The End of an Era...

...and the beginning of a new one!

My followers know that I'm in pursuit of a balanced life. Hence the name of my blog, Level & Plumb...

After being laid off unexpectedly from my corporate sales position in September, I started spinning. I'd just returned from two amazing weeks in Italy, went in for a "mid year review" at work and instead was told that my business unit was being eliminated. HR slid the dreaded black folder across the table. The words "severance, grace period..." were coming at me and I just kept thinking, "I'm my only breadwinner. No one's got my back, except me."  I was thrown for a loop, but in my "Type A" fashion, I was on task: attending 'outplacement' seminars, updating my resume, making calls, networking, setting appointments, going on informational, informal and formal interviews, slogging around NYC in a suit in the summer heat. The subway platforms smelled like boiling urine. I've just gotten used to that over time...but it seemed particularly pungent and poignant this past summer.

Heaped on top of that, my debit card was compromised--thousands were siphoned out of my checking account. Got it back from the bank within 2 weeks, phew. Within days of my dental benefits ending, three molar$ cracked in a $hort amount of time--granola, a peanut in a thai sauce, and I'm not sure what cracked the 3rd one. I needed gum $urgery to fit one of the three porcelain crown$. My rotors rusted because I don't drive enough (?) and that cost me $800. A nor'easter blew through and there was a leak in my roof. I also had a medical scare that kept me worried for about 2 months.

Why me? Why not me?

Was I on Candid Camera? Nope. I kept thinking, other people are worse off, I can get to the other side of this. I became a Recessionista...pulling back, eating eggs for dinner, rationing savings.

It might have been overwhelming, but instead it became underwhelming. I was on a treadmill, but not at the gym. It felt more like a hamster wheel.

Then, I stopped.

Stopped the white noise and took a hard look at my little world. My work, my impact, my footprint, my challenges, failures and triumphs. I just didn't want to return to the "cubicle farm" in NYC. Not that I'd had any compelling interviews. There are 800,000 others who've been laid off in NYC. I'd hit a wall. Stopped growing. Where do I fit, who am I, what am I as I hurtle toward 49, divorced with no children? I was just going with the flow. A bit unfulfilled, but relatively happy, great family and friends, interesting sidelines, nice vacations. I'm not altogether lost. But, there's a lot more to life and I'm going after it. I decided it's time for a BIG CHANGE.

I'm selling my gem of a home, the one chronicled in these posts, and heading to North Carolina. Slower pace, lower cost of living, 90+ golf courses, it's palpably friendlier than NYC. I want to do work that's more meaningful, maybe work for myself! Though closing sales, sealing the deal and managing projects has had high points, what does it really add up to? I've spent years making cold calls (and in one job, knocking on doors) and mostly being told "no." Whether its biz to biz or directly to consumers, I'm weary of trying to convince people to buy something. I want a more positive experience.

I've worked hard on my home lo these past 20 years, inside and out. Though there is "always more that could be done" (not including the Lotto wishlist) my project to-do's were winnowing. The list became a call to action, a burst of renewed energy. I purged, painted, primped, listed the house and I'm now showing to potential buyers. As I pack, I'll find someone to adopt my hammer drill, sawz all, bolt cutters, chain saw, etc...I will no longer need to be the girl with the biggest tool box.

More posts to come as I get to the other side of this process.

I'm finally throwing away my painting duds circa 1989. Ya think?

Blog Follower Becomes a Customer!

One of my loyal followers has become a customer! I consulted with her and we ID'd about 10 projects that would be within my scope. It's stuff that just never got done, work was work-y, life was being lived, and the jobs are too random or too small for a handyman you'd hire.

It's the perfect array of 'punch list' projects for Level & Plumb. A fair price was agreed upon for labor, and we both picked up various supplies.

I have confidence in some areas, and big limitations in others---I'm a weekend DIY'er who wings it with a bunch of tools, not a skilled carpenter or electrician. I cut time off my bill if I was stuck on a certain task, ie: I did not charge for the time that I learned on the fly. I'd never last in a union!

I'm making my way through the list. As you'll see it's not rocket surgery. But it still takes time and some know-how!

