Eluwak

House Projects Continue at Pace

Progress on my never ending plans for our home has continued.

• Tonight we ordered new carpeting for our entire third floor guest suite (excluding the bathroom) and the third floor staircase.
• We also ordered a Couristan stair runner for our main staircase. Both will be installed on March 14.
• I finished installing a remote controlled third-way dimmer and new sconce light for the third floor staircase last weekend.
• The room known formerly as the Office, and then as the Breakfast Nook, has been renamed yet again to the Conservatory - its original purpose 111 years ago when the house was built. While we have kept the table in there for less formal meals, it now contains five hanging plants, four flowering plants, a mixed potted plant, four cacti, an aloe plant, and a palm tree. We will probably be adding several more hanging plants in the coming weeks.
• I purchased the maple and other materials that I need to build a 4' long plant stand that I designed for the Conservatory. I am hoping to complete it over the next two weekends.
• I drew up plans to build new cabinet doors and facings for our kitchen cabinets. While the framing is all solid oak, the current doors and facings are a laminate. Over the next couple of months I will be build new solid oak doors and facings, staining them, and adding new hardware.
• The Office is now in our basement which is finished, but it is not divided from the main room down there. Before the end of the summer, I am going to build a partition and a full wall mahogany bookshelf. I am going to include soundproofing materials in the walls and in the ceiling.
• I am getting quotes from several artisans in town to get a custom stained glass window of our family crest created for the main door. My goal is to have it ordered, created, and installed in the door before cold weather sets in next fall.
• I drew up designs to create a second guest bedroom (12' x 14') on the third floor by removing the walk-in cedar closet and storage room. I have not yet set a timeline for implementation. 
• I am in the earliest stages of researching the costs and logistics of having stone or brick facing applied to our entire exterior. This will likely be close to a six-figure budget, so the timeline for implementation is probably 5+ years from now once both Xan and Alanna are both out of daycare.

School Choice is Misguided

Here in the City of Rochester (New York), the school district serves 59,000 students from preschool to adult students. Like most urban school districts in the United States, the educational outcomes are abysmal - less than a 50% graduation rate, sub-par scores on national tests, high rates of teen pregnancy, etc. At $14,850 per student, the district invests 71 percent more per student than the national average. The problems it faces academically are clearly not related to spending.

The district offers school choice - rather than having neighborhood schools, students/parents provide their order of preference and a lottery is held to assign students to a specific school. The idea is that families can select the better performing schools or ones that fit their child's needs best. Conceptually, this makes sense. Unfortunately, this generates a number of issues and ultimately is counterproductive. Specifically:

1. Neighborhood school strengthens the fabric of the whole neighborhood. As they say, it takes a village to raise a child. When a school is specific to a neighborhood, it brings families closer together and in more contexts. This intimacy facitates a broader and stronger support system that trancends the classroom and family unit.

2. Neighborhoods are reasonable proxies for demographics, which have the greatest impact on the specific needs of students. Neighborhoods tend to coalesce into groups of people with similar educational attainment, social status, wealth, and interests. While school choice is intended to break down these barriers, that can be counterproductive to all students. Students with both parents involved and who's parents enrich their learning throughout all aspects of their lives can have more energy focused on broader and deeper learning. Students who lack strong parental guidance, who's parents have limited education, and who are surrounded by crime and poverty require the school to provide more structure and serve part of the parenting role. By blending these two groups in an effort to achieve equality, the result is ultimately that the former group is held back from reaching its potential and the latter does not get the attention and focus that it needs to break the cycle of poverty. If parity means a worse outcome for both groups, how is that fair to either?

3. One of the biggest determinants of where families move is schools. The school choice system means that you cannot move into the city to a specific neighborhood to ensure a specific educational experience. Given the poor performance of the city schools, this contributes to the pressure pushing the middle class out of the city. Poor families stay because they cannot afford the suburbs, and wealthier families simply send their children to private schools. This contributes to urban decay, suburban sprawl, and a constantly declining urban tax base. 

4. School choice requires that many students must be bussed or driven to schools miles away rather than walking or taking a short trip to a local neighborhood school. This increases costs and is the antithesis of being green.

In my opinion, it is time for the city school district to free itself from outdated concepts of what constitutes politically motivated social justice and take a more pragmatic approach. Ultimately, if changes result in significantly better outcomes for the most challenged as well as the most privileged students, and contributes to the stabilization of the tax base as families stay or move into the city, how can that be less just than the vicious cycle of unending urban decline?

Alanna Makes Her Grand Entrance

Alanna finally decided to join us all in the outside world at 6:06am on January 27, 2011. She was born at Highland Hospital here in Rochester, NY. She weighed an impressive 8 lbs 14 oz and measured 21 inches (well, technically when she was born they measured her at 19 inches, but her first pediatrician appointment 4 days later measured her at 21 inches, which they triple checked).

