Despite the steep pitch of the roof, this listing in Mission Bend is a 1-story, with 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths, and living areas that open into each other. Also inside: tile. The gas-log fireplace, kitchen, and bathrooms all have tiled treatments. So does the floor of the tidy garage, which has two windows facing the street:
Photo of Sugar Land signage installation: Sugar Land Sun
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A BETTER USE FOR THAT SPACE ABOVE THE FRIDGE “I agree that they did a great job remodeling this house, and an even better job photographing it. However, the thing that drives me nuts is the requisite wine-rack-above-fridge. Wine shouldn’t be kept at room temperature in Houston, unless you can afford to keep your house far cooler than I keep mine. Regardless, refrigerators cool by removing the heat inside. Where does that heat go? Out the back, and up! Heat rises, right into that wine. We need to find a better use for this space, maybe one that could even benefit from the heat. Built in crock-pots? Egg-incubators for backyard chickens? Anything but wine!” [Soulfinger, commenting on Spruced Up in Spring Shadows]
A 4-year-old child got her foot stuck in the open, unmarked 3-inch gap between the rotating floor and stationary wall at the Spindletop Restaurant atop the Hyatt Regency Hotel Downtown, according to a lawsuit filed by her parents earlier this week. The incident, which took place last October, resulted in several deep lacerations and “likely permanent disfigurement” of the child’s foot, according to the complaint. Her parents were able to pull the girl’s foot out of the gap and trapped shoe after a minute, but only seconds before the floor rotated far enough to push her in front of a pole supporting a handrail along the window.
THE LOWEDOWN ON LOWER WESTHEIMER? Travel + Leisure “Best, Most, Least” linkbaiter Katrina Brown Hunt tries out a little practical joke on Montrose-bound gullible types in her brief writeup of Houston, ranked a slackin’ No. 26 in the magazine’s accounting of America’s Best Cities for Hipsters: “Like many cities, Houston gives nicknames to its trendy neighborhoods. Case in point: LoWe, short for Lower Westheimer, where you can hang out at Mediterranean-themed coffee shop Agora, dive lounge Catbirds, or El Real Tex-Mex within a historic 1930s theater.” LoWe? Further tourist-oriented insight: “Houston also has two seemingly incompatible draws, according to readers: it ranked well for both luxury shopping and for being affordable.” [Travel + Leisure, via Hair Balls]
SMELT ON THE BANKS OF THE HOUSTON SHIP CHANNEL 
Included in USA Today‘s national list of “ghost factories” — forgotten lead smelting sites that have left behind toxic particles in the nearby soil — is the Lead Products Co. site at 709 N. Velasco St., just south of the Ship Channel a mile and a half east of Downtown. The TCEQ tells the newspaper that the site was a secondary lead smelter until 1968: “Contamination at the site is being addressed under a voluntary cleanup program and has focused on the disposal of lead battery casings at the site and on the adjoining KQXT transmitter property, the state said. Cleanup actions have included construction and placement of an earthen cap. Groundwater contamination also has been investigated, the state said.” Helpfully, Lead Products Co. has a “ghost” website to go along with its “ghost” factory. [USA Today] Photo of adjacent Cary St. play area: Lead Products Co.
Photo: Jackson Myers via Swamplot Flickr Pool
COMMENT OF THE DAY: IN DEFENSE OF IKEA’S STARTER SOLAR PANELS “1) The electricity amount is irrelevant. What better option is there for using their rooftop real estate? 2) All energy projects are subsidized. The main differences with solar is that homes and businesses can access energy subsidies generally reserved for much larger corporations who work further upstream. 3) Assuming an install cost of $2.50/W, an effective generation rate of $0.08/kwh, the Fed ITC of 30%, and depreciation, the project has 12 year payback on a 25 year warranty. It’s not great investment, but its a secure, has markting benefits, and increases the resale value of their building. Also, I imagine the recession has curtailed IKEA expansion, which implies IKEA is running out of depreciable assets. 4) Most state and local incentives are giant wastes of money, but Houston has none. In fact, it is the largest US city without a net-metering policy, and as such you can’t eliminate your electric bill with 100% on-site power generation in Houston anyway.” [SolarWonk, commenting on Houston IKEA Going Solar]
Over in Spring Shadows, a new listing for $235,000 sits on a street with a cul-de-sac. The home, however, is on the corner at Hammerly Blvd., about halfway between Gessner and Blalock roads. It’s a 9,810-sq.-ft. lot for the 2,225 sq.-ft. home, which was built in 1970. There are 4 bedrooms, 3 full baths, and a 2-car garage. There’s also a covered patio with views of the pool and spa and the remaining yard.
ANOTHER TURNOVER IN THE HOUSE OF LA STRADA 
The Don Julio’s in Montrose will serve its last margarita this Sunday before retreating to a new but more familiarly suburban location in Missouri City, reports b4-u-eat. The Mexican restaurant took over last year from Caffe Bello, which took over the previous year from La Strada in that restaurant’s custom-built building at 322 Westheimer, at the corner of Taft St. Taking over this summer at the same spot, reads the report: “a steak house.” According to Eating Our Words, though, it should be a “high end Mexican” steakhouse, run by Don Julio’s investors. [b4-u-eat; Eating Our Words; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Don Julio’s
STRIP CENTER PUNISHMENT 
Houston’s “preeminent BDSM dungeon,” writes the Houston Press‘s Jef with One F, “started out as a simple one-room space in the Galleria area in 2010, but now hosts a multi-room facility that serves as one of the few full-time dungeons in the city.” A FourSquare listing reveals that Maison Noir is lodged inside “erotic fantasy superstore” Bizarre Times, in the crotch of a strip center on Winrock just north of Westheimer, across the street from the Penthouse Club and the Super Clean Carwash. “The facility is outfitted with many pieces of bondage furniture such as a vertical steel cage, a St. Andrews Cross, a CBT chair . . . multiple spanking benches, a vertical rack, and a bondage table.” [Art Attack] Update, 4/20: A couple of dominatrixes have sternly corrected us; Maison Noir moved from its Winrock location earlier this year. Photo: LoopNet
Photo of Hwy. 105 south bypass: Jason Fochtman/Cleveland Advocate
