It's Snowing!

I am visiting my family in Maryland, and it's snowing like crazy here. We already have two feet of snow, with another foot on the way. Now, in places like Alaska or Nebraska, I'm sure that this is normal, but here in Maryland we have declared a state of emergency (literally). We're expecting power outages at any moment, so we're thinking about what we'll need to do without electricity.

This made me think of another prediction by Gerald Celente: self-reliance will be the latest fashion. After a little research I discovered that to some people, self-reliance means and spinning yarn, then dying and weaving it to make your own combat uniform to be ready for the zombie apocalypse. This is all a bit much for me. I'm not expecting THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT, for example. (One must always put that phrase in all caps, to convey the proper freaked-out survivalist feeling.)

But self-reliance doesn't have to mean that you have to be a backwoods MacGuyver. Arthur and I have been noticing a trend in the jobs he's been doing: people are thinking more about how they can be ready for localized emergencies like snow storms and hurricanes.

With this in mind, let's talk about how to prepare for a snow storm like this one:

See that white lump on the right? That's a car buried under the snow. In this kind of weather, you're not going to have much contact with the outside world. You need to be able to stay warm, deal with any medical emergencies that arise (hopefully without outside help), and (most likely) function without electricity.

To prepare for an emergency like this, spend a few days noticing all of the things that you use on a daily basis. Here's an example of our morning tasks right now:

• Get the heater going
• Brush teeth and shower
• Use the water closet
• Make coffee and breakfast
• Wash the dishes
• Give Grandmother her Parkinson's medication
• Feed the dogs

Now that I have the list, I can consider how I can perform each of these chores without electricity or access to the outside world. I'm only planning for a short emergency, maybe three or four days at most, so these shouldn't be too hard to meet.

Here's how we'll get by:

• Get the heater going. We have a wood heater, which will work without electricity.
• Brush teeth and shower. I can skip the shower for a few days, and we have bottled water on hand for everyone for drinking and toothbrushing.
• Use the water closet. If the well stops running, we'll flush the loo by pouring in a bucket of melted snow.
• Make coffee and breakfast. We have a propane stove, which will work without electricity as long as we have matches to light it with. We've also got enough food to see the family through a few days without going to the store.
• Wash the dishes. This can also be done with melted snow, perhaps boiled for ten minutes to ensure its cleanliness.
• Give Grandmother her Parkinson's medication. We've stocked up on important medications as far as the doctor will allow us to.
• Feed the dogs. As I mentioned before, it can't hurt to stock up on a few days' worth of food... and when you stock up, include pet food on the list.

Of course, your list of preparations will differ from mine, but you can get the basic idea. In the next post, I'll talk about how a good carpenter like Arthur can help you with your emergency preparedness.

Low-cost Art

A friend of mine recently got divorced and found himself in possession of a huge, beautiful house with almost no furniture in it. He is the kind of person who loves to have beautiful things around him, but he doesn't have a big budget for decorating. The last time I visited him, I was charmed to notice one of his solutions.

He loves calendars; he gets several every year, each with big wonderful pictures of famous works of art. At the end of the year, he was reluctant to throw them away, but he couldn't afford to frame them.

Luckily, the calendar was of Japanese wood block prints, which are designed to hang without a fancy frame. Searching online, he found these frames:

These frames just hold the picture behind clear plastic, with no border. They make the picture stand off the wall about an inch, in the same way that paintings are often hung in an art gallery. They are so low-cost that he could afford to buy one frame for each of his favorite prints. Now he has enough prints to cover an entire wall of the guest bedroom. Bonus: the frames are light enough that if he has children visiting, they can't do much damage by knocking the pictures off of the wall or bumping into them.

If you try this at home, be sure to choose bold images that don't need an elaborate frame.

The New Elegance

Greetings! This post is from Arthur's wife. One of my favorite topics is home decorating, so while Arthur covers practical topics like how to remodel a kitchen inexpensively, I'll write the "flights of fancy" about projects I would looooove to have done at home. (One of the best things about being married to a carpenter is that the projects I ask for actually get done!)

One of my hobbies is trying to guess what will be popular... before it is popular. Recently I spotted an article by Gerald Celente` at the Trends Research Institute talking about new trends for 2010 and beyond. Celente's main focus seems to be on the economy, but as an aside he mentioned that in the future, a "New Elegance" will start to crop up in fashion.

Usually when I think of "elegance" I picture something retro.... and frankly, retro is looking kind of tired lately. It's not so much the "retro" items themselves, but the jaded way that they are presented.

I'm hoping that the elegance of the future really will be "new." I would love to see more pieces with clean, clear lines like Arthur's latest dining table (shown above). I would love to see elegance without irony; elegance that arises from an innovative spirit; elegance that arises out of hope in times of difficulty.

What do you think the New Elegance should look like?

(Photo credit: Rob Amberg)

First Blog Post

Oh look... it's a little baby blog!

Welcome to the first post what will (hopefully) be a long series. As you may have guessed, my name is Arthur. I am a carpenter and woodworker who splits my time between Asheville, NC and Atlanta, GA. Need some repairs or a new piece of furniture? Click "About me" to contact me.

Let me tell you a little about myself. I've been doing carpentry and home renovation for about twenty-five years. I am also a woodworker, and I have displayed pieces in several well-known furniture galleries and antique stores, including Grovewood Gallery in Asheville, NC.

I live with my lovely wife in Barnard, NC in a 1939 general store which I have renovated over the space of about ten years. Barnard isn't on many maps any more; it's what you might call a ghost town. (It closed down when the passenger trains stopped running down to Asheville.) We love the peace and quiet here.... and the mountain views.

Well, I'll have more to say later on. Thanks for stopping by!

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vatobob/2136501005/sizes/o/)