Truly, A Beautiful Day in My Neighborhood

Vanity came in handy today.  Since I just got my hair done on Friday I was not anxious to dawn a bandanna and tackle more demo this weekend, so instead my friend Joan and I took part in the final Saturday of “Made in Camp”: Camp Washington Artists Open Houses.  Camp Washington’s community of 40-plus artists, galleries and makers
collaborated on two successive Saturdays.  They say artist, the creative class, are the first to expose the “gems” in neighborhoods.  I had no idea that the warehouses I drove past for 20 years in working in downtown Cincinnati were filled with a wonderful area of talented people.  We made it to about 8 shops, a few of which I plan to patronize for items for my house.  The absolute coolest stop was The Swing House.  From the outside it looked like a typical row styled house, but on the inside the owner, Mark DeJong, created the most cool living space and centered in the middle of it is a swing.

I also got to meet some of my neighbors, which was super cool too.  Following Joan and I had lunch at Camp Washington Chili, this is starting to become my spot, before going to my house to pull staples out of my kitchen floor.  Joan picked up on the Hint Hint I threw out in a previous post, Thank You Joan.

Thanks to one of my neighbors, Theresa Ferrari (she’ll be running a new coffee shop Mom N’ Nem that will be housed inside of a 1969 31-foot Land Yacht Airstream trailer just one block from me), I stopped by Camp Washington Hardware and bought a tool similar to this, which she said makes pulling the staples a breeze.  Boy was she right.  Unfortunately the store only had one and I let Joan use it.  She pulled up twice as many as I did.  You have to love a friend that will spend a Saturday afternoon on her hands and knees on a dirty floor pulling staples.  I can’t wait until all the demo is done, just so I can mop the floors.  She also made me a great first aid kit to keep on site as my first house warming gift.  She wouldn’t use my thrown and I put in a fresh bag in just for her.  Since the site is called Venus’ DIY Projects I thought I’d share a pic of the toilet thrown I made out of a pallet.  Turning a 5-gallon bucket into a porto-potty with the snap on lid was a great Amazon find, but squatting down to it wasn’t fun, especially after a long day of demo.  On a rainy day I threw this together to elevate it.  My plumbing can’t come fast enough.