Just reduced a smidge: This 2-story four-squarish renovated 1914 home in Eastwood, just southwest of Eastwood Park. A few blocks north at Harrisburg and Lockwood, a light-rail station for Metro’s new East End line is supposed to open sometime around the home’s 100th-birthday mark. A porch wraps around the house, behind a front fence and driveway gate. And inside — a careful photographer has made sure you’ll notice — you’ll find lots of well-saturated colors.
Or Thomas Kinkade parody toilet paper, to be more precise. After her “Parody of Light” exhibition earlier this year at Diverseworks, Houston artist Patricia Hernandez has taken the next step: selling her signature Thomas Kinkade-plus-freaky-clown prints and clownish collectibles online. Featured item: “The most expensive toilet paper you’ll ever buy,” featuring repeated prints of a Thomas Kinkade original landscape, retouched by the master artist herself to include a squatting clown — presumably going about its business (see detail in also-available color print version, above). Price: just $15 per roll.
Who said looking for a match online is easy? This remade 4,818-sq.-ft. home on a half-acre lot near Hilshire Village was on the market almost continuously from fall 2006 to fall 2008 . . . then again in the spring of 2010, and this year from April to the end of June. But you’ve gotta have hope: It’s back on the market again as of last week. How about: 61-year-old Bellewood belle has heart of gold, kitchen counter of granite, master bedroom floor of berber. Grew up in staid suburban Spring Branch Ranch; still inscrutable at first glance, very different on the inside. Dedicated to imagining romantic self, internal growth. Stuck on cul-de-sac, but willing to break down walls to get what I need. Given to recurring fantasies involving candles and wrought-iron balconies; ready to go for baroque if the right offer comes along.
Sorry, all the furnishings shown here don’t come with. Which is sad, really, because if this is just the kind of place you’d like to live in, you’ll have to find each of these items on your own. This 5-bedroom, 3,075-sq.-ft. 10-year-old fully tiled house in Crighton Ridge — on the not-The-Woodlands side of I-45 — went on the market last week for $359,500.
THE WHOLE POINT OF PLAYING HOUSE AS A KID “When I get emails from blog readers asking me how can they get their husband to ‘let’ them paint their brown paneling or the dining room table, I always repeat what that therapist told me all those years ago. My advice is simple. Ask your husband out to dinner. Tell him you want to discuss something important with him. Make sure he has a nice sized drink at dinner. Start out with a question. Ask him what our therapist asked: ‘what games did you play when you were little?’ Tell him what you played. Make sure you tell him how much you respect him and what he does for the family. Explain that you want the same respect. Tell him that you have studied magazines and décor for years and know exactly how you want your house to look like. Ask him to understand that it is your lifelong dream to have that beautiful house. Ask him if he can say the same? Ask him to trust your taste. Above all, don’t raise your voice and don’t argue. State your cause in a mature, reasonable tone. This isn’t a fight, you are merely opening up his eyes to who you really are and what you really want. Most likely your husband will see how serious you are and will be willing to give up his jewel toned walls, ceiling fans, and leather sectional.” — Joni Webb, writing in Antique Shops and Designers [Cote de Texas]
When he isn’t busy rebuilding the entire block of Colquitt between Greenbriar and Morningside, Houston architect Scott Ballard puts his mind to work solving difficult domestic problems. F’rinstance: how to enjoy indoor sports in the comfort of your home more . . . oh, unobtrusively? Ballard’s wife “wasn’t thrilled” about the ping-pong table he and his kids parked in the family’s living room a couple years ago, he tells the Chronicle‘s Ken Hoffman. A few sketches, hired guns, and failed prototypes later, and — presto! Ballard came up with the solution: The Ping Pong Coffee Table. And it’s for sale!
Among the items of space booty collector and CollectSPACE.com founder Robert Pearlman lays out in the living room of his Houston apartment for a visit from USA Today reporter Donna Leinwand Leger: a 200-lb. aluminum hatch made for the International Space Station, a tile from a space shuttle, a thruster from one of the Gemini missions, and the possibly-still-crunchy pièce de résistance: a small plastic package of toasted bread cubes carried by astronaut Michael Collins on the Apollo 11 flight. The croutons came as a throw-in bonus when Pearlman bought a $100 NASA contractor commemorative medallion on eBay several years back. The unopened package is signed by Collins and Buzz Aldrin. On an episode of PBS’s “Antiques Roadshow” 5 years ago, appraiser Gary Piattoni valued the well-traveled condiments at $25,000.
Photo: CollectSPACE
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BUT IN THE DARK ALL CAT CARPETS ARE GRAY 
“They look closer to jaguar spots to me. Cheetahs have solid spots.” [Greg, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photos of the Day: Cheetahs in the Bedrooms] Photo of 2201 Avalon Pl.: HAR
