Men and women agree on this (usually): If you have a sexual or romantic relationship with someone of the opposite sex, it’s cheating. But what constitutes a sexual or romantic relationship? Surely having sex with someone else is cheating. But what about working late at night with a coworker who massages your aching back? Is that a sexual gesture? Or a romantic one? Is it cheating?
When you interject the Internet, there is a whole range of questions that men and women might answer differently. For example, if a man looks at porn, is that cheating? What if he watches it so much that it takes valuable time away from time he could be with his wife? What if he masturbates? What if he does it while thinking about someone else? What if he develops an intimate relationship with someone on Facebook?
Men v Women
Men and women often respond differently to these questions. Women value intimacy in a relationship and often perceive acts that men consider harmless as a betrayal. Studies show that women are generally more likely to find intimacy more important than men. They are also more likely to characterize something as cheating than men, like watching porn. And men are often likely to think those women are unreasonable.
So What Is Cheating?
It’s increasingly difficult to specify certain acts as infidelity, but here is the heart of the matter: When you violate your partner’s trust, then you have been unfaithful. The most upsetting aspect to many people of either gender is when intimacy is shared outside your marriage or partnership. You probably know in your heart that the late-night backrub at the office would upset your partner.
If you have to cover it up or if you deliberately avoid mentioning it, then you’ve broken trust. You’ve been intimate with someone else, and now you have to lie about it or commit the sin of omission—not telling your partner about it. That’s cheating.
Preventive Measures
You can avoid some problems by discussing what you both find acceptable behavior. Come to an agreement about your own personal definition of cheating as a couple. Sometimes the actual sex isn’t as much of a problem as the deception required to cover it up. That results in the loss of trust, which has a corrosive effect on relationships.
About Author: Nancy Travers is an Orange County Counseling professional. If you need safe, effective counseling services, please get in touch. You can reach her here: http://www.nancyscounselingcorner.com/contact-us.
Men who never grow up. You know the type. They get their own way, and if they don’t they sulk. Or even worse, throw a tantrum like a three-year-old. They manage to avoid responsibility and are usually charming about it.
That’s the problem. The adorable boyishness. The entrancing free spirit. These Peter Pan men are so endearing until you live with them. And then suddenly you’re the one doing the heavy lifting in the relationship. Because he won’t take responsibility for anything unless he already wanted to in the first place.
How come he never grew up?
Usually it’s a combination of factors that retards maturity in a man. Maybe he had hovering parents who did everything for him. They didn’t want him to make a mistake so they didn’t allow him to develop on his own. Maybe mom needed someone to dote on to fill her own needs and so never let him have a tough day in his life. And then there’s the long delay in being independent as he went through college, and then grad school and even further. Plus the bad economy that made him, like many adult children, rely even longer on his parents.
How do you know he’s emotionally stunted?
Just because a man is sometimes thoughtless doesn’t mean he’s immature. We’re all thoughtless on occasion. But when he puts his own needs before all others, it’s a sign. When he deliberately chooses to ignore paying the bills or other abdications of his responsibilities, that’s another sign. When he feeds his own ego with a fast car or high living that he can’t afford, it’s another. So is inappropriate behavior like sulking or tantrums. Blaming others for his woes. Refusing to accept reality. And he’s oh, so sensitive when you have hurt him but he’s a bull in a china shop with others.
How do you cope?
When you see a tantrum coming do you step in and try to distract him? Calm him down? Try to soothe him? Do you tiptoe around his feelings for fear he’ll explode like a toddler when he doesn’t get his way? Do you dread the times when you’re busy at work so you don’t have enough time and energy to give him all the attention he needs? Have you given up asking him to help with chores—or anything—that he doesn’t want to do? Do you routinely have to coax him out of a bad mood or a big sulk?
Can you make it better?
The trouble is, unless he wants to change, you can’t change him. But you can change the way you react to him. You can refuse to be his parent. You can refuse to enable his bad behavior. Once you realize you are living with Peter Pan, you must ask yourself if you want to continue living like this. If not, you need to try and disengage.
