000…

• Reach out to professionals for help in upgrading plumbing and wiring.
• Optimize space by relocating or buying new fixtures that make you feel like you’ve moved into the 21st century.
• Invest in top-drawer ceramic or stone tile, and pay someone who knows what they’re doing to install it.
• Leave enough to get your bathroom repainted.