What’s on your browser?
This month’s surfer: Peter Loach at the Piedmont Housing Alliance
What’s on his browser: hud.gov
What it is: The official site of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
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Why he likes it: Although Loach admits it can be a fairly “cumbersome” site to negotiate, it has everything under the sun you could possibly wish to know about the housing market. The feature he uses most generates fair and current market rates, an indispensable resource for both regular joes and housing pros.
Shop shuffle
Quite a lot has happened in the local retail home furnishings scene, and it’s a bit confusing, so pay attention. First Alana Woerpel, who owns custom fabric business, Alana’s, as well as the entire Downtown Design Center building, moved the showroom part of her shop to the backside of the building. Next, Andrea Wynne, who owned Posh Home (the spin-off of the former combined store called Posh from Wynne and clothing partners Victoria Gardner and Janice Wood), moved her store to Alana’s old front location and changed her business from vintage and antiques to high-end reproductions and some vintage and antiques. The new store is called Andrea Wynne Fine Furnishings and Accessories, and the bulk of the inventory is English reproductions from North Carolina-based furniture-maker Lloyd Buxton.
Finally, Anita Davis, owner of contemporary fine bedding store Pillow Mint, moved her eight-month old store to the old Posh Home spot from her former hard-to-find location in the back of the Glass Building.
 Andrea Wynne Fine Furnishings, formerly Posh Home, in the former Alana’s space. Follow? |
Got all that? O.K., then two more bits of news: 2 French Hens, which used to live in the Design Center and then moved to South Street, has closed and a new discounted furniture store called Furniture Promotions has opened temporarily in the old Goody’s space at Barracks Road. This store sells furniture manufactured in High Point, N.C.—often stuff that has been liquidated from other going-out of-business-retailers—and it’s only here until a new long-term tenant takes over that space in a few months.—Katherine Ludwig
Basement brewery
Benjamin Franklin once said, “Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Whether or not you already agree, the only way to truly experience the divine potential of beer is to brew your own. Fortunately, it’s easier than most sacred pilgrimages—your average frat boy can figure it out, enjoying un-pasteurized and naturally carbonated “live” beer in as little as a fortnight.
Here are your CliffsNotes of brewing: Malted barley is soaked in hot water to release the malt sugars, the malt sugar solution is boiled with hops for seasoning, the solution is cooled and yeast is added. The yeast ferments the sugars, releasing CO2 and ethyl alcohol. When fermentation is complete, the beer is bottled with a little bit of added sugar.
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The whole brewing process can take from two weeks to several months. There are infinite varieties of beer kits available, from IPAs to Stouts and even “clones” of commercial brands like Sam Adams, with prices ranging from $27 to $45. Brewing equipment ranges from $75 to $99. Go online to locally based Appalachian Brewing Supply (absbrew.com) to find equipment and support. Or call up Buck Island BBQ (872-0259) and you’ll likely be invited to come on down, browse the brewing kits and pepper owners Bob and Helen with suds-related questions.—Lily Robertson
Have a seat
Bet you didn’t think about this last time you sat down: Irwin Berman’s current show at the UVA Art Museum aims “to question our ecological, ethical, and sexual beliefs and practices” as embodied in the humble and functional stool.
Berman is a UVA grad who began his adventures in art-as-social-commentary with painting, but more recently has focused on sculptural forms. Like any good homeowner, his interests lie in the connection between design, function and fine arts, and the exhibition blurs this relationship by tweaking our conventional vision of what constitutes a stool. By manipulating and transforming a variety of diverse mediums, Berman manages to successfully prove that you can sit on an architectural construction of Perspex and baseballs, or an amorphous mass of distressed metal.
 High-concept seating will be on view at the UVA Art Museum through mid-June. |
The show, entitled “Sedentary Pleasures: Uncommon Stools” at the UVA Art Museum (May 3-June 15), will showcase 17 sculptural pieces in a variety of media and one video piece. A selection will also be on display at Les Yeux du Monde.—L.R.
On the importance of fine print
The first time we ever did any tiling—well, O.K., the only time we’ve done any tiling—we went for broke and tackled a major project: the shower surround in our only bathroom. The tiling itself was preceded by several weeks of wall framing, wallboard installation and plumbing, all of which I’d rather not talk about. Actually putting up tile promised to be a lot more fun.
We’d gotten a lot of advice from an Internet tiling forum about what kind of thinset mortar to use and how to apply it. We had our trowels, our rented wet saw and, of course, our tile—basic white subway tile, which we’d install in a brick pattern.
Finally, we had spacers—the little plastic pieces that you slip between tiles to ensure even spacing. Apparently, in the olden days, tilers had to pry these things back out after the thinset had partially dried, or the grout would crack. But we’d found a package of spacers, in our preferred 1/16" size, labeled HOLLOW LEAVE-IN SPACERS—a great time-saver.
 Spackled Egg also used the tile spacers temporarily to make a slightly larger gap and bring tile rows into line with the neighboring wall. Hey, people, no one said she was an expert. |
Putting the tile up took one solid weekend for us newbies. It was exhausting but fun, watching the tiles climb the wall. In the last hour of the project, my husband was waiting for me to set a tile so that he could take a measurement, and he started idly reading the back of the package the spacers came in. And guess what? It said that, in the 1/16" size of the hollow leave-in tile spacers, the spacers are not hollow and should not be left in.
It was a moment of, shall we say, black humor. The next day, I took the package back to the local tile store, where the flustered salesman agreed with me that this was fairly outrageous flaw in packaging design, then assured me that we did not have to chisel out all those spacers.
That was a year ago. So far, no cracks in our grout.—Spackled Egg
Quote
“Moderately priced homes in Albemarle may have a tough time competing with similarly priced homes in other counties—other counties offer more house for the money.”
—Charlottesville Albemarle Association of Realtors (CAAR), in its first-quarter market report for 2008