Manolo for the Home

For some reason, these stacked apartments bring to mind a mainstream version of the redneck manse, but the reality is a touch more upscale than that. Habitat 67 in Montreal was built by architect Moshe Safdie as a prototype for affordable modular living spaces. Alas, the individual units–situated as they are on the Marc-Drouin Quay on the Saint Lawrence River–are now quite expensive. Pity, that.

This snapshot of Habitat 67 comes from a slideshow of gravity defying structures on PointClickHome. My favorites are the Cactus House in Rotterdam, Netherlands and the extreme tree house in Irian Jana, Indonesia. I should add that I wouldn’t even know about gravity defying houses if it weren’t for a wonderful blog that everyone should be checking out regularly, A Daily Dose of Architecture.

(I’d say more about everything and anything, but I’m tremendously sick. Bleah.)

My grandmother on my mother’s side has a special tea cup she uses. The rest of us use Russian tea glasses while she drinks her blend from a dainty bone china cup and saucer covered in colorful flowers. It’s really a rather lovely thing to see on the table in the cold winter months because it’s so evocative of springtime.

Were I to choose a special cup of my very own, it would probably be a coffee cup and I’d more than likely pick the Chirp cup from Lenox. What can I say? I’m a total sucker for bluebirds…too bad I have a little trouble justifying the $25 price tag.

For now I’ll have to settle for my oddly-balanced yet beloved jade glass cup and saucer I bought at a Cracker Barrel store ages and ages ago. Do you have a special cup or mug or bowl or plate?

There is but a single quatro of napkin rings in the whole of my house. They’re pewter, and I found them long ago while poking through The Beard’s things. I was mystified…why did The Beard have a set of fancy napkin rings embellished with a single engraved H? They were obviously old–the heavy cardboard box in which they were stored was too nice to be new.

All mysteries aside, I thought that lovely pewter napkin rings really ought to be in the general circulation, so I confiscated them and bought a mess of ecologically responsible cloth napkins.

Who’d have thought mannerly cleanliness could be so much fun? I like sending The Beard to work with a packed lunch complete with a pretty yellow napkin tucked into a napkin ring. He’s told me that his coworkers think it’s awesome, and there are few things I like more than impressing people from afar.

My favorite rings are the porcelain Lenox rings, but that may be because I already have a pewter set. Unfortunately, the rings I have will have to do for a bit…at least until I get some new napkins and start entertaining again. I’ve been too busy lately to even think about rolling a napkin into a napkin ring.

I remember once joshing on trailers and trailer parks in front of some future in-laws. My then soon-to-be sister-in-law was the first to speak up, saying, “You know that mom once lived in a trailer, right?” I lapsed into an embarrassed silence until I remembered two things. One, I have relatives who live in what is commonly known as a double wide, and two, my MIL lived in the trailer to better make use of a huge and beautiful piece of unspoiled land.

Just so you know, I harbor no particular assumptions about trailers or the people who call them home. In fact, I wouldn’t mind moving into my own redneck mansion, provided I could paint it crazy colors and overcharge touristy types who wanted to point and gawk. It is for these reasons that I’m sad to say that this lowbrow manse is actually a theatrical set.

After receiving thousands of inquiries as to the whereabouts and existence of this “mansion,” the mystery has been solved. [The structure] is actually a set at the Openluchttheater in Amsterdam where plays are performed in the summer months. This is from the production of Ivanov.

Nuts!

It’s not all that tough to sew a pillowcase, and with the right directions, almost anyone can reupholster a chair. No kidding! I know one moderately skilled needle pusher who redid her entire living room by carefully taking apart the fabric on her furniture and using that to create her own pattern. I’m not suggesting you do that if you’re not comfortable with your sewing machine, but why not try making a lap quilt? Or a quillow?

The best thing about sewing — as I’ve said in the past — is that there are oodles and oodles of totally sweet fabrics out there. I like to shop the sale cottons, of which there are usually many, and my favorite brand is Marcus Fabrics. If, like me, you have an unpracticed eye when it comes to matching colors and patterns, take heart! Many of the fabric designers and retailers create and list their wares in pre-matching sets so you know you’re going to get two or more fabrics that harmonize perfectly.

Have fun!

VS.

The Beard and I hosted house guests for the past few days, and one noticed my growing stack of furniture, housewares, and gardening catalogs. What can I say? It’s a perk of the job — I need to know what’s out there, and I have the best excuse in the world for hoarding catalogs and magazines.

In a quiet moment, my guest was flipping through a home decor mag and happened upon a page full of of armless couches and loveseats. Her thoughts on living room seating are emphatic and rigidly defined. A couch, in her opinion, should have arms because armless couches look ridiculous and rob those who sit of a valuable perch for elbows and tired heads.

So naturally I have to ask y’all…

Personally, I like my chairs and couches to have arms. Arms hold teacups and cats…they keep a book open at the last page I read…and I can put my legs up without too much trouble.

There are few chores sadder than taking stock of the possessions left behind by an older relative forced by circumstance to move into a “home.” The things we gather over time define us in our own minds, but say something completely different to the outside observer. Some people–my mother, for instance–want everything to be new and flashy and modern. To them, anything vintage or outdated belongs in the dumpster.

Me? I like retro anything, even if it’s so kitschy as to be rather…ugly. I wouldn’t want a room full of kitsch, but a few crazy pieces of tacky history here and there can make an otherwise bland a room POP. People who visit say, “Oh my goodness, where’d you get this? My crazy old aunt had one just like it!” A ceramic cat or a crazy lamp really take people back…to spring vacations spent at the houses of grandparents…to their own childhoods. Everyone sees something different.

