Queens Trusts This Painter/Contractor

After fiascos with both DIY efforts and the cheap-o pull-a-name-from-a-flyer-on-a-poll route, we spent a tiny bit of dough on a real painter. He usually does the uber-expensive faux-finishing that the 'others' dig so much, but he does just plain painting and carpentry as well.
Articulate, understanding, trustworthy and fast-
Brent Dickinson is all that and more.
When I'm rich, he'll be putting up "marble" everywhere in my digs.

He Rocks!

here's his email address:
brentdickinson-at-sprynet-dot-com

Tell him Queensrocks sent you. (We're trying to get in good for another room in the fall.)

The Last Days Pre-Landmark

If you live or have been through Sunnyside Gardens lately the panic is palpable. On our street alone three houses are in the process of putting in new front windows, doors, siding, and front steps. Stroll around the other blocks of the Gardens and you will find much of the same. Was there a discount on construction and landscaping? Did people feel a spring urge to clean house? Instead of public trash cans has the city decided to just put dumpsters on each block?

I think the real reason for the boom in construction is that people feel a "now or never" push to finally fix up steps and vestibules they thought they would one day get around to, realizing that if they wait much longer their little construction projects may need to meet board approvals or go through other red tape.

So if you want to see what the Sunnyside Gardens of yore looked like, come quick because in the days up until the landmark ruling the face of the Gardens seems to be rapidly a-changing!