c a s a C A R A ~ Old Houses for Fun & Profit

February in New York City packed a snowy wallop, but we hardy Big Apple types shoveled and sloshed our way through — one major snowstorm early in the month that dropped nearly two feet of the w...

https://casacara.wordpress.com/2021/02/28/februarys-snowy-wallop/

Getting on for 4PM yesterday, I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to get out of my apartment. The sun had been teasing in and out all day. It would suffuse the front windows of my ground-le...

https://casacara.wordpress.com/2021/01/17/remains-of-the-day-fort-greene-ramble/

If you are an old-house aficionado, you may already know about the candy store of vintage American architecture that is CIRCA. and the constellation of old-house websites and Instagram pages that...

https://casacara.wordpress.com/2021/01/13/back-to-my-roots-cheap-old-houses/

Somehow, the days are both too long and too short. Time stretches ahead, the calendar blank. Yet you go out for a walk and before you know it, the sky is dark. I came back to Brooklyn from the Ea...

https://casacara.wordpress.com/2021/01/11/covid-times-in-brooklyn/

I scan the list with my heart in my throat, occasionally whispering “oh no!”, remembering places I’ve been and loved, meant to go back to, never did and now never will. The list, of some of...

https://casacara.wordpress.com/2020/12/09/reasons-weve-loved-new-york-restaurants-lost-in-the-pandemic/

I love vintage rattan furniture so much that I once toyed with the idea of opening a store in lower Manhattan, back when stores were a good idea, and calling it Bamboozled. That would have been a...

https://casacara.wordpress.com/2020/12/03/new-book-gives-rattan-furniture-its-glorious-due/

“Live each season as it passes: breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit…” Henry David Thoreau The year’s events have made us feel vulnerable, more conscious of the precariousnes...

https://casacara.wordpress.com/2020/11/30/seize-the-sunset/

When I think back on this sad time (assuming I survive it), the above image will always evoke the Covid era in New York City for me. The art, by Jorge Colombo, appeared in The New Yorker magazine...

https://casacara.wordpress.com/2020/11/23/new-york-city-of-restaurants-bent-but-not-broken/

My four days in Oaxaca last month are a fading dream. I was already starting to feel nervous about riding in crowded vans, as we did one day to get to the nearby ruins, and my hand sanitizer got ...

https://casacara.wordpress.com/2020/04/17/dream-of-oaxaca/

Quarantine is rooted in the Italian words quarantenara and quaranta giorni, or 40 days, the period of time the city of Venice forced ship passengers and cargo to wait before landing in the 14...

https://casacara.wordpress.com/2020/03/29/brooklyn-quarantine-diary/