So far:

• I've re-caulked the tub, and learned that caulk does expire--so I had to do one wall three times before using new caulk that cured properly.
• I fixed a shelf inside of an old marble topped chest, and applied shelf paper to the drawers, shelves, and bottom.
• I installed a battery operated doorbell, and counseled my client re: keeping the "Winchester chime" factory setting, or whether she'd prefer a more dulcet "ding dong" tone. We went with the ding dong. 
• A radiator had been moved by a plumber a few years ago, and I re-cut and replaced the moulding on either side, caulked and repainted the wall and radiator.
• I replaced a junky 'brass' doorknob with a brushed silver lever doorhandle. It looks great, but it's vexing me because it's a tad loose. I have to get some advice and tackle that one again to get it right.
• I sanded and painted 2 chairs and recovered the chair cushions.

Here's that project, step by step:

Iron fabric first!

Have a seat!!

I've had friends compliment what I've done at my own home and who've asked me to consult. We'll see what the future holds--if Level & Plumb morphs into something more. Not sure yet of the balance. Consulting only? Becoming a referral resource? The tricky bit is putting faith in others to complete the work. I don't see myself doing the work!

If I could only figure out how to tighten that doorknob...I'd have some street cred.

Lite Bite on a Warm Nite

March is goin' along all lamb-y...it's the 19th and it's 20 degrees warmer than normal! 3 more days of above average temps expected, then it'll get chillier and rainier as April approaches. I'm ready to shake off Winter.

I threw together a super simple dinner tonight, and it was nice to use the grill for the first time since November.

1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, drizzled with olive oil
1 cup of last night's leftover Jasmine rice
1 small bunch of broccoli
2 pats of butter
S&P to taste

While the chicken's grilling, steam the broccoli.
Drain the broccoli, dice it finely.
Add it to the rice, along with the butter and S&P to taste.
Heat til warmed through.
Slice 1/2 the chicken breast and fan it over the rice/broccoli mixture.
Top with a few crumbles of goat cheese, if you like a little tang.
I do, so I did.
There will be enough for leftovers.
Pour your desired bevvie. A cold beer's nice on a warm night!

And I'll be looking forward to tomorrow's lunch!

Comfort Food

Comfort takes many forms..too many to list or to ruminate upon in one short blog posting. Tonight I gathered for a New York City-to-Houston sendoff for a friend who is paring down, and giving up the lower Manhattan apartment that she's maintained as a pied a terre, for years.

Of the six women, four of us find ourselves in a state of flux...not of our doing, but from a corporate layoff. 4 out of 6. That's a bad ratio, a big dose of ugly reality. Oh, and one friend was laid off after her husband was, so there is double pressure there. We're all past 40 and not ready to retire.

Over comfort food and wine, we commiserated, blew off some steam, might have shed a tear but mostly told crazy stories and jokes and laughed our butts off. We are all strong and resiliant and we know others close to us who recently faced really horrendous obstacles...2 who've had double mastectomies, the sudden death of a parent, a double lung transplant at age 39. We are keeping our trials in perspective. Someone's always gonna have it better or have it worse. That's why I'm trying to maintain...and keep my life Level & Plumb.

Comfort food is so damn yummy. There was a 7 layer dip to start, mac 'n cheese, a potato/apple/onion/cheese gratin and a crazy-fab chocolate ice cream cake from good ole Baskin Robbins. Oh and a lot of red wine.

Here's the recipe I followed for Potato Cake with Tart Apples and Jarlsberg. I maintain that it is more of a pie, or a gratin, than a cake...and I'd add another apple and a bit more cheese next time...but do with it what you wish!  From Country Living magazine, March 2010, in the section devoted to cast-iron pan recipes. I used a deep pie dish (earthenware), and it came out just fine!

Makes 8 servings
Working Time: 15 mins
Cooking time: 1 hour

You'll need:
Cast iron skillet or a deep pie or gratin dish
Vegetable peeler
Large Bowl
Mandoline for slicing veggies and fruit wafer thin (Oxo makes a handheld version for $19.99  http://www.oxo.com/)

1/4 cup olive oil
7-8 medium russet or yukon gold potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced (I'd use 3 apples--2 Grannies + 1 Fuji or Gala!)
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 cup italian flat leaf parsley, finely chopped plus a bit more for garnish
1 1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
3/4 - 1 cup grated Jarlsberg cheese
Butter, for greasing foil

1. Preheat the oven to 425 F
2. Coat the pan with olive oil
3. In a large bowl, using your hands, toss together and separate the thinly sliced potatoes, apples and onion with the parsley, salt and pepper. Spread half the mixture in the skillet or dish, scatter with cheese, and top with the remaining potato mixture.
4. Cover with a piece of buttered tin foil, and bake for 40 mins.
5. Remove foil and continue to bake for 20 mins or so.
6. Increase oven temp to Broil, and cook until the top begins to crisp, about 2 minutes.  Sprinkle with parsley.

