Rovakada does political fridge magnets and wine stoppers. $9.99 for this baby.

Outside the Box sandblasted these glasses, but they only have 6 made. They have some lovely t-shirts as well. $14.99 per glass or 6 for $74.95.

VanGoBama by Orangyred. $20.

Gemini Studio does these 7″x 16″ prints. Limited edition of 50. $14.

Hope on a Rope from Dugshop. $15. 100% Vegan.

Wow. This is well thought out. I’m gonna have to go ahead and call it brilliant. “Snake Charmers” vs “Wind Bags”? LOL! $250 by Yee Haw.

One of my very first posts on this site was a how to on rewiring antique light fixtures. As a new blogger, I kind of scrapped together some posts from electrical websites. Now that I’m a seasoned rewirererer I’d like to add some tips. Refer to the first post as a guide, but these should come in handy as well.

1. Have all of your tools and supplies together before trying to do this.

2. Before you go and take the fixture apart, study how it’s put together. Take pictures or draw a diagram. I’m talking wiring as well as parts.

3. Organize yourself as you dismantle the light. Keep a dish for screws or put them back into the fixture while you’re working.

4. Remember that if you need to wash or polish the fixture, you should do it while there is no wiring. Duh!

5. Don’t throw away the original sockets or socket covers just yet. It’s always best to replace them, but sometimes it’s really difficult to find sockets to fit these lights.

6. If you don’t have cardboard socket covers, you can substitute electrical tape.

Spade terminal and wire nut

7. You can use wire nuts instead of electrical tape when twisting wire together.

8.  Spade terminals may be safer than just putting the wire under screws, but they don’t always fit in place.

Leave more wire to work with.

9. Make sure you have the correct wire gauge. Easiest thing to do is take old wire or fixture and ask where you buy it. The number is on the side of the wire. Match that to the stripper number. Make sure you release your grip as you pull or you may take more than the plastic protection.

10. When stripping wire, make sure you leave enough sticking out so you don’t have to go back and do it a second time.

11. Test, test, test before installing the fixture!

Lonnie Hammargren home, Nevada

Toy House, Toronto

House on the Rock, Wisconsin

Mr. Lee’s Rock Garden, Arizona

Somewhere in Cambria

Tent Cities: Treehugger

Condo Escape Clause for NYC Liberals: City Room

Man’s Arm Trapped in Toilet: Neatorama

Haunted Historic House Tour: This Old House

Unfancy Kitchens: Door 16

Seven days left! Count ‘em! For those of us who have merely blogged about it, put up signs, sent money, prayed and worried, let’s take a page out of a REAL volunteer’s book. The reader known as “Donatella” has been hitting the battleground state of Pennsylvania every weekend for the last couple of months. I asked her to say a few words to motivate our fat, lazy asses. There’s still time left to join her and the others right up until Election Day. Do it for yourself. Do it for Barack. For God’s sake, do it for our country!

What does your day consist of? Phone calls? Knocking on doors? Do you have a choice?

I have done two types of campaigning activities for Obama, registering voters and canvassing registered voters door to door in North Philadelphia.  Since voter registration is over, I have concentrated recently on going door to door and matching residents versus the list of voters, first checking the lists accuracy, then assessing their interest in Obama, enlisting volunteers and assessing the needs of the voters, i.e. those needing rides to the polls.  I have also been providing information about things like absentee ballots, providing info on polls, hours, etc.  The day is organized into “shifts” — there are three 10 -1, 2-5 and 5-8.  I usually do one or two shifts.  This Saturday was a marathon (though this is not asked); I worked for 6 hours outside.  We are paired with another worker and this has been great fun, teaming with others, often Brooklyn neighbors!  This is not the only form of volunteering, however. They need people to work the phone banks as well as to do data entry.  These voluminous canvassing sheets to record the accurate addresses of registered voters, interest levels,needs are refined with each canvassing session and require people to enter into databases and then people to follow up with phone calls.  It is remarkably organized and recognized nationally — the extraordinary ground organization of Obama.

