November 5, 2009 – 9:35 am
“Yesterday, a friend of mine sent an e-mail out with this in the subject line: ‘You can’t own anything nice if you live inside the loop…’ She sent this because the large wooden bench she keeps on her front porch had been stolen. Carted off. In broad daylight. This was a big bench. It was not a one-person job. This tells me there must be a big gang of these people in the Heights, strolling around while we sit at our desks in office buildings, treating our houses like unattended garage sales. I would tell her to get a dog, but we have a dog. And we’ve still had every single thing not attached to our concrete foundation pilfered. Maybe she should get a dog bred for something besides decoration. Maybe that’s the key.” [A Peine for Your Thoughts]
Read more about: 77009, Crime, Furniture, Heights, Home Decor, Security
September 25, 2009 – 11:38 am
If the $7.4 million price tag on his 12,734-sq.-ft. Friar Tuck French-chateau-that-is-actually-from-France turns out to be too much of a stretch, maybe you’ll be interested in the upcoming auction of real-estate developer Jerry J. Moore’s tchotchkes: “Many of Moore’s belongings were 19th century French, to go along with the French chateau-styled home that he owned on the eastern edge of Hunters Creek Village. Auction items include marble statues, bronze statues, a 19th century billiards table and a Steinway grand piano. ‘All of the furnishings are the best of the best,’ says Ray Simpson, owner of Simpson Galleries. ‘Everything he did was over the top.’” Moore died last year. [Houston Business Journal] Photo: Simpson Galleries
Read more about: Auctions, Furniture, Home Decor, Homes for Sale, Hunters Creek Village, Theming
September 23, 2009 – 5:23 pm
How heavy are those pieces in Plodes Studio’s new collection of outdoor furniture? At least light enough to tote down to White Oak Bayou off Studewood for this photo shoot. Houston designer John Paul Plauché — who often evokes aspects of the local landscape in his interior furnishings — calls this new line “Float.”
And it looks like each piece just might. The extruded lounge, couch, chaise, and side table are made of foam coated with hard rubber, and are available in 6 colors.
The line’s official launch takes place this Thursday night at Montrose’s Peel Gallery.
Photos: Plodes Studio
Read more about: 77007, Furniture, Home Decor, Houston Architects, Houston Heights, Landscape, Modern Design
August 21, 2009 – 12:17 pm
Antiques fan Spencer Howard takes readers on a tour of a Hyde Park house full of them: the home of his former boss, architect John Zemanek.
The home’s design “falls somewhere between a Texas farm house and Japanese Tea House,” writes Howard:
However, the landscape, structure and furniture are accented with mysterious objects. Some are recognizable and easily comprehended, but most are not – engaging the viewer to imagine the story behind the piece.
What mysterious objects? A few choice rusting relics of Zemanek’s Fort Bend County childhood: a hunk of the engine from the family’s 1923 Buick; parts of old farming implements; the family typewriter, on a pedestal by the front door.
Wanna quick tour of the place?
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Read more about: 77006, Antiques, Furniture, Home Decor, Home Design, Houston Architects, Hyde Park, Interiors, Montrose
April 28, 2009 – 10:32 am
Jerry and Wynonne Hart are scheduled to be sentenced today for “misapplication of fiduciary property” in the operation of their auction business at the Hart Galleries. In return for the couple’s guilty plea, prosecutors dropped charges of theft and money laundering.
11 News reporter Dave Fehling spoke to several former Hart Galleries customers:
The auction house thrived for years. The Harts enjoyed a sterling reputation among the rich and not so rich who all trusted the Harts to sell their valuables. But around 2003, something strange began happening . . .
. . . the Harts auctioned furniture and antiques for John Zielinski and his wife.
They were expecting to get $20,000.
“And I said, ‘where’s our money?’ And they said, ‘we’re having difficulty collecting some of the checks,’” said Zielinski.
The next thing Harts’ customers learned was that the couple was bankrupt.