She is doing very well and we are exceedingly happy to have her as our newest member of the family. Her 3 year old brother Xan has not just taken it all very well, he cannot stop telling people about his new baby sister and how beautiful she is.

Now, if we could only get a decent night of sleep...

Waiting for Godot, Errr, I Mean Baby

My wife and I are expecting our second child pretty much any moment / day now. Although I am not at all nervous about the actual birth or additional responsibility of another child, I am feeling stressed by the simplest part - waiting. When I was younger I was most certainly an impatient person, but I thought I had evolved beyond that quite some time ago. I am clearly a Type A personality with obsessive-compulsive tendencies in my personal life, so perhaps it is more the lack of control and ability to plan the minutiae of my life that is getting to me. Whatever the cause, I am anxious for our daughter to finally make her appearance.

I have passed the time the last several weeks by doing projects around the house. Four weekends ago I redid the ceiling and painted my son’s play annex. Three weekends ago I moved my office into the finished basement (it is the quietest floor in the house) and converted my old office space into a breakfast nook. Last weekend I painted the trim and walls in the basement staircase and redid the floor of the basement stairs landing.

Perhaps I am so anxious now because I have not focused my energy on a specific project this weekend and instead have been puttering around, clearing snow from the driveway, and cleaning? If I knew that the baby would hold off at least until Monday I probably would have wired a three-way switch for the third-floor guest suite staircase and replaced the old light fixture with a new sconce light. I am a restless person and having my energy unfocused is psychologically painful to me. Does that make me crazy, driven, or both?

Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! - from Waiting for Godot

What is the Right Approach to Parenting?

A couple of weeks ago I read Amy Chau's blog post on WSJ.com. Since then I have been following the conversation and controversy around it.

There are pros and cons to both approaches that Chau discusses, but neither is likely optimal. While the laser focus and pressure of the Chinese approach builds strong academic skills, it is at the expense of building on natural strengths, creativity, innovation, and social and leadership skills. What she terms the "Western Approach" (I call it the West Coast feelings-based douche-bag approach), where children are allowed to pursue (or not pursue) whatever they want and simple effort is celebrated, leads to a lack of discipline, fortitude, and key academic skills, but it promotes creativity, innovation, and social and leadership skills. To over-simplify it, the "Chinese mom" approach creates computer-like drones and the "Western Approach" leads to weakness in character and skills.

To me, the correct approach is essentially in the middle of those extremes. In my opinion, a child should be allowed to explore interests, but it is the parent's job to push them when they see a strong talent and propensity. While effort should be encouraged, it should not be celebrateD in and of itself. Only success should be celebrated and rewarded. A child should be free to shape their own path, but a parent must reinforce and strengthen them along the way. Most children require time to mature before they can tap into self-motivation, which is why it is sometimes necessary to push them along the way.

The "Chinese Approach" treats children like clay - completely malleable and you can make what you want from them. The "Western Approach" treats them like a flower - given time, they will blossom on their own. The approach I am advocating is like building a ski-slope - the hill is natural, but someone had to find it, recognize the potential, and clear the trees.

Can We Fix It?

As a parent of a three year old, I have been exposed to Bob the Builder (among myriad other children's shows) on an ongoing basis for about 1.5 years now. More times than I can count I have been subjected to the catch phrase:

"Can we fix it?"

"YES WE CAN!"

Now, while the optimist in me loves the passion and can-do spirit, the professional project manager in me cringes every time. Seriously, am I the only one who thinks it is irresponsible for us to teach our kids this motto? It really should be:

"Can we fix it?"

"In theory, but it is contigent upon your timeline and budget!"

Maybe it is just me.

 

I'm Back!

It has been a very long time since I blogged - something on the order of 10 months. After starting this blog (formerly on Vox before they shut their doors) in 2006, I wrote fairly often through March of last year. Since then, I have spent pretty much all of my free time working on our house (which we closed on April 1, 2010) and preparing for our second child (she is due within the next two weeks).

Earlier today it struck me that I have myriad opinions horded from the past 10 months and that perhaps it is time to start sharing them again. Hence, my decision to log in and create this post. I hope to post at least once or twice a week moving forward, so stay tuned!

Fixing a Pair of Dressers

Before Picture of the Dressers

Last week, we purchased a pair of identical dressers from a friend, who said that they are from the 1950's. They are made of some kind of hardwood and were in reasonable condition, but needed a little TLC.

While I am certain they are made of solid hardwood, I have not been unable to confirm what kind. The wood has a buttery-reddish tone to it and a significant grain. It is definitely not oak or mahogany. It does not look like birch either. My father, who knows his wood types fairly well after 40 years in the paper industry and doing woodworking as a hobby, was not sure either. His best guess was pecan.

