Monday, January 31, 2011

The Golden Rules of Finance No Matter What the Market Climate Holds

By Blueberry Beeton, Real Estate Broker

Shelter Realty, formerly Midcoast Realty, continues to provide clients with thoughtful and clear guidance to both buyer and seller clients in this turbulent market. Recent transactions include owner builders, foreclosures, custom timber frame homes, 200-year-old homes revived to be put on the market, raw land and more. With all of these come the abrupt starts and stops caused by lenders. This is a market where buyers and sellers alike have to hurry up and wait regardless of their particular debt-to-income ratio or property value. The climate of lending and borrowing money has gone through tremendous transition in the last five years and continues to evolve. However, no matter how a loan is packaged there are some golden rules that seem to be timeless.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Friends of Shelter Tools - Margonelli Fine Furniture

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.
- from "Endymion" by John Keats

The collection of new and gleaming tools in our store is impressive. Hold a brand-new Lie-Nielsen block plane in your hand, and you see it both as a tool with great potential and as a thing of man-made beauty. But a tool is meant to be used, and many of the tools purchased at Shelter are in the hands of talented woodworkers who produce a variety of heirloom-quality work.

David Margonelli began making furniture on his farm in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine in 1971, and he now operates Margonelli Fine Furniture, a three-person shop in Edgecomb, Maine.

The Margonelli website describes the serpentine bench (pictured at right):

The flexure furniture idea was conceived in 1994 when commissioned to build a bench on which to sit and hold a drink. Out of this need to combine seat and surface came two small curved tables that would fit together as one; one with a cushion, one with a glass top. Over the years, while working with this concept other pieces were designed; a dining table that could seat as few as two or as many as ten, chairs designed to serve as individual seating or when combined can become a bench. Three years ago these ideas formalized into a line of furniture that would be extremely functional and accommodate open format and smaller spaces with fluid lines and figured woods.
Take a look at the beautiful pieces David and his team have conceived on the flexure theme. Contact them, or, even better, visit their showroom in Edgecomb, Maine, Monday through Saturday, 10-5.

From time to time, we'll feature more Friends of Shelter Tools here on the blog. It's our small way of saying thanks for sharing with us your quality work and being a patron of Shelter.

Friday, January 14, 2011

The Woodworker's Show


Jennifer, Blueberry and Pat arrived on Thursday afternoon, assembled the 10x10 timber frame and set up for the show. We're having a great time catching up with past students and clients and meeting perspective students, clients and customers. The Woodworking Show has a great collection of vendors with both hand and power tools to try and see. We have door prizes, japanese handsaws, chisels, slicks, books, finishes, gouges and much more avaliable for purchase as well as timber frame demos scheduled for Saturday and Sunday morning.

Below are shots of our booth on Friday afternoon -- what a whirlwind weekend!






Thursday, January 13, 2011

Don't forget! Visit Shelter at the Woodworking and D.I.Y. Show

Shelter is an exhibitor at the New England Woodworking and D.I.Y. Show in West Springfield, MA. this Fri. Sat. & Sun.

We're going to raise a timberframe right on the show floor.

Tickets and more information are available online: http://cms.thewoodworkingshows.com/cms/Home/NewEngland/tabid/166/Default.aspx

See you there!