Step back and let him have his tantrums without intervening. Stop trying to manage his feelings. Stop paying the bills for him. Or making excuses for him. Have a frank talk with him and let him know you are no longer going to be the sole responsible party in your relationship. Let him experience the consequences of his behavior. This is the hardest thing to do, but don’t cave in. Or else your Peter Pan will surely continue to be a lost boy.
About The Author: Nancy Travers is an Orange County Counseling professional. If you need safe, effective counseling services, please get in touch. You can reach her here: http://www.nancyscounselingcorner.com/contact-us.
Broaden Your Marketing Efforts With An Emphasis On Safety And Security
With so many businesses competing for your customers, how can you capture their interest and attention? Modern marketing takes many avenues in order to spark the interest of potential customers, including traditional media sources, social media, and guerilla marketing. While every option offers its own merits, you may be missing out on an underlying yet important way to tip the scales in your favor. With hacking, information leaks, and fraud on the rise, secure payment processingmay be more important to your customers than you expect. With so many highly-publicized financial information breaches in recent history, the average consumer is even more informed and invested in their credit card transaction security.
How Does Security Translate Into Marketing Potential?
The global marketplace has changed drastically in the past three decades. We’ve seen our economy transition from heavily cash-based to almost exclusively credit/debit transactions. We also know just how prevalent online shopping and web-based commerce has become. With those changes, we’ve also experienced the adaptations that savvy criminals invented to keep up with the market. Your customers well know that their financial information is constantly under siege, and many of them have experienced identity theft or card cloning—even those that haven’t see the extensive news reports of hacking at several national retailers.
How should this reality translate into your marketing? The answer is simple and straightforward; the security-minded customer wants to spend his or her money with confidence. When you openly demonstrate your commitment to the best practices of secure payment processing, you give consumers the confidence they need to go from shoppers to buyers. With all options being relatively equal, your level of security could be the deciding factor for potential customers. From your homepage to your checkout, or within your physical storefront, security is not just a best practice, but it’s also an effortless marketing point that enhances your business.
About Author: AVPS can help transform your business into the most safe and secure operation possible. To learn how you can benefit from the latest credit card processing risk management solutions, contact us today, and let us help you capture those customers and grow your business.
Is your small business struggling under the weight of operating costs? Even those owners with a history of business experience and acumen can find that the tools they need eat too much into their profit margins. Payment processing, for example, seems like a system of fees you grudgingly must pay in order to provide your customers the convenience of debit and credit payments. In the modern market, you can’t forgo digital payment processing, either, but you can ensure that your retail merchant account is providing you the best and most affordable card processing solutions. Our AVPS team will help you determine if you can reduce those operating costs by giving your current payment processing a serious check-up. By taking a second look, you may find out that you are eligible for better rates.
Card Processing is Not “One Size Fits All”
Card processing set-ups that work for some businesses may not necessarily be right for yours. From mobile processing to retail storefronts, we specifically connect with our clients to understand their needs. When you partner with us, we’ll look at any factors to ensure we are giving you exactly the solutions you need:
Business type—Are you a wireless merchant/e-commerce business or do you have a physical brick and mortar location? (Or both?)
Customer volume—Will you need multiple payment terminals to accommodate your customers in a timely manner? If you have a website, how is your check-out process set up?
Physical location requirements—How your physical operations work may make some card processing equipment too large or restrictive. Mobile processing may be better for you.
Financial goals—Do you anticipate needing a merchant cash advance? We can help you better understand how your merchant account fits into your financial future and growth.
About Author: AVPS believes that, when you accept credit cards, your business should not feel like you are overburdened with hidden fees. Let us show you why businesses across the nation trust us with their retail merchant account needs. To learn more, contact a representative today!
Because the summer’s too fleeting to squander on work and socially acceptable drinking hours.
