November 2010
3 posts
Prefab Container Home on Display in NYC →
Interesting and affordable! Click link above for full article in the WSJ.
Update: We withdrew our offer
More to follow once we sort through it all.
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“Our Offer Was Accepted!”
– Now the hard part starts for us…stay tuned!
October 2010
5 posts
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Spooky Halloween Weekend Open House
We found a listing in Williamsburg in our price range, very large, with an extra building the in the backyard (we’re thinking studio space). We saw they were having an open house, so drove over to check it out.
I used to live over on Broadway & Union, so thought maybe it would be an interesting location. Well, it was definitely interesting!
Here are photos from the back...
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The cat's out of the bag! We made an offer on a...
We’ve been keeping the posts on our search somewhat vague because: a) we didn’t want to jump the gun, and b) we didn’t want competition on promising leads.
As of 6 weeks ago, we were all set to make an offer on a different property, but the longer we waited for our financing to come through, the less sure we were about the property. This place needed significant work, although...
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Widening the Net
It’s been awhile since our last post…we are continuing our search, and may have found a potential building, but nothing is confirmed yet.
This is exciting news, but it’s also somewhat sad news for myself and the others since we’ve decided to widen our search outside of Red Hook. There just aren’t any available buildings that suit our needs and budget, and the myriad...
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Totally awesome student housing made out of... →
Really great project by Cattani Architects in Le Havre, France. Perfect solution for student housing! (via Contemporist)
September 2010
11 posts
1 tag
Modern dollhouses by Brinca Dada →
Me want! Very cool dollhouses for the Modernist in us all, with or without kids.
(via CO.Design: http://tinyurl.com/23zcnlz)
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A Blog about Michael's journey around Nepal! →
One of the Compound partners is spending the next 3 months in Nepal on a travelling fellowship. Follow along!
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>>The Nogg! →
I soooo love this!
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The Gross, The Bad, and the Ugly
Okay. We’ve been looking at buildings and houses for a few months now. We’ve probably seen at least a dozen, and folks let me tell you: it is not pretty out there. As with most things in life, especially New York Real Estate life, money buys you freedom and choice. And unfortunately, this is something we don’t have much of. Even by joining our finances together, the properties...
1 tag
Rural Studio →
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Compound loves this house by Reigo & Bauer →
(click post title for more photos, via Contemporist)
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We. Love. Red Hook.
posted by Katrina
September 3rd, 2006: John & I got married in Red Hook. John had been living here in Red Hook since he moved New York City from New Hampshire in 2000. I moved from Williamsburg to join him here in our loft in 2003.
As we planned our wedding event, Red Hook quickly became an obvious choice for location. We were able to rent the Brooklyn Waterfront Museum, a small-ish...
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Could Red Hook use a hemp-based house? →
Click the link for an article on www.hemp.org about all the various hemp-based building materials that are available.
Here’s another link to some hemp building info: http://tinyurl.com/27gzsng
Sounds good to me (or maybe I should say smells good to me): what do you think?
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PassivHaus (Passive House Institute US) →
PassivHaus is a super-efficient way to build that reduces the average energy consumption of a house by about 85%.
What is a Passive House?
“A Passive House is a very well-insulated, virtually air-tight building that is primarily heated by passive solar gain and by internal gains from people, electrical equipment, etc. Energy losses are minimized. Any remaining heat demand is provided by...
August 2010
7 posts
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“Read ‘Cradle to Cradle’ by William McDonough. It will change the way...”
–
Recommended reading by Allison
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Six in a Room
by Michael
We had one of our meetings the other night. I love these meetings of ours, it’s the six of us in one of our apartments, (we all live in the same building already) eating, laughing and worrying. Usually, one of the men will say or propose something that is roundly mocked by everyone else, including our own wives.
My contribution was the edible fish pond/jacuzzi idea that I thought...
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The Hunt: in the Zone
[by Allison. This may be a somewhat dry post, but I wanted to dive into some of the more technical aspects of real estate that we’re dealing with.]
After agreeing to focus on Red Hook several weeks ago, the group has been scouring the neighborhood for buildings or lots for sale. Our strategy has been a little scattershot, but in casting a wide net we’re hoping that something will turn up.
In...
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Vacant lot culture of Red Hook: Take 1
by John J
In Red Hook it is difficult to distinguish between a vacant unkempt lot and one that is being nurtured, cultivated, prepareded for development or used for storage. Because in Red Hook, there’s a culture of ’let it do its thing’ that permeates the neighborhood’s derelict buildings and gardens alike. As we search for a lot to build on, I’m hoping we can...
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Why Red Hook?
by Michael
I thought I would write a few words for those followers of this blog who are not from Red Hook on why we love Red Hook enough to hunt for a building here. After all, Red Hook is a relatively small contained (some would say isolated) neighborhood with real-estate prices that are kept high because of a vanishingly small inventory of real estate.
I had these thoughts as I was walking...
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Conex Connection... about the many uses of... →
This website is an impressive collection of buildings that use recycled shipping containers.
Shipping containers are one idea we’ve been playing with as a material for the studios. They are plentiful, inexpensive, and the industrial look fits in with Red Hook’s industrial roots.
The Hunt: Part 1
A lot has happened since we started our hunt for a place to live. I’ll attempt to summarize what we’ve done so far in a few posts over the next week or so.
After joining forces and talking about what we are all looking for, we contacted a realtor and gave her the run-down. Even though we all live in Red Hook, we decided to look at other areas of Brooklyn. We narrowed it down to:...
July 2010
2 posts
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Who We Are
As part of our search, we decided that it would be useful to know what’s most important to each couple and what they’re looking for in the new space. The one requirement that is the same for all of us is that the place must be affordable. Our budget limit is approximately $1 million, or $350,000 per couple. Beyond budgetary constraints, we all have slightly different needs and wants, so,...
May 2010
1 post
1 tag
From the beginning
back row (l-r): John + Katrina, Allison + Michael, Ruzanna + Randy. front row: Snorkel, Astro, Roger, Roman
We are six friends (three couples) and neighbors who recently decided to pool our resources to buy a place for us all to live and work. Not a commune, not exactly co-housing, sort-of a co-op…as you can see we haven’t quite figured out what to call it , but the gist of it is an...