HaroldOsler's Profile

Display Name: HaroldOsler
Member Since: 2/25/08

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When I go home for Christmas my mp3 player will have

Bette MIdler's "Cool Yule" album
Eartha Kitt "Santa Baby"
Mae West "Put the Loot in the Boot, Santa"
Dolly Parton and Rod Stewart "Baby, It's Cold Outside"
ELVIS--"Blue Christmas"
Aretha Franklin "Winter WOnderland"
Judy Garland "Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas"
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree


Holiday Party Playlist | Apartment Therapy Chicago
12/6/09 3:30 PM

Geez--what a bunch of lightweights. I wouldn't hesitate to put family in a hotel in that area.


Apartment Therapy San Francisco | Design Elements at the Hotel Frank
2/28/09 2:12 PM

Face it--it depends on how "absentee" the landlord is. While I've done small thing like change the kitchen faucet, I've been unable to get a response on simple things like getting an extra front door key for a visiting nephew. When I called the number someone in the building gave me his first response was "How did you get this number?" and then to tell me to write a note with my rent check to what apparently is a black hole since I never got a response. So go for it on the little things but I'd avoid the tiling unless you're really confident and stick to basic colors.
And "it's a home being lent to you" only if they actually lived there.


Apartment Therapy San Francisco | Working on a Rental Without Permission
12/6/08 5:21 PM

I agree with redneckmodern about the quality of thrifts in SF(we're probably competing for the same things!). But you can still find "finds"--last week a Russell Wright plate somehow slipped through everyone's radar at ThriftTown until I scanned it. When I was living in Iowa in the early 70s a bunch of us who worked together on a restaurant graveyard shift would get off at 6--go home to shower--and then meet for breakfast and a day of hitting the thrifts. And talk about cut-throat. Half the fun was stoppinig for lunch to compare and gloat. I still have some of the things from that time. Where else could you get a set of tuxedo tails for next to nothing?


Apartment Therapy Los Angeles | Have You Always Shopped at Thrift Stores?
10/8/08 9:12 PM

Sorry--this seems more 80s to me. Especially that bedroom(shudder). But I would love that desk chair.


Apartment Therapy New York | The 70s: Kelly Wearstler's Next Big Thing Domino Magazine, October 2008
9/19/08 10:24 PM

My first thought was--"Why can't I find something like that for $5?" I have the perfect spot for it and would paint it black with the back in some lighter color and use it for my mid-century pitcher collection.


Apartment Therapy Chicago | Good Questions: Suggestions for this Yard Sale Find?
8/9/08 11:14 AM

I wanted to paint my living room that color and my friends all talked me out of it. Now that I see your; I wish I hadn't listened. Even if the landlord says I can't paint it anything but white.


Apartment Therapy New York | Roomark: Richard 8.8.08
8/9/08 11:10 AM

The police probably don't show because this is San Francisco, after all. If they start rousting street people, then they're accused of being insensitive--usually by people who don't live in the area and don't have to deal with it. I used to live in the Tenderloin when I first moved here (corner of Hyde and Eddy) and never felt threatened but then I'm a 6 foot tall man.
That police station is there as a political pay-off. They can't tear it down(gasp!! It's a landmark!!) And if it sits empty it really attracts problems--so let's put a police station there even though there is no parking for police cars and can't be remodeled.
One big problem with gentrification are all those people who move into the city for the "energy" and then try to change it so it's like the burbs. SOMA is always having trouble with people moving next to clubs and then upset about the music. Just once I'd like to see a city official tell someone to tough it up and quit being a baby.


Apartment Therapy San Francisco | Young Pioneers Stake Claims in the TenderloinSF Chronicle: 05.04.08
5/10/08 8:17 PM

This just reminds me that it's time to shake my shelves up a little and do some re-positioning.

Mine are arranged according to an arcane personal method that makes sense to me. The "A-list" or favorite books are in my bedroom then sorted by category and/or author (all my Patrick Dennis; Rita Mae Brown; Christies; Robert Heinlein for example) . The spare room is where others live-- a lot of paperbacks; different series of mysteries and so on.

And jmorey's post about why people keep so many books gives me the perfect chance to use a quote I have framed on the bedroom shelves

"She had often noticed that when people with large libraries fall into trouble, the fact that the books had not risen en masse to help them always seemed to give those without books comfort" Amanda Cross--"Death in a Tenured Position"


Apartment Therapy San Francisco | SF Survey: How Do You Arrange Your Books?
2/25/08 6:09 PM