By Mike Madaio
Happy hour, pre-dinner apéritifs, post-dinner digestifs, a marathon pub crawl that lasts until last call (and then some). We don’t refer to any of those experiences as night drinking. Yet, we feel pressed to qualify any imbibing done before 5 p.m. (even though it’s always five o’clock somewhere) as day drinking, such is the stigma that stems from the “Mad Men” era, when the men drank themselves under the lunch table and the women, under the coffee table, neither supposedly the wiser. Clearly, we’re a much more restrained culture now.
Day drinking these days is more about taking advantage—of a rare couple of quiet hours among old friends, of a gentle breeze on a July afternoon, of a setting that’s far too cool for our likes come nightfall—than blacking out. (Though blacking out’s still on the table. We’re not Mormons.)
Summer itself is practically an open invitation to ditch the to-do list (and the kids) and rustle up a spur-of-the-moment BYO gathering by the pool, at the park or the beach. But there’s also something about sliding into a dimly lit booth on an ideal afternoon that feels deliciously rebellious. Neither way’s wrong. There are, after all, no rules for day drinking. Other than postpone the errands for another day altogether, not simply until later in the afternoon. That’s a viral video waiting to happen.
On that note, allow us to introduce you to a few of our favorite day-drinking spots.
Paramour (at the Wayne Hotel) | Wayne When the sun’s shining bright and the humidity’s lightened up, the sidewalk seats along North Wayne Avenue are highly coveted, naturally. But the savviest among us know to seek out the 110-year-old Tudor Revival veranda, complete with ceiling fans and ample views of the surrounding gardens. Either way, order the Parisian Spritz, a light, bright sparkling wine cocktail spiked with a dollop of peach puree.
World of Beer | Exton The franchise is comprised of 75 locations spread across 21 states, yet this one, which opened in May, is Pennsylvania’s first and only (because control states rarely get to have nice things). A thousand-square-foot patio holds more than enough table seating, as well as several outdoor sofas and a cornhole court. It’s what your backyard would look like if you had room for a thousand-square-foot deck, 60 rotating taps and a 600-bottle menu.
Martine’s RiverHouse | New Hope People watching can be overstimulating. And sometimes—most of the time—the whole point of day drinking is to step out of your routine and dive headfirst into your company. On such occasions, there is no more tranquil setting (with a well-stocked bar and a well-versed bartender at your disposal) than the riverside deck at Martine’s. Main Street bustles on the other side of the restaurant, but it may as well be miles away.
Pag’s Wine Bar | Doylestown Stuck home when, really, you should be using your vacation days more wisely? Head to Paganini. Between the deep (and reasonably priced) wine cellar, the small-plates menu and the just-out-of-the-way location, it’s an honest facsimile of a European square experience. Sip, nosh, repeat. No hurry.
Mas Mexicali Cantina | West Chester If there was an official drink for day drinking, it’d have to be the margarita. Mas Mexicali obliges with 11 varieties. Paired with the rooftop deck, there may be no better place around here to watch a hazy sun set with a drink in hand (and a taco in the other).
Va La Vineyards | Avondale Sidle up to the bar to try one (or four) of Anthony Vietri’s authentic, Italian-style field blends, each paired with a locally made artisanal cheese. From there, grab a bottle of your favorite and head for the deck out back, where it feels more like Tuscany than Chester County.
Tired Hands Fermentaria | Ardmore The large picture windows (ideal people for watching), tall ceiling and the skylights make for one airy space. But unlike the saturated suckers walking by on the other side of those windows, you’re savoring your house-brewed session beer (a beer made for day drinking) and whiskey dills at a lovely 70 degrees with no hint of humidity.
X Marks the Spot Legally, we can’t advise you to head for your secret-but-public spot with a bottle or a sixer in tow, but they’re the places that spring to mind first when you hear “day drinking,” are they not? No table, no chairs. Maybe a blanket. Definitely a spectacular view. We won’t tell if you won’t.
You love art, but it never seems to love you back. That’s just pretentious gallery owners talking. We found a more considerate one who’s going to show you how to start that collection you always wanted. By Christine Olley • Portrait by Jennie Finken
The key to forming your collection, Van Haute says, is confidence.
