Want.

Sorry for the crappy iPhone pic. Here's the refrigerator behind the bar at Seattle's finest drinking establishment, Sun Liquor.

I really, really want it.

Schmutz.

The Times style section was rich today:



Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz, a prominent interior designer, and his partner, Steven Wine, a lighting designer, undress each time they enter their apartment on West 23rd Street, where almost everything is white. Then they put on “inside clothes” — usually shorts and T-shirts.

“You have no idea how much dirt you carry on your street clothes in New York,” said Mr. Noriega-Ortiz. When laying out the duplex apartment, he put the washer-dryer right by the front door.

He added, in an e-mail message: “Since we are not about to impose the remove-your-clothes-and-change rule on our guests, we tend to not entertain strangers that often. Our interior world stays much cleaner that way.”

Read about it HERE.

Second home.

Timely article since we were just talking about summer homes a few posts ago...

"Every weekend, starting in October, the couple drove two hours from their home in Brooklyn to the house, undertaking all of the necessary reconstruction themselves, except the re-roofing, which was done by a contractor. Both urbanites, neither had ever tackled a renovation before, but the project was thrilling to them.

HERE.

I know, I know...

I mocked ikat for a long, long time... but HERE this ikat-y Lee Jofa Pardah print with its pinky color kinda makes me dizzy with love. Good thing it's discontinued. That should help me save me from myself.

Insert foot in mouth.

During an emotional interview at his Statehouse office with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate but he's trying to fall back in love with his wife.

Seriously? Who says that? To a newspaper, no less! Oy. Your wife is going to cut you, man. Like, seriously cut you while you sleep.

HERE.

I don't understand WHY he is still talking about it. Or why HIS WIFE IS. Why are they playing this out in front of us? The sooner they shut up, the sooner it's over. (I am a genius. I need my own PR agency.)

Kind of incredible advice, really:

Some of you guys tease on Pen for her abuse of ellipses, but did you see what she wrote in comments a few posts ago? I mean, seriously. I love her.

"Just stop being indecisive....it will make you miserable for your entire life......so just stop it. it is easy. Make your first bold decision.....do it......."



What's the best advice anyone has ever given you?

Reader dilemma: The summer house.

From the mail bag:

Decorno,

My husband and I are looking for a weekend home in Millbrook, NY and thought we'd found the perfect country house. A tastefully updated 19th century colonial with the classic staircase in the front hall (a strange on-going wish of mine to have that), a long driveway to the house, gorgeous panoramic views of a horse farm across the country road, and gasp, all this at a nice price! Of course, the catch came when we found out they plan on developing the farm across the way into 140 single-family homes, with a 3 year construction plan! THE HORROR.



So we are now focusing on a certain butt-ugly 1950's cape/ranch style house with very motivated sellers and seemingly no leads. Seems like a great investment as it's on a fab piece of land with large, flat parcels surrounding it, much larger houses all around, and nice reaching views. However, the house is just ALL WRONG! Wall-to-wall carpeting, awful wood-paneling on walls, weird tiles in the bathroom, strange layout with all but 1 of the 4 bedrooms on the main floor, no entryway - you walk straigh into the living room where the fireplace stares right at you (at least it's a working FP), a METAL ROOF with sad vinyl siding, unused space on the 2nd floor (just 1 bedroom being used as an office now and 2 doorways into the "attic" which looks like it could be finished into usable rooms).

Here's a picture of the house as it is now. We plan on doing some work on it, but we are New Yorkers by-way-of the suburbs... i.e. no experience in home renos. We need a little help in understanding what's possible in our vision. Seems very daunting: contractors, lawyers, expeditors, architects, etc. The most extreme is to change the front of the house, push the roof up to make a proper 2nd story in the Colonial home style. The lesser would be just to live with the way the house is built with the asymmetric front, fix up the porch, replace the awful roof, replace the vinyl siding (but with what?), and then deal with the interior - re-configure the set up, move the staircase (is that even considered easy?)

The roof will be #1 priority, so we figured that as long as the house is getting a new roof, it would be the time to make any exterior changes when we do so. But how much is too much?

We are not in a hurry to buy, so we can just keep looking if this one proves to be too much. On the one hand, because of the great land and neighborhood, we feel this could be a great project and investment for us. On the other hand, it may never be what we want and we look back in 3-5 years and think, what the hell were we thinking?? But as you say, we should be brave.... right?

Thanks for any inspiration and feedback you can lend!


Decorno says:
The second home is a happy fantasy, and yay for you to pursue it. Seriously. I remember reading in Domino (one of the early issues) about New Yorkers who were so priced out of buying that they rented in the city and bought in the country. It was kind of a revelation. Love that idea.

Not really knowing your financial situation it's hard for me to boss you around (and that is saying something). Needless to say, I am glad you are not in a rush. Don't overextend yourself.

Secondly, you mention that you live in the city and the thought of hiring contractors, etc. is new to you. This is a very big thing to consider. It's daunting. It's actually not hard to do, but you may want to think about making sure you can arrange to be around to check in on big projects.

As for the houses, here's the thing. A second home is a total fantasy. If you have very specific ideas about what will fulfill that fantasy (like the first two photos), you may want to wait and save for that. You may get more pleasure from a house that is a little more move-in ready for weekend pleasure, and one that looks like the house of your dreams. I think you can't make yourself love a style that doesn't really call to you. When you say the house is "ALL WRONG" you should listen to that. You really need to think if the parts that are all wrong are even fixable. If you work hard to change the whole style of it, well, you will be writing a lot of checks. I wouldn't encourage going that route. But could you love it otherwise? Could you let go of the colonial fantasy and embrace the other adorable house? You could even (gasp) lose one of those rooms on the main floor by busting through a wall and creating bigger spaces. You could quickly add landscaping and shrubs and yummy green stuff to charm-up the front of that house. Wall-to-wall carpeting and wood-paneled walls are actually some very easy things to fix in a house, so don't let that deter you.

But do take some time to sit back and think... how much of my desire to have a house in the country is because I want that kind of colonial house... if it's more than 50%, keep looking. Otherwise, take some time to make a list of thing things you think you MUST do to be happy and proud of the other house and total up the cost of that. If you're under $30k, then you're onto something, I think.

Readers... what say you?

Herb & Dorothy.

"One thing we cannot do is articulate why we like something," Vogel says. "That was frustrating to the filmmaker, but I never studied art history, so I never learned the vocabulary of talking about art. It's just a gut feeling."



I need to see THIS.

What home project are you putting off?

What's the thing you know you really need to do or fix, and you've been putting it off? Why?

My list is a mile long, but deciding on lights for the kitchen is my current #1 irritation because I have been in indecision-land about that one for months. We still have bare bulbs in there. Glamorous.

What's your thing? And what's the hold up?

If your project is stuck because you're not sure what to do or you need design advice, email a photo and a few sentences about your dilemma and I will post as many of the questions/photos so that readers can offer up advice to help you kick start your project.

I could talk to you about dead Michael Jackson,

but THIS was the most interesting thing I read in the paper today.

The slideshow is awesome.

Go big red?

Would you?

HERE.

Look in the corner.

Hidden mini kitchen. Adorable.

My biggest decorating mistake ever was __________.

A house can't have too many ________.

Fill in zee blank.

Upsidedown light. Yes or no?