After Picture of the Dressers

There were some minor things I had to fix on one of them. I had to reattach one of the draw runners, two of the drawer stops, and redo a corner bracket on the top. They were both in active use for most or all of their lifetime, so they were in need of some serious cleaning. The finish was some kind of egg shell paint. It appeared that this may actually have been how it was originally finished. Regardless, the finishes were prettty stained and dinged even after some serious cleaning with TSP, so I decided to repaint them using Valspar Ultra Premium white semi-gloss. Now they look almost brand new.

In addition to the dressers, we bought a mahogany china cabinet from the same friends, which dates from the 1930's. That piece is in quite nice condition and required no work. There is a tag in one the drawers guarenteeing that it is made of 100% mahagony. There is another that says it was made in Rockford, Illinois. So far, I have been unable to locate the makers tag though.

Our New Antique China Cabinet

Next week's task? Building a twin-sized bed from scratch for my son. That is assuming that I have enough physical space to work on it. Until we close on our new house, my workshop/storage room is my home office, and I am rapidly running out of space.

New China Set

In preparation for our new home, we have begun shopping and slowly accumulating new accouterments. Today we went to the Ontario Antiques Mall in Farmington, NY (about 25 minutes from downtown Rochester). The main mission was to locate a nice desk for my home office, but we were were keeping our eyes open for other interesting things.

Although we did not end up getting a desk, we did find a very nice 77-piece set of Noritake China. Specifically the Glenwood (#5770) pattern. It included 12 full place settings (5 pieces each) and a plethora of server plates, bowls, pitchers, and various other matching pieces. According to the dealer, the woman that sold it to them came in with them in the original box. She had received the set as a wedding gift many years earlier and never used it.

Our New China Set: 77-pieces of Noritake Glenwood 5770

I looked it up online when I got home this afternoon and this pattern was produced from 1955 to 1981. It is rimmed with platinum and includes a gray and very light blue design with small pink roses.

The best part was the price. We got the whole set for $125! Anyone who has looked at Noritake at Macy's could tell you that each place setting usually goes for $80 to $150 each depending upon the design. Each of the other pieces would be in the $50 to $400 range as well. My best guess if we were to purchasing a similar Noritake set new, it would total at least $2,500.

We already had a nice set of Buffalo China from Williams-Sonoma that we received as a wedding gift. It is awesome for everyday use and we love it, but it is not fancy. We have wanted something nicer for formal dinners and holidays, so this was a great find.

We also bought a 1930's china cabinet and two 1940's dressers from a friend this weekend. We are picking those up tomorrow, so I will try to take some pictures and post them tomorrow night. My dad is also bringing me our family monogrammed silverware (real silver) that my grandparents received as a wedding present in the early 1930's. I will try to get a picture of that too.

Our New House

After a year of searching, we have finally purchased a new home. Technically, it is not purchased yet, but everything is now ready to go and we are just waiting for the closing. For those who follow my blog, you probably read a couple of posts about our dilemma regarding whether to buy in the city or the suburbs. After looking at many houses and doing some soul-searching, we decided to buy in the city - specifically in the Park Avenue neighborhood of Rochester (which is where my old house was also located).

We love the idea of walking to dozens of restaurants, pubs, cafes, boutique stores, galleries, and museums within a couple of blocks. It is a beautiful neighborhood made up of turn of the 20th century homes. It is a very active, living urban neighborhood with 100 year old hardwood trees lining all of the streets. The new house is 4 blocks from the Eastman House and about 5 blocks from the Boynton House (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright).

The downside is the city school system. While the suburban schools in this area are some of the best in the country, the city has one of the worst. The neighborhood elementary school is well rated, and some of the magnet schools are nationally ranked. But, if Xan gets to middle school and does not go into one of the magnet programs, we will have to send him to private school or a charter school. I guess that is the price we must pay.

The house itself was built around 1900. It is three stories, 2,500 sq ft, 4 bedrooms, 2 full and 2 half bathrooms. It also has 1,062 sq ft in the basement, of which about 80% is finished living space. The first floor has 9 foot ceilings. The living room is 26 x 14 feet and has a wood burning fireplace. Every window and door is made of leaded glass. There is a large front porch, small back porch, and side portico. The garage is detached and two stalls.

Our New House

It is a remarkably solid 110 year old house. No settling, cracking, uneven doors or floors. Overall it is in great shape, although the kitchen and bathrooms are dated, but functional. We are planning on completely redoing the kitchen before we ever move in and doing some minor upgrades to the bathrooms.

We should be closing either the last week in March or the first week in April. We have our lease at our current place until May 31, so I will have two full months to complete my upgrades. I am hoping do a series of blog posts with before and after shots of all of my handy work, so stay tuned this spring.