Ward Van Haute’s Bethlehem House Contemporary Art Gallery isn’t your typical art gallery. Gone is the sterilized setting—the stark-white walls, the evenly spaced installations—replaced by a space that more closely resembles your home. Or rather, what you’d probably like your home to look like.
Before he opened the gallery a couple years back, Van Haute split his time between Philadelphia and New York, working as an art director and a set decorator for commercials, music videos, films and plays. He seems to approach his gallery in much the same way he did those projects. Set the stage, and our imaginations will take over from there.
The intimidation factor with art can be high. (As can the pretension factor.) It’s not cheap. And compounding the insecurity that’s coupled with that kind of purchase, we’re supposed to view art as an investment. When you’re not sure if the price is fair now, how are you supposed to know if it’ll appreciate? Lost in that conversation is art’s most basic function, which is that it’s supposed to speak to us. Above all, theoretically, it should mean something to you.
Van Haute’s found a way to restore that part to its proper prominence in the thought process of aspiring collectors. He’s filled his gallery with work by emerging, regional artists and furniture by local designers. Seeing everything fit together, it becomes a little easier to be inspired and then imagine incorporating some of those pieces into your own home. Without even realizing it, you’re relating to the art in a personal way, void of financial and perceptual concerns.
It’s a cool trick. We’re sold. Now what?
Start scouting local, working artists. That’s where you’ll find the greatest value, Van Haute says. Beyond galleries like his, seek out art centers and artist cooperatives. If you find yourself gravitating toward one artist or another, but his original work’s still a little steep, contact the artist—almost everyone has a site these days—and ask if he’s done any limited-edition prints.
“Many artists offer prints that are much less than the cost of the original and still hold a collectible value,” Van Haute says.
Still more than you’re willing to spend? (Remember, a collection’s going to take time. You’re not going to fill your house, or even a room, overnight.) Buy some art supplies and take a run at it yourself, Van Haute suggests. Best-case scenario: You discover a hidden talent.
Worst-case: You’re out a hundred bucks, and you’ve learned to be more patient.
Whether you’re buying it or making it, “Just let your own preferences and tastes come out, and be confident enough to stand by them,” Van Haute says. Read: Don’t think of the art as an investment. The stronger the bond, the less likely you’ll be to let go of it anyway.
Let’s assume you’ve found something to your liking. A couple somethings, actually. Connecting with it in a gallery space and displaying it at home are two different animals. For starters, don’t try to mimic the gallery. You’re always going to come up short. Look for the place you want to install it, not necessarily where you think you need to install it.
“Try to create a sense of harmony and balance rather than symmetry and color matching,” Van Haute says.
Part of that implies a place where it’ll be accessible and, in turn, easier to appreciate. If you, say, hang a painting over the dining-room sideboard, you’re always going to find yourself at arm’s length. Hang it, instead, in the living room, unobstructed. If it feels in the way, it wasn’t meant to be. No one’s saying it needs to stay there. Van Haute mixes up his arrangement constantly. You’ll be surprised how much a small, occasional shift can refresh your perspective. Getting back to the importance of identifying with your art, like any relationship, it’s always evolving.
Hoarding Recovery & Estate Clearing–
Why Our Approach Better Supports Your Family
When a parent passes away, his or her loved ones are often left with the enormous task of settling the affairs while still processing their grief. However, if that parent suffered from declining mental or physical health later in life, they may also find that the condition of his or her home has deteriorated greatly. While hoarding behaviors affect thousands of Americans, older people with health issues can be particularly susceptible. If you’ve discovered that your parent’s home is a much more serious project than you anticipated, consider seeking professional estate cleanout services, like those offered by Clutter & Hoarding Pros.