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Read more about: 77057, 77063, 77098, Antiques, Bankruptcies, Crime, Fraud, Furniture, Galleria, Redevelopment, Retail, Upper Kirby
With her just-introduced line of home furnishings called Maison, New Orleans-to-Houston commuter Tara Shaw has apparently found relief from that bane of all highly successful antiques dealers: the little problem of supply.
Tara Shaw Antiques fanatic Joni Webb ended up seeing a cardiologist after a heart-racing episode at Shaw’s first Houston to-the-trade sale a few years ago — after she thought she might lose out on a set of antique chairs. So she’s uniquely qualified to explain:
Recently there’s been some rumblings that Tara was off on a new adventure, manufacturing her own line of furniture, inspired by original pieces she owns in her private collection. . . . The debut was worth the wait. The new MAISON pieces are gorgeous, their authenticity is unrivaled by anything available on the market today. Besides wonderful tables, chairs, and bookcases, there is a great array of smalls – candlesticks and mirrors, crowns and jardineres. One could certainly furnish a house with the MAISON line, that’s how extensive it is. The craftsmanship is superb, each piece was created under Shaw’s knowledgeable and watchful eyes.
A bit more hyperventilating after the jump:
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Read more about: 77098, Antiques, Furniture, Home Decor, Interior-Design, Montlew Place
“When it comes to the sparkly allure of a new mattress,” writes Heights newbie Taryn Peine, “Heights folks just can’t seem to say no.”
After a year of living here, much . . . has become commonplace. We are careful not to hit the livestock, we don’t even hear the drill anymore, and we barely notice the empty shopping carts. These are all things I never saw in Bartlesville, and certainly would never have gotten past the homeowners associations in the suburbs. (I know someone who recently got ticketed for having the wrong color of mulch in their flowerbeds. Can you imagine what the ticket would say for the family down the street who has an entire sectional in their front yard?) Yet somehow, I’ve gotten used to every weird sight around this neighborhood except for one. That is the mattress.
The mattress? What mattress?
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Read more about: 77008, Furniture, Houston Heights
The River Oaks Examiner’s Michael Reed reports that “more than 10 families” are serious about leaving Wilshire Village . . . and they’ll be hosting a couple of eviction sales over the next 2 weekends to prove it:
“We are going to be OUT, but you don’t have to be … shop indoors at those apartments participating,” fliers being distributed for the event read.
Could that mean? . . . Yes, apparently:
A resident, told the Examiner that tenants had recently been given until the end of March to leave, and that the owner had agreed to help with the moving expenses.
“We haven’t seen anything in writing,” he said, but added that he is “reasonably pleased.”
Photo of Wilshire Village window: Katharine Shilcutt Gleave
Read more about: 77098, Apartments, Evictions, Furniture, Home Decor, Lancaster Place, Neighborhood Disputes, Retail, Wilshire Village
February 19, 2009 – 11:47 am
So what’s new?
- Opening: There’s a big new Gallery Furniture taking over the old Pier One space in the Post Oak Shopping Center, across from the Galleria. Isiah Carey notes that there’s a (much smaller) “coming soon” sign out front. Also coming to the strip from Mattress Mack: a new and more upscale Kreiss Furniture store, where Pier One Kids used to be.
- Closed: Paulie’s restaurant reports receiving an undisclosed “offer we couldn’t refuse” to close its Holcombe at Kirby location, and dutifully complied on Monday. The original Paulie’s, on Westheimer at Driscoll, will remain open.
- Hoping to Spread: And Katharine Shilcutt reports that Otilia’s Mexican restaurant, the longtime Long Point standout, now “a bastion of the upper class yuppies who reside quietly in the nearby Memorial Villages and wash down their rice and beans with bottles of Merlot,” isn’t closing, despite rumors she had heard. But:
it turns out instead that Otilia’s is actively seeking to franchise their restaurant. A bright sign by the register blinked this advertisement every five seconds as we ate, while the waitresses sullenly confirmed this fact.
Then there’s that Main St. mulch . . .