The story behind this photo and the ones that follow is this: I have a friend whose aunt is moving into a home, and it fell upon said friend to catalog the stuff left behind. His ladyfriend, Jennifer P., took pictures, and I found them to be quite moving.

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With apologies to those who live in the southern hemisphere, I’d just like to say thank goodness that spring has finally sprung. I was getting terribly sick of keeping my house hermetically sealed against the cold and dreary weather. Now that I can finally sit outside without risking hypothermia, I’ve realized that my complement of weather resistant furniture is woefully inadequate.

In fact, my entire collection is limited to two plastic armchairs and one tiny plastic table because the only outdoor space I had as of a year ago was a 5′ by 10′ bit of deck hanging in space. Now I have a deck that’s quite a bit bigger and also overlooks an entire yard, which means I’m looking for an upgrade.

In yet another moment of synchronicity, I was on the phone with my gram whining about my lack of weather-resistant seating surfaces when I found Ballard Designs‘ summertime catalog in my mailbox. I wasted the next fifteen minutes losing myself in daydreams of customizable umbrellas, intricate cast aluminum lounges, and faux bois planters.

So, yeah, it’s time to hose off the plastic and shop around for some good deals on outdoorsy accessories because $600 for a chaise isn’t going to happen any time soon.

Everyone has that short list of items they’d take with them to that hypothetical desert island that comes up now and again in conversation. Much of the time, those things special to us wouldn’t be of much use to us on that island (what good is a Kitchenaid mixer without electricity?) but we’d haul them along with us anyway. Human being are kind of like magpies that way, and more power to us. I think that our ability to imbue inanimate objects with emotional value is fascinating.

Here’s my list, which I put together just now. I didn’t let myself think too much about my choices because I wanted to see where my impulses would take me.

1. I try to keep an unending supply of petit fours in my pantry. Sometimes I buy ‘em, and sometimes I make ‘em from scratch. You don’t want to run into me on the street when I’ve run out. Little cakes…they are my crack.

2. My collection of Russian khokhloma kitchenware is important to me because it represents a connection to my heritage. Well, part of my heritage seeing as that I’m what one might not-so-politely call a mutt. In more courteous conversation I hail from “mixed ancestry.”

3. I always admired my grandparents’ collection of masks from different parts of the world, and now I have all sorts of masks of my own. Why do I like creepy faces hanging inside my house but hate the creepy faces hanging outside of other people’s houses? I’m going to guess it’s because mine are culturally relevant. I do worry that they’re going to scare the hell out of my kids someday!

4. My red Oreck upright rocks my socks — it was a hand-me-down from my grandparents, and thank goodness for that. Vacuums are way more expensive than I assumed they’d be back before I ever had a floor of my own to keep clean.

5. As annoying and yucky and mean as they can be, I adore my my quatro of cats. Did you think I was going to say “the litter box?” Having living beings around is, in some way, invigorating, if only because I find myself chasing them around the house with the spritz bottle.

I guess at my core I am a crazy, cake-eating cat-lady neat-freak who has a weakness for other cultures. Now tell me, what are the five things that you wouldn’t want to live without? And what does your list say about you?

I just happened upon a The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Staging your Home, which is how you know some concept has officially entered the collective consciousness. Naturally, there’s also a Home Staging for Dummies.

I only saw a single staged home when searching for properties around Boston, and I was more than a bit surprised. I saw many, many houses that looked like the owners (or previous owners) hadn’t even bothered to run a dust cloth over the windowsills. Personally, I was mortified when I couldn’t really even tidy up when showing my old apartment. Yes, I could clean the cat hair out of the corners, but the mountains of boxes made staging utterly impossible. However, the apartment was in a desirable area and cheap to boot, so it was snapped up quickly.

Why stage? According to a study conducted by Realtor Joy Valentine, staged homes tend to sell more quickly than their un-staged counterparts. Even better, the average difference between the sale price and the list price is 6.3%, versus a paltry 1.6% for unstaged homes. That means mo’ money. It’s pretty easy, too, when you consider the basic rules: declutter, let there be light, give a good first impression, show off your trendiest and more beautiful stuff, make rooms look bigger, and hide life’s detritus.

You are, after all, selling a HOUSE not a HOME, and there’s a big difference between the two. My mother-in-law had a beautiful house filled with fabulous antiques that really enhanced the space from the point of view of someone living in the house. But her house didn’t sell until she took the advice of her Realtor and put all those wonderful pieces in storage. He said, and I quote loosely, that people coming to see the house were gushing over her antiques and forgetting all about scrutinizing the structure housing them. Oops!

Here are some basic staging tips from About.com:

• Arrange sparse pieces of furniture in an appealing grouping known as a vignette
• Showcase a generous usage of soft fabrics such as silk, lambswool, satin
• Display unusual knickknacks in units of 1, 3 or 5
• Drape window coverings with simple lines
• Add unique elements to shelving, bookcases and fireplace mantels, which draw attention to predetermined areas

If your furniture isn’t that hot, pick the best pieces and stow the rest. If you don’t have any high-end knickknacks, pick the funkiest, hippest ones that will have mass appeal–think a kitschy vintage glass elephant statue, not a penis-shaped lava lamp. Frankly, I try to keep my kitchen and living room at a staged home level of neatness all the time because, hey, I never know when the Queen or Patrick Stewart might drop by.

Whatever you do, for goodness sakes don’t “chop” your pillows. That was considered cool for about a week until someone finally had the guts to tell the San Francisco staging company that started it all that chopped pillows look ridonculous.