Unlike standard junk removal services, our team specializes in estate removal services in which we help cut through the mess and clutter to restore a property to livable or sellable conditions. We know that your family wants to recover precious mementos, valuables, and more. Rather than come in and empty the home, we take a layered, meticulous approach that respects the dignity of both your loved one and his or her possessions. We want to make this easy on your family and help you feel like you never have to bear any of this burden alone.
We encourage you to make a list of your goals. For example:
Are there particular items you are looking for that you believe are in the home?
Do you want some items to go to a local charity?
Are you hoping to sell the home, and if so, will you be doing any remodeling or major improvements?
Are you trying to salvage items to sell?
What is your timeline for project completion?
If you and your siblings are struggling with where to start on your parent’s estate, let us show you how we can transform the home while salvaging whatever you family needs.
About Author: Clutter & Hoarding Pros of Orange County CA,you will get an all-inclusive service
led by compassionate, honest people that walk with you every step of the way, from cleaning out your home to getting the proper post-care treatment you need.
In this humidity, everything tastes better in popsicle-form. Start with these foolproof combos, then go crazy.
One afternoon, when I was a boy, my neighbor walked over to the corner of her yard where I was digging with her son and held out a funny-looking ice tray. She was a short and squat French woman who I’d become used to offering me foods I didn’t eat at home. This time, it was a popsicle. Made from orange juice. Blew my mind. I must’ve slurped down three or four of them. Naturally, I went home and emptied a carton of OJ into a couple of ice trays—they were all we had. Orange juice ice cubes are nothing like orange juice popsicles. It was an important day in my maturation. —Scott Edwards
Recipes and photography by Yelena Strokin
Currant Popsicles
(Pictured, top) Serves six.
2 cups vanilla Greek yogurt
2 cups red or black currants
(or a combination of both)
2 tsps. honey or agave
1 tbsp. lemon juice
Strawberry Smoothie Popsicles Serves six.
1 cup vanilla Greek yogurt
2 cups fresh strawberries, sliced
2 tsps. honey or agave
1 tbsp. lemon juice
Mango Popsicles Serves six.
½ cup heavy cream
3 mangos
1 tsp. honey
Juice from half a lime
The directions are the same for all three popsicles: Add everything to a blender, then puree the mixture until it achieves a smooth consistency. Pour it into a popsicle tray, plant a popsicle stick in each mold and freeze for at least four hours.
Mango-Strawberry Popsicles
(Pictured, right) Serves six.
1 mango
2 cups fresh strawberries, sliced
2 tsps. honey
Juice from one orange
Juice from one grapefruit
Add the mango, orange juice and 1 tsp. of honey to a blender and puree the mixture until it achieves a smooth consistency. Then, spoon it into a popsicle tray, filling each mold halfway.
Puree the strawberries, grapefruit juice and 1 tsp. of honey next, and top off the molds. Plant a popsicle stick in each, then freeze for at least four hours.
Yelena Strokin is a Newtown-based food stylist and photographer and the founder of the blog Cooking Melangery.com.
I can’t say I’ve ever met a whiskey that I haven’t liked, and I’ve met a lot of whiskeys. But never one like Amador’s 10-Barrel. Hits of citrus, toffee, clove, leather and hoppy spice weave together to create a bottomless complexity. The limited release is 60 percent straight malt whiskey sourced from high-end distillers and 40 percent hop-flavored whiskey distilled from Bear Republic Brewery’s Racer 5 IPA. The beer’s full-bodied flavor contributes a malty hoppy-ness without overwhelming the whiskey’s flavor profile. The components were aged separately for over two years in French oak wine barrels before they were combined and aged for another couple of years in chardonnay barrels. You taste every day of that.
On a lighter note, I’m not big on fruity beers, but Free Will Brewing Company’s Mango Wheat has just enough of a mango overtone to keep it refreshing. It also happens to pair really well with some of my favorite summer foods: ceviche, crab and corn.
ADAM JUNKINS Partner/Sommelier Sovana Bistro
(Kennett Square)
Cyber liability insurance is one of the most under-utilized types of insurance around. Critical as it is, it’s still a mostly unknown entity to those who should be employing it, namely online-based business owners. The following is a basic primer that covers what it is and who needs it.
