Crankshaft Studio Is Moving
Not that anyone other than my accountant knows that I do business/file taxes as “Crankshaft Studio”.
Almost two years ago the wife and I decided that, for a variety of reasons, we really needed a change of scenery. We checked out the NH seacoast area, we looked at Western Mass -God I love the Amherst area. We looked into Boston, the Hudson River valley, and for a brief moment even Seattle was on the list. To keep a very long story short, we were made an offer we couldn’t refuse by Ma Wegs last year, and after hemming and hawing, we decided this past Christmas visit to go for it.
So this summer the New York City Wegener population will be increasing by a total of 3.
There were, of course, a lot of reasons not to move back to Staten Island. I left fifteen years ago for a reason. The human sub-species known as GUIDO comes to mind. Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Northern Jersey pretty much invented this pathetic creature, for which I apologize to all of humanity. And yet, the place has really changed in that time too. The entire city has. Each time we visit there’s been something new for us to say, “I really enjoyed that”, about.
The one question that hung me up was where would I work? Granted, my New Hampshire laundry room studio kind of blows, but at least it’s mine. But then my youngest brother Dave -electrical engineering student and extreme handy man- suggested that we turn the attic into a studio space where Dorinda can write and I can work.
Dave also moved back home a few years ago to complete his propeller-head training at Brooklyn Poly. As a way of carrying his own weight at the Wegener Enclave he decided to fix all the stuff that needed fixing and upgrade the balls off of everything else. Walls were ripped out, bedrooms were remodeled, and basements were finished and turned into rumpus rooms. One of the last major projects was fixing some damage done to the attic a little while ago when the under-roof leaked. By which I mean it poured several hundred gallons of rain water into the old fiberglass insulation, which then made the interior parts of the roof collapse into the attic.
In short, it’s a fucking mess, and I have the photos to prove it.
We spent this past weekend sorting through all the stuff up there. The photos, if you can believe it, are post-clean up. For my next visit there will be a dumpster and a garbage shoot, as we get rid of all that stuff, then rip out what remains of the walls in preparation for a serious rewiring and remodeling of the space.
I had a really great time going through all the old junk with my mom, and working with my little brother is a lot of fun.
The biggest treat for me was after I pestered Dave into ripping up a piece of the horrific masonite floor. Underneath it was a beautiful (if skuzzy) floor made of wide knotty pine boards. That will be great once we sand and shalack the shit out of it.
The space itself is pretty huge -bigger than most studio apartments. Though that is hard to tell with the mountain of contractors bags cluttering the place up.
For reasons of narcissism I’m planning on keeping a photo log of the work as we move forward. You can find those pics HERE.
SLEIGH RIDING UPDATE: The ride down and back from NYC was torture. And after visiting my doctor today I know why. My tail bone is in fact broken. And I have compression fractures to the T11 and T12 thorasic vertebrae -which is where the ribs meet the spine.
It’s off to physical therapy I go!