They really need people to work next weekend and if possible Monday and Election day. There will be very organized campaigns to ride people to polls and to call people all day to get them to get out to vote.  They will even get feedback from the polls on those whohave voted (not WHO for but what registered voters turn up).  Using that data, the  workers will call people and exhort them to vote (or give them a ride).  Also, they need people willing to drive people to the polls as well.

Have you encountered angry McCain supporters or even nasty Obama  supporters (no such thing)?

Well, the demographics of North Philly where I have worked consist of two groups: African Americans who live in the neighborhood and students who attend Temple University.  Many of the students are voting by absentee ballots so there aren’t many registered voters we are pursuing among that group, although there are some. Most of the students are Obama supporters, but I have spoken to a number of them who come from Western PA or other more working class areas, which are Obama resistant. It is interesting to talk to them because they worry about taxes (will they be able to continue school if their parents get zapped?) and seem to express the same doubts that many people have expressed about Obama, but most are for him.  Teenagers often operate with the framework they get from their parents.  One young kid told me that his father worried about having his guns taken away from him (big hunter from Western PA) but finally decided on Obama since he thought that he would have better solutions for the economy.

The other group of people are the African American people who have lived in the area for a long time.  North Philly is a depressed place and although nobody I know was bothered in any way, there are a lot of walking wounded there, very poor people, lots of abandoned buildings.  But like our neighborhoods in Brooklyn, core of the place has fantastic people, active churches, close neighborhoods, Philly baseball fans and rapid Obama supporters. One feels rather than trying to convince anyone to vote for Obama, one feels that one is preaching to the choir.  The challenge we try to explain, is to make sure that every human being in their family, on the block, every friend actually gets out the door, rain, shine, tornado, hurricane, No’Easter, anything.  We are aiming for 90-95% turnout.  Being for Obama and not voting is useless.  We tell them that PA is a key state, that Obama is up in the polls, but that can disappear because McCain is hitting other parts of the state HARD.  Just because everyone in the world you know is for Obama, it isn’t the whole universe.  To offset the western part of the state, they need to vote.  We give them information so that they don’t have any confusion or problems when they get there.

Any funny stories?

I had a bullhorn to get people to register and kids came from everywhere wanting to yell “register to vote’ into it. An older one took it and started singing - took a bit to get it back.

A North Philly volunteer from the hood and I tried to get keep this volunteer from Manhattan from getting killed one day.  He was an extremely fem guy and very aggressive “didn’t want to take no for an answer” He was hassling guys who told them they were felons and couldn’t vote and he would argue with them that they were wrong, wanted their addresses,etc.   Because he wasn’t used to inner city neighborhoods (hello?), he wanted to record this exciting experience and took his camera. He ate junk food throughout the day, including a big bag of pink, blue and green popcorn.  He lived through the end of the day.  The junk food could have killed him, though.

You’ve been going to Philly for a couple of months now. Do you see a difference between then and now?

This neighborhood has been for Obama, but what I feel now is a palpable excitement, a thrill, so many people wanting to participate, to volunteer, so many people ready to celebrate something so incredibly exciting in their lives as we get close.  Some are hatching plans for victory parties.  One area where I was yesterday was so tight knit that they were going to make sure everyone voted.  Everybody greeted us with warmth.

Does it seem like voters will actually get to the polls?

The campaign is leaving nothing to chance as you can see by what they plan to do on Election Day.  This is now the most crucial aspect and the campaign is trying to cover every possibility.

Is sign up at mybarack.com?

Yes, you can sign up at mybarack.com or if one has any interest in this neighborhood I am describing, they can contact Aleah Phillips at 267-972-6559.  The address of the North Philly office is 2221 North Broad Street (between Dauphin and Susquehanna).

What will you be doing on election night?