Who should have cyber insurance?
It’s widely held that anyone who does business online should have cyber insurance. Even the smallest of operations are vulnerable. Anyone who maintains a website that processes data from its customers runs a risk every day.
Some assume—wrongly—that they don’t have to be worried about compromised data because they have a third-party vendor that handles credit card information, but that doesn’t make them any less liable for damages in the event of a breach. In fact, you could be legally liable for anything passed along during an Internet connection.
What is covered by cyber liability insurance?
Cyber liability insurance is much like other types of liability insurance. If sales are really down because of an interruption to the business, cyber liability insurance can truly help out. If there is a data breach and notices must be sent to customers, cyber liability insurance covers that cost as well.
It’s a common misconception among those who have liability insurance for a small business that their policy will protect them from virtually everything and anything. But the reality is that it doesn’t shield you from online issues.
In so many ways, the Internet is the modern-day Wild West. New challenges seem to crop up by the hour, and there’s not nearly enough regulation or oversight to guard against even the majority of it. Do you really want to take the chance of leaving yourself exposed in that kind of environment?
Author: Peter Green Insurance LLC: We are an “independent” insurance agency on Orange County CA which means we are not locked in or bound to a specific insurance company allowing us to search many large and specialty insurance carriers on your behalf.
Bret Cavanaugh’s scavenging verges on hoarding. But the things he’s crafting from that junk are remarkably original. And now, with the debut of his first furniture collection, he’s poised to redefine modern design, too. By Scott Edwards
The furniture featured here, with the exception of the platter at the bottom, is part of Cavanaugh’s Trophy Series. Top: Cavanugh may not be the tallest guy around, but he carries a big chainsaw.
I’m not clear. Where is your workshop again?
“Do you know the Wine Hut?”
Got it now. Thanks.
There are still some addresses where GPS will betray you. Bret Cavanaugh’s workshop is one of them. Then again, mine could have led me right to his front door, and I’m still not sure I would have realized I’d arrived in the right place. It resides among a ramshackle storage facility just north of Frenchtown, New Jersey, where the storage units are old shipping containers. But even that conveys a degree of orderliness, which would be misleading.
I pull in, then back out, prepared to go where, I’m not sure, when Cavanaugh waves me down from behind an old, mostly-dismantled Toyota pickup that sits in front of his workshop.
Cavanaugh is wearing a T-shirt, shorts that extend below his knees and construction boots that are laced up well above his ankles. All of it is covered with blotches of stain and/or paint. As are his stubbled face, his arms and his hands.
He’s been here, in this space, for the last three years, but he’s been working on the property, on and off, since he started getting serious about making furniture, about 10 years ago. The front room is a large, wide-open setup that still manages to feel crammed with loose-end materials. It’s also where his tools and machines are, most of it relatively organized by contrast.
Cavanaugh leads me to the back, through a salvaged-wood door of his own creation, to a much smaller room that he’s using as a showroom for the time being. It’s furnished, mostly, with a few large pieces from his Trophy Series, which he crafted specifically for the International Contemporary Furniture Fair at the Javits Center in May. He devoted himself to the collection for the better part of the last two years, and he’s just now, in late June, beginning to reclaim his life.
I’m having trouble digesting what I’m seeing, and it’s not just the suffocating heat. Everything I was exposed to up until this point indicated this was some sort of salvage yard. But the furniture in this room is right on the leading edge of modern—polished metal, sharp angles, abstract forms.
Cavanaugh is a compulsive scavenger. (And a bit of a hoarder.) Thus, the seven 40-foot shipping containers of his own, all filled to their capacity, clustered around the outside of the building. When he was starting out, it was the cheapest means by which he could source his materials. Along the way, it somehow became his signature.
“A lot of the stuff that I have comes with a story,” he says. “That’s kind of my thing.”
