I had wanted something specific in a medicine cabinet, and found a place that did a custom-made medicine cabinet for less than a high-end Robern would have cost. Very nice work.

If it still exists, it's a place out on Long Island called Glissade.

Posted by: FishieFishie at September 17, 2008 12:35 PM in response to Medicine Cabinet

I had wanted something specific in a medicine cabinet, and found a place that did a custom-made medicine cabinet for less than a high-end Robern would have cost. Very nice work.

If it still exists, it's a place out on Long Island called Glissade.

Posted by: FishieFishie at September 17, 2008 12:33 PM in response to Medicine Cabinet

Thank you all very much! I think all of these are new recommendations for me, and I appreciate having several to call to compare. I'd love to find someone I like enough to stick with.

Posted by: FishieFishie at August 12, 2008 11:07 AM in response to Hoping for good exterminator recommendation

Thank you all very much! I think all of these are new recommendations for me, and I appreciate having several to call to compare. I'd love to find someone I like enough to stick with.

Posted by: FishieFishie at August 12, 2008 11:07 AM in response to Hoping for good exterminator recommendation

Thank you all very much! I think all of these are new recommendations for me, and I appreciate having several to call to compare. I'd love to find someone I like enough to stick with.

Posted by: FishieFishie at August 12, 2008 11:06 AM in response to Hoping for good exterminator recommendation

Thanks. This is the kind of thing that I wish newspapers would do when they do articles on contractors - naming the bad guys.

Posted by: FishieFishie at July 1, 2008 11:21 AM in response to TREY (or Tray) DARBY: WORST CONTRACTOR EVER

Thanks - I'll look them up. Hoping that they're not only very nice, but are good at wrestling with ancient computers.

Posted by: FishieFishie at July 1, 2008 11:18 AM in response to Thanks for the tech help!

I generally ALWAYS favor going to a store rather than a website. That way, you not only get to see the items in person, not only are supporting the local community, but also have an advantage that the salesperson may make helpful suggestions.

I would also stay away from Home Depot. For my big purchases, I went to Smolka (perfect example of a place where they suggested something better and cheaper than what I originally chose) - but in general it seems that many places will automatically give you 30% off the list price.

Posted by: FishieFishie at June 30, 2008 12:27 PM in response to Website/store to buy kitchen/bath products

Thank you all, for the most pertinent reponses I've had so far.

Denton, this is Word Perfect DOS 5.1, very old, but still used by hard-core fanatics, who love it for its simplicity. The computer itself is a hand-me-down Dell which was old when it was given to me, discarded by the company I was working for when they were upgrading; my guess is that it dates from the early 1990s.

The original error message said "Hard drive controller failure" followed by (I think) "No boot device." The guy who's wokring on it now has tried a few things, but says there's a possibility that it might just need a new battery. (When I called Dell a few years ago about this, they claimed it doesn't need any battery.) Sorry, but I don't know about chips and things - or are you referring to the Intel sticker on it?

I agree that it's not something for young geeks. The first repair place I took it, the young Chinese guy fiddled with it for a couple of minutes, then said it was hopeless, without trying much of anything else.

It just seems that there must be somse brilliant repair people in NYC - why can't I find them?

Posted by: FishieFishie at June 28, 2008 12:46 PM in response to Slight off-topic: NYC computer repair?

Thank you all, for the most pertinent reponses I've had so far.

Denton, this is Word Perfect DOS 5.1, very old, but still used by hard-core fanatics, who love it for its simplicity. The computer itself is a hand-me-down Dell which was old when it was given to me, discarded by the company I was working for when they were upgrading; my guess is that it dates from the early 1990s.

The original error message said "Hard drive controller failure" followed by (I think) "No boot device." The guy who's wokring on it now has tried a few things, but says there's a possibility that it might just need a new battery. (When I called Dell a few years ago about this, they claimed it doesn't need any battery.) Sorry, but I don't know about chips and things - or are you referring to the Intel sticker on it?

I agree that it's not something for young geeks. The first repair place I took it, the young Chinese guy fiddled with it for a couple of minutes, then said it was hopeless, without trying much of anything else.

