4/4 Photo Game

Amy tagged me for this game.

Here are the rules:

1. Go to the 4th folder where you keep your pictures on your computer.
   
2. Post the 4th picture in the folder.
   
3. Explain the photo.
   
4. Tag 4 fellow bloggers to join the fun. (If you're reading, I tag you. Just let us know that you are auto-tagging in the comments.)
   

This is my current home when it was almost done being gutted and rehabbed. It was a formerly grand rowhome that had been hacked into (illegal) apartments with no regard for the house's bones. I turned it into a duplex. This particular floor used to have a crack pit near the windows. A crack pit is basically an indoor campfire, but it is not used for s'mores :) I tore down every single non-supporting wall - I love, love, love big open spaces. This is the main living floor of the top unit. Beautiful wide planks of hardwood were hidden beneath awful black and white linoleum and a few layers of biohazardous carpet. I kept the exposed brick walls and venting - I love the industrial look of it!

Here is a close-up of the brick on the living floor - there is more upstairs, too. If you look closely, you will see that one side is darker than the other. The darker half was in the same apartment as the crackheads, and the crack fumes stained the brick. The other half was in another apartment's bedroom.

I tore off the back of the rowhome and added an addition to each of the 4 stories. The photo was taken just after an old bathroom was ripped out - you can still see the plumbing fixtures for the toilet. The prior owner just plonked a bathroom on a little built-out ledge - massively dangerous and illegal.

Previously, the house ended where you see that big piece of plywood behind the stairs. I pushed the whole building way out.

These are the new and improved stairs. An open design, in keeping with the airy, modern theme, and cherry-red iron support beams for fun.

This was an extremely fun toy.
***
Tip/trick/lesson of the day: For those of you who thought law was dull and boring, let me summarize what appeared in my daily briefing for the state of New Jersey. In Gorzelany v. Simon & Schuster, Inc., Law Div., Bergen Co. (Toskos, J.S.C.) (9 pp.), "[p]laintiffs complain that the use of their photographs in the book "Hot Chicks With Douchebags" was defamatory. The court concluded that there is no actionable defamation. The photographs in which the plaintiffs appear and the accompanying text are used for humorous social commentary...Failing as an assertion of fact, the book must be treated as protected expression of opinion."

So I guess the take-away lesson is that you're out of luck if you find yourself in this piece of literature - I use the term loosely here, no, I have not seen the book. (Ok, I really dislike that d-word when used outside the hygiene context, but I loved the absurd humor of it! I choked on my tea when I read today's briefings. Too good to not share.)