There’s an ingenious coat rack made from a bucket of crank arms he found on the side of the road and lithograph frames embellished with driftwood in an Etsy-ish riff. His is not a modern-farmhouse aesthetic. He’s not sanding, painting and reissuing. To call that repurposing against what Cavanaugh’s crafting is gross negligence.
That stuff, though, stands among but separate from the Trophy Series, his first collection crafted entirely from scratch. Still, the dining table, armoire, dresser and chandelier are clearly the next phase in the evolution of the same resourceful craftsman. The intricacy of the designs and the unorthodox juxtaposition of materials attest to a thoughtful, intensive process.
“What I try to do is make diamonds, make these pieces that are memorable but that capture something in somebody. Make them feel something,” Cavanaugh says. He talks quickly, his eyes widening and narrowing with his cadence. “I think 99 percent of people, even if they know furniture, they don’t know the depth of it.”
Not his, at least.
The Swiss-Army furniture maker
Cavanaugh doesn’t obsess over wood. (He’s got about a dozen logs behind his shop, and he plans to install a sawmill soon, but that has more to do with control and cost-efficiency than any kind of reverence.) Nor is wood his only medium. Or even his primary medium.
He grew up in Lambertville, NJ, around an antique car garage, built motorcycles for fun in high school, studied machinery, leatherwork, metal fabrication and welding. He also worked as a chef. (He built his own food truck.) And all of that experience and knowledge is applied regularly, often within a single piece of furniture. In fact, that’s what holds his attention, which is no easy task.
But what drives his designs is an ability he’s devoted no time to cultivating.
“I have a photographic memory, and I can mimic things really well,” Cavanaugh says. “That’s basically a huge portion of my skillset.”
He watches someone do something once, twice maybe, and he can put it into practice. That’s not to say that he’s an immediate expert; just a faster learner than most.
The bio on Cavanaugh’s Web site describes him as a “Hunterdon County native,” which struck me for some reason, probably because I’d never seen it phrased as such before.
“I think it was an important thing to say, as far as the tradition of the furniture,” he says.
Do you connect with that?
“Yeah. I connect with it a lot,” he says. “I have Phil Powell’s table saw in there. I have his lifetime collection of sea glass. I’m going to cast it into a table soon. And I have a couple of his tools.
“I get a lot of inspiration from Paul Evans and Phil Powell. They didn’t have any questions about what they were doing. They just did it. They didn’t look for any outside opinions.”
Living with his furniture
“This,” I say, “is the longest you seem to have stuck with anything. Does that mean you’re a furniture maker?”
“That’s a good question. That’s a really good question,” Cavanaugh says, slowly with the first sentence and slower with the second in that manner that it’s evident the observation is just occurring to him. Which surprises me, in turn, because we spent the previous 20 minutes talking through his plans for tomorrow, for the next few months and, potentially, the next few years. Don’t let the half-dozen shipping containers loaded with other people’s junk fool you. Cavanaugh knows what he wants and how to go about it.
“I’d like to do a food thing again,” he says. “And I’d like to design and build houses, modern spec houses, the same way I build furniture, with a hundred different materials and a hundred different finishes.”
You should probably build one for yourself first.
Turns out, he recently came across a home in nearby Milford that he could see making his own, retrofitting being a shorter path than building from a blueprint.
“It’s an industrial building. It looks like a house on the outside, but inside it has these 18-foot ceilings,” he says.
If he moves forward with it, the home would double as a showroom. He’s already plotting his first piece of furniture. Cavanaugh walks over to a corner of the front room where he’s amassed quite a collection of the rectangular shells for those old freestanding phone booths. “Where else do you see bent metal like this?” he says. There’s even more on the other side of the room. In all, there are probably 20 of them. His plan is to make a Herman Miller-style, wall-mounted shelving system with them. He’s going to weld them together, line them with mahogany shelves and affix doors to some. He wants the backlit strips across the top that say “phone” to light up again, too.
An homage, but very much a Bret Cavanaugh original.
All photos courtesy Bret Cavanaugh / Andrew Wilkinson
