Renée, my wife, on the roof of our building

Just a quick post to note that we are now fully moved to New York and open for business. It’s been a difficult couple of months locating an apartment, finding a school for our son Brendan, packing up in Amsterdam, and then moving into our place in the city. A few words of advice for furniture and household wares shoppers:

Forget Ikea. It’s always tempting because of the low prices. But by the time you rent a car, pay the tolls, realize your car is not big enough so you have to ship stuff to NY, get a parking ticket in front of your building, and then–after everything–still have to put the stuff together yourself, well, just don’t do it. There are alternatives.

Design Within Reach is a wonderful source for modern furniture. Shipping is inexpensive, unlike Ikea, and most everything is in stock. However, if you buy stuff on sale, make sure they actually have it. Twice, we had orders cancelled a week or more after the fact because they ran out of the items they sold to us. A customer service representative did not apologize and said that we were competing with hundreds of others for the same sale items. We had to order something else for more money. This is called bait and switch.

The Container Store is a brilliant concept, especially in an urban context, where space is limited, and people are looking for efficient ways to store, organize, and contain their otherwise unruly lives. Delivery is cheap and fast. Store personnel helpful and friendly. Go there.

End of public service announcements. Back to photography, etc.