When to start the seedlings??

A local urban gardener, who blogs at Gardening in the Boroughs of NYC, recently asked whether we'd started our seedlings yet. Good question! Last year at this time, we had already purchased our tomato seeds and I would say by mid-March, our peat pots were on the window sill and little green shoots were sprouting. 
Not this year. We are waiting for two reasons. First of all, we are renovating our kitchen, so our apartment is a wreck and we have no place to safely grow any plants, let alone tender veggies. But we are also waiting until April because we want to start the seedlings closer to when we will put them in their outdoor pots, in late May. Last year, we found that starting earlier didn't make the plants grow better or stronger. In fact, they were  indoors for too long and became long and spindly - not fat and stout.
What about you? When are you starting your plants? When do you put them outdoors?