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Read more about: 77002, 77025, 77027, 77055, Art, Franchises, Furniture, Long-Point, Mulch, Museum District, Openings and Closings, Parking, Restaurants, Retail
February 16, 2009 – 11:41 am
Annie Sitton documents Ligne Roset’s surprise weekend move from that fancy strip mall on Kirby to . . . the River Oaks Shopping Center? Uh . . . wasn’t the mod French furniture store supposed to be moving this April . . . to West Ave?
And what does this move mean for Design Source, West Ave’s prize showroom of showrooms, that Ligne Roset was supposed to headline?
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Read more about: 77005, 77019, Furniture, Leasing, Openings and Closings, Retail, River Oaks, West Ave
January 22, 2009 – 11:41 am
Itinerant Interior Designer Ginger Barber is moving yet again: Her latest redo is on the market, reports Cote de Texas’s Joni Webb. This time it’s a 3-bedroom, 2 1/2 bath 2-story near the corner of Greenbriar and Holcombe in Southgate — but Webb spots furniture in the photos she’s seen in earlier Barber homes:
Her wonderful assortment of pine and dark wood furniture, down-filled upholstered pieces covered in linen slips, and all her textural wicker, seagrass, and stone moves from house to house almost seamlessly. . . . With no wallpaper, colored walls or patterned fabrics to contend it, the nomadic Barber can reuse her possessions, over and over again – which is a wonderful lesson to take from her.
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Read more about: 77030, Furniture, Home Decor, Homes for Sale, Interior Designers, Interior-Design, Interiors, Moving, Retail, Southgate
January 7, 2009 – 1:12 pm
“Our primary emphasis is a dedication to achieving an overall balance between the interior and outdoor living environment,” reads the copy on the home page of the Mecox Gardens website.
A tour of the new Mecox Gardens store that just opened in the Highland Village Shopping Center reveals part of the magic Mecox formula for achieving that inside-outside balance: Bring in the prints of animals. And bring in the animal prints!
Paloma Contreras, who runs Houston’s La Dolce Vita blog, took these photos on a recent visit. Mecox Gardens features “vintage and reedition” home and garden furnishings.
So here’s a reader challenge:
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Read more about: Critters, Furniture, Highland Village Shopping Center, Home Decor, Interiors, Openings and Closings, Retail
January 5, 2009 – 1:19 pm
He’s the display coordinator for Anthropologie in Highland Village. He has a degree in mortuary science, but his art makes frequent use of old doll parts and other objects he finds in flea markets and dumpsters. What does Brian Neal Sensabaugh’s home look like?
In(side) the Loop blogger Courtney gives us a tour of his “downtown” duplex. Sensabaugh, who’s from rural Arkansas, calls himself a “Ouijist”:
Found objects play a very important role in my work. Things cross my path for a reason. I am fortunate to be able to listen and bring these objects together in a harmonious balance that is agreed upon between the objects themselves and me, the artist.
A few scenes from Courtney’s photo tour, displaying some of Sensabaugh’s unique interior touches.
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Read more about: Furniture, Home Decor, Interiors
October 15, 2008 – 6:20 pm
This place is huge! 6000 sq. ft. of living space, reads the listing:
Includes 4 Big Bedrooms, 2 full baths, Large Formal Dining, Huge kitchen w/gas cooking, Granite Counters, Porcelain sink, walk-in pantry, breakfast bar, serving bar and tile floor. Living/Family area w/gas fireplace, wood laminate floors. large inviting entry. Study or 5th bedroom.
That’s a lot of home! How could anyone furnish it all?
Not a problem!
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Read more about: 77084, Commercial Real Estate, Furniture, Homes for Sale, Katy, Mixed Use, Retail
Comment of the Day: House Parts
“I drove by the house at 701 Olive during the demolition. I was curious to see if any efforts were made to keep any of the items out of a landfill. What I saw was a house, complete with furniture, cabinets, ceiling fans, windows, clothing, etc. getting crushed by a bulldozer and scooped into a roll off. I saw 3 french doors that would have looked great in my house getting smashed to bits. Such a shame :(” [mstark, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Bacher House Down]