It just seems that there must be somse brilliant repair people in NYC - why can't I find them?

Posted by: FishieFishie at June 28, 2008 12:46 PM in response to Slight off-topic: NYC computer repair?

Thank you all, for the most pertinent reponses I've had so far.

Denton, this is Word Perfect DOS 5.1, very old, but still used by hard-core fanatics, who love it for its simplicity. The computer itself is a hand-me-down Dell which was old when it was given to me, discarded by the company I was working for when they were upgrading; my guess is that it dates from the early 1990s.

The original error message said "Hard drive controller failure" followed by (I think) "No boot device." The guy who's wokring on it now has tried a few things, but says there's a possibility that it might just need a new battery. (When I called Dell a few years ago about this, they claimed it doesn't need any battery.) Sorry, but I don't know about chips and things - or are you referring to the Intel sticker on it?

I agree that it's not something for young geeks. The first repair place I took it, the young Chinese guy fiddled with it for a couple of minutes, then said it was hopeless, without trying much of anything else.

It just seems that there must be somse brilliant repair people in NYC - why can't I find them?

Posted by: FishieFishie at June 28, 2008 12:45 PM in response to Slight off-topic: NYC computer repair?

Very interesting, all the negative comments on Housblogs.

For those of you who have seen Angie's List, is it essentially all positive - like Zagat's, with only the praised companies listed - or does it include workmen that people consider to be rude, incompetent, scoundrels?

Posted by: FishieFishie at June 28, 2008 12:37 PM in response to Angies list

Like you, I wanted to look at fixtures "in the flesh" and although there are a few in Manhattan that aren't bad (though I found some of the staff - at Simons and Quintessentials, for instance, to be insufferable), I finally also went out to other boroughs to look around. However, when I was ready to buy, I went to Smolka.

Posted by: FishieFishie at June 27, 2008 11:42 AM in response to Bathroom supplier store

I really appreciate this question, because it's something I've been tempted to do myself.

I've been very leery, because you have no idea when you're paying for - I'm surprised that they don't have a small sample available for free. I don't know what it costs here, but it's up to $80 in some cities, and the more that's on there, the more expensive it gets. That's a lot to pay when you have no idea if you'll get useful results or not.

I've been contemplating the idea of sharing a subscription with someone else, and splitting the cost, so I'm interested to hear that some of you had good experiences.

Posted by: FishieFishie at June 27, 2008 11:35 AM in response to Angies list

Thanks for the Christopher John recommendation. At the moment, more people I've talked to seem to lean toward the hypothesis that the problem is the stove, so I'm still looking for stove repairers (not the "authorized" brand ones), but it's handy to have an eletrician as a fall-back.

Posted by: FishieFishie at January 23, 2008 5:11 PM in response to Stove repair place...or electrician?

Anything beats 311.

Posted by: FishieFishie at January 22, 2008 5:33 PM in response to Bureaucrats

Sorry if I wasn't clear. Funny. I meant that both electricians and repairmen seem to be expensive. It appears to be in the vicinity of $100 just to get one to knock at your door.

The stove is actually not expensive, but I'd still be wanting to get it repaired. Not only do I not have the few extra bucks to spend for a new one right now. But it's also a function of time! When I face a long-term purchase, it takes forever to do the research and comparison shopping.

So repair suggestions are welcome - stove or electricians, either one.

Posted by: FishieFishie at January 22, 2008 5:32 PM in response to Stove repair place...or electrician?

Try www.plumbingwarehouse.com
I found that their prices for Grohe fixtures were the best.

Posted by: SenatorStreet at June 30, 2008 1:41 PM in response to Website/store to buy kitchen/bath products

I've had two bad experiences at Park Slope Plumbing Supply.

Good to know they own Park Slope Kitchen Gallery - I'll be sure to avoid them too.

Posted by: guest at June 30, 2008 1:58 PM in response to Website/store to buy kitchen/bath products

I joined Angie's List because I am about to buy a home in Brooklyn and know no one for referrals. There are plenty of bad reviews posted. Some companies have straight A's and some are mixed and I have seen one deck building company from Staten Island that had over 40 reviews, almost all positive.