Approx 235 calories per slice, but who's counting?  Serve with a green salad, some vino, good humor and great friends.

You can't miss.

Upstairs, Downstairs

Who among us hasn't banged a nail into the wall with the heel of a shoe? Is the hammer two flights down, in the back of a closet, in a junk drawer, out in the garage, or do you not own a hammer?

Is it rare that you have the things you need, at hand, when you need them?

Living on 3 levels, I have had my share of  ***arghhhh*** moments, and I've since kept the house stocked for myself and for my guests. I doubt it's only me who has crept around my host's house, trying not to wake the dog up late at night, looking for an extra roll of toilet paper, or heaven forbid...a plunger.

The latter episode did happen to me. When I sheepishly told my cousin at breakfast that "I think there's an issue with the bathroom"...he said, "Oh Cuz, I forgot to tell you that we turned off the water to the toilet..."  NOW you tell me??  It's kinda funny in the re-telling, but I was really embarrassed! I'd closed the lid, tiptoed past the sleeping dog (who opened one eye, but did not growl), found some paper and a pen, and had written "Out of Order!"
Living so close to Manhattan, I have had my share of houseguests. Among them were tipsy friends who were better off not driving, or who stayed over because it just got too late.
Some were unexpected (including complete strangers) on the terrible night of Sept 11, 2001 as well as the big Northeast Grid blackout in August 2003.

For your own sanity and the sake of planned and unplanned guests, take a moment, take stock and stock up.

Here are some ideas:

Keep paper towels under the bathroom sink.

Grab a few (free) paper measuring tapes the next time you're at IKEA.

Keep a small sewing kit around--assorted thread, some needles, a seam ripper, small scissors.

Pick up an extra alarm clock and a flashlight or two at the odd lot store.

Extra pillows can be as little as $7 at Target.

It's an indelicate subject, but...buy air freshener and a plunger for every bathroom. Plungers come in "decorative" styles, not as unsightly as days of yore!

Purge and update the medicine cabinet(s)--stock pain relievers, cough medicine, hand cream, Q Tips, etc...

For the guest room, or near the the pullout sofa or the air-bed...so that guests don't have to root too deeply through your cabinets, have a small box or a basket filled with toiletries, a bandaid or two, disposable razor, sports sox for chilly feet, an extra toothbrush, and a bottle of water. You can save extras from hotel stays, or buy travel size goodies at Target, a drug store or Bed Bath and Beyond.

Save some recent magazines and give your guests a small stack for late night reading.

Stash an extra hammer, screwdriver and pair of pliers in a desk drawer--they come in handy!

Buy a small box of picture hanging nails, and keep it in your desk drawer.

Put some post-it notes and extra pens near your telephones (if you have landlines!) or near the front door.

Make some extra sets of keys, for a guest, for a trusted neighbor and maybe one to hide outside...in case you lock yourself out!

As you would do for a babysitter, have your address and cross streets and a list of phone #'s in a logical place. If you need to call a plumber in an emergency, or a housesitter smells gas or needs a relative's contact info, it's good to have info in one place, at hand. I wrote the plumber's name and number right on the front of my hot water heater.

I'm not saying you need to offer fancy turndown service and a mint on the pillow, but little niceties make your guests comfortable and you can sleep knowing that they are less likely to have to find something themselves or wake you up!

Whether you're an apartment dweller or homeowner, it's handy to have this stuff around...so you don't have to run to an all night deli, or outside to a storage shed in your PJ's, or go down to the basement, or scramble for contact info if your iPhone dies or the computer is fried.

Out of frustrations, come solutions. It must be the Girl Scout in me...but I like to be prepared, and to anticipate what others might need. My ex called me "Two Shoes" which was short for Goody Two Shoes. I liked it, actually.