On Election night, I will be hanging out at home, hopefully with some friends, drinking wine and staying up all night to watch the returns.  I actually remember November 1960 when it was clear that Kennedy was going to win, I was a kid and everybody was thrilled.  I felt like all was great with the world and went outside to look at the stars.

I think I might actually feel that again.

Disregard the 4×4 couch legs

Have I ever mentioned how it cost us over $800 to do a Bradbury wallpaper border for our living room? That was just the border. And that was just materials. And have I ever mentioned how I love to sit in there and stare at my lovely border? It was worth every penny. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to replicate it in every room, no less cover the walls and ceiling in wallpaper. I want to bathe my entire house in Bradbury! That’s how much I love it.

I just received an email from Bradbury offering a 10% discount as part of their 30th anniversary celebration. Oy. I can’t even. But maybe you can. I don’t see the offer on the blog (which officially launched this month), but if you sign up for their email newsletters, you’ll get e-lerts on sales and such. Happy spending!

The previous owner got us started on the wallpaper.

Funny thing. The economy is officially in the crapper and I had my best day ever at the Brooklyn Flea. It was BUSY! And what I noticed was that it was not just your average flea market shopper buying things, there were people looking to decorate their new businesses. Looks like nobody let Brooklyn know we’re heading into the Great Depression. Ssshhh.

I did a Halloween themed booth this weekend. Well, I just brought a couple of creepy looking things and put out some chocolate. That was the extent of it. My daughter, pictured above, wore her Obama t-shirt and handed out candy. She was for sale, but I’m kind of in love with her, so whenever someone inquired, I wasn’t pushing it. I took her off the streets about 15 years ago and she’s been in my home ever since. The hubby says “Sell!” but she needs to go to caring adoptive parents.

Baby in a Box was a big hit. I had the idea to do this kind of thing months ago, but finally HAD TO make one for the Halloween weekend market. That was my excuse anyway when people were totally creeped out by it. “It’s Halloween”! Little did they know I mutilated my dolls as a kid and I’ll be creating more “Abused Doll Art” in the future. Baby sold around midday after being photographed more than Paris Hilton herself. She’ll be going into the window of a clothing boutique in Dumbo.

I trekked all the way over to the booth next to me to report about this week’s flea find. I’ve been meaning to talk to “Long Island Eddie” for weeks now, but he always looks too busy. Well, I finally caught him! Eddie, sans website at the moment, works out of….guess where…..Long Island. He makes his furniture out of reclaimed barn wood. The flea prices are wholesale and they are pretty affordable. Of course I can’t find the price sheet I took from him, but I seem to remember tables being in the $400’s? Not bad for a hand made reclaimed job. LIE (Long Island Eddie) is in space C 7-9 every Sunday.

Last week I received an email that started out “Imagine the eco-consiousness of Lisa Simpson and the sheer laziness of Homer Simpson.” The Simpsons? Lazy meets eco-friendly? I was intrigued.

Husqvarna will launch its fully robotic solar hybrid mower in the U.S. this coming March. The Solar Hybrid is designed for lawns up to 1/2 acre and offers automatic shut-off, an intuitive keypad with a back-lit display, a pin code lock feature and alarm for security. Plus it is practically silent.

The hubby keeps nagging me to help with lawn maintenance. Well, if he coughs up the dough for this $2999.95  fun little gadget, I just might start mowing the lawn. And if you haven’t figured it out yet, yeah, I’m the Homer in the relationship.

Ah, we laughed, we cried. This has been the longest election ever and I’m glad it’s almost over. As a photographer, a picture means a gazillion words to me. I’d like to pay tribute to the photographers covering this election. Some of these are works of art that should be hung on walls. Some are just fantastic portraits. Click on photos for sources and photographer info.

Fallout Shelter Table: $ 375

How cool is this stuff? I found them on Etsy, which has the home furnishings. Their website consists of personal accessories only. Sean O’Dell and Linda Idon’tknowherlastname are the peeps behind Refinding, “the finest pop culture cast offs”.

Bottle Box Cabinet: $350

Pabst Table: $450

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