Posted by: premadas at June 30, 2008 3:07 PM in response to Angies list

To add more to above post...I have seen companies with D and F reviews. If the company has a string of bad reviews, I think they are taken off the list. I had one company bookmarked for possible use and when I went back to a few weeks later, it said this company can no longer be accessed through Angie's, but there was no reason why.

Posted by: premadas at June 30, 2008 6:07 PM in response to Angies list

To find a better contractor use Angie's List. I have tried them when I lived in the Midwest and use them here too! They are great.

Posted by: guest at July 1, 2008 4:09 PM in response to TREY (or Tray) DARBY: WORST CONTRACTOR EVER

To find a better contractor use Angie's List. I have tried them when I lived in the Midwest and use them here too! They are great.

Posted by: guest at July 1, 2008 4:09 PM in response to TREY (or Tray) DARBY: WORST CONTRACTOR EVER

You know, if there were, like, 20 contractors in Brooklyn, I would say go ahead, name all the bad guys. But these days in Brooklyn, everyone and his brother fancies himself a contractor and lots, I mean lots, of them are bad. Next time I need a contractor, no way am I going back through all the Brownstoner archives to make sure no one has complained about whomever I plan to use. I'm going to follow good, reliable, unequivocally postive referrals. The chance that a given contractor's name will have come up before on Brownstoner is pretty close to nil, unless its one of the bigger firms (you know, with a name on the van, signs to put up at your house, and an ad on Brownstoner). So I just don't get the frenzy around this site for naming names of bad guys. If I wanna know about someone, I'll post a query and ask.

This is not a knock on you, Rebecca, but your guy sounds less like a bad contractor than a not so handyman. There are even more of those in Brooklyn than there are self-styled contractors. Your experience was a bad one and any decent building super doing evening/weekend handyman work should be able to do better. I wish you good luck and I know it is no fun to have simple work done outrageously badly and have contractors disappear on you. Lots of us on this site have been there.

Sorry for the unusually sour post.

Posted by: slopefarm at July 1, 2008 4:12 PM in response to TREY (or Tray) DARBY: WORST CONTRACTOR EVER

I'd be careful with Angie's list as well. There are plenty of dissatisfied Angie's clients, especially with the holes in their ratings system that can make it impossible to give an inept contractor a bad report card. I posted a link last week to a long discussion on the topic from houseblogs.net.

I'm with Slopefarm. Most of the contractors I've dealt with in Brooklyn have been disappointing at best, and even though I'm a pretty experienced builder I can say that even due diligence won't necessarily spare you a rude surprise. In fact, I'm dealing with a house painting contractor now who's proved to be an irresponsible dolt. Increasingly lately, every time I think I've found someone professional enough that I can feel comfortable not doing it myself I get bitch-slapped.

I keep pimping the same guys here because, frankly, they're the only contractors I've found in Brooklyn who impress me: Jim Lally from Galway Bay, Steve Mann and Richie from Sessa. I would add Frank O'Donnell except that he got fed up with the business here and moved back to Donnegal two years ago. Otherwise, I could write a book on the screwups I've dealt with.

Posted by: Steve at July 1, 2008 11:37 PM in response to TREY (or Tray) DARBY: WORST CONTRACTOR EVER

Last year 2007 we found Angie's list while looking for a contractor to upgrade our brick home. We needed to replace the wood on the eaves. We found a contractor that Angie's list highly recomended. They were unreal. They had almost no tools to work with! I even had to loan them ladders,nails,etc. After they left (4 weeks later) the vinyl they installed started to fall down the very next day! I found another contractor in the Yellow Pages. After the $4,550 we paid the first contractor it cost another $3,000 to replace everything. At least I get to warn others to be careful, and look at other work a contractor has completed. A rep from Angie's list did e-mail me to ask what our problem was. I sent him pictures of the work, along with our phone #. Never heard from him again. C.B. Kings Mountain,NC

Posted by: guest at July 2, 2008 8:47 AM in response to Angies list

You should not have to pay for Angies List, use Cragislist.

Or if you want to purchase a Tungten Ring go to www.tungstenfashions.com

Posted by: guest at July 10, 2008 9:57 AM in response to Angies list