Dressing up a Dresser

I picked up a small-scale, 4-drawer wooden dresser in the mid 80's for $10 at a tag sale. It was in "ok" condition, nothing great. (Hello...$10!) It's actually a great size for socks...one drawer each for solid, patterned, casual and golf socks. I'm kinda organized...

Instead of ditching it a few years ago when I renovated my master bedroom, I decided to see what would happen if I spray painted it gold and glued some fabric on, wrong side facing out, and added some trim. If it looked really bad, I would just put it out in the garbage.

It's definitely on the shabby chic end of the spectrum, but I like the way the fleur de lis repeats in the mirror's motif.

I picked up some fabric and trim, and I had the craft glue and gold spray paint on hand. Probably spent $25 on the entire re-do. Note to self: it could do with new drawer pulls.

I was purging magazines (House Beautiful, not sure what year) and came across the photo (below) of a Pierre Deux commode with La Fete toile...for $1295.00

I'm not comparing pommes to pommes...but I'm not sure I like that one any better. I'd give wallpapering a dresser a go, before dropping over $1200.00, though. Sacre bleu!

Color Blind

Is a color "in" or "out" in a given year or particular season? Of course there are trends, but if it's available at the paint store, or if they can mix a custom color for you, then I believe that any color you want is "in."  I'm not really color blind, I'm just blind to trends.

I paint whatever color appeals to me, and it seems from what I'm reading, that all of my rooms are unwittingly spot-on for trendiness. According to House Beautiful magazine in October 2009, "The hottest color for Spring 2010 is high energy yellow." What goes around comes around! I choose color over brand as it relates to distance from home to store, though I know there are strong arguments for Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams, and against big box store brands like Glidden and Behr. Home Depot is 1 mile away and I can load up my car. Millions of people can't be that wrong!

I painted my kitchen Glidden "Del Sol" back in 2001, because I wanted it to be bright and sunny after having closed off a wall with a window that looked out onto the neighbor's chain link fence. It's a happy room!

Oops, I guess I forgot how much yellow I had going on around the house when I chose Behr "Glorious Gold" for the half bath! I matched the yellow in the sink that I'd brought back from Mexico in 2008. I was just drawn to the color.

The guest room (2002) is Behr "Vanilla" and the yellow tone looks deeper or lighter depending upon the time of day.

I repainted the living room a few weeks ago, from a mustard-y yellow that had a greenish tone, to Behr "Orange Glow" (ceiling and trim) + Behr "Warm Cocoon" for the walls. It's brighter and very welcoming! All overhead lighting in my home is on a dimmer, which I keep off or low, as I am a bigger fan of lamplight.

Deep red seems to be a lasting style favorite, and I went that route for my home office, when I repainted just last weekend. I used Glidden "Red Delicious."

I haven't seen periwinkle mentioned lately, but I chose Behr "Cornflower Blue" in 2005 to complement the mid-century mint green tiles in my full bath, because I just liked it! I removed the black toilet and sink--as trendy as they might have been at one point!

 Turns out though, that "black is back" and I am pleased with the black accents I chose because I thought they'd look cool, for the office and guest room window treatments, and master bedroom furniture.

Better Homes & Gardens magazine declared in November 2008 that "Plum is chic, paired with grays, khakis and creams." Well, I guess I was ahead of the pack in 2003 when I pulled a deep plum color from the camel colored sofa's accent pillow, in the khaki and cream colored den, and had a storage ottoman upholstered!

I purchased the ottoman from Ballard Designs for $450.00 in 2003 and the prices have remained relatively unchanged. You can choose from their fabrics, or send in your own, and the upholstery is done at no charge. They'll provide a form and a guide, so you know how much fabric to buy! Here's a link:

http://www.ballarddesigns.com/comShop/customProdAction.do%3Faction%3DinitCustom?ruleID=2357&itemID=1599&itemType=PRODUCT&path=1%2C2%2C648%2C2663&iProductID=1599

Lest you think that I live in a crazy kaleidoscope, for me there is a logical flow, and the transitional hallways are a very tame cream, Behr's "Lunar Light" and "Belvedere Cream." I follow my own style, and I hope you're following yours! I get inspiration from many sources--family, friends, shelter publications, flea markets, department stores, catalogs, street finds, HGTV, etc...  Sure, I love peeking into showrooms at the Design Building, but I'm a DIY'er and a recessionista, and I'm not in line for cashmere draperies or hand laquered walls.

And I'm good with that!