February 23, 2010 – 7:20 pm
We’ve got 13 interior photos of a home to show you. Can you tell us where it is? If you can guess it, there’s a one-year individual membership in the Rice Design Alliance in it for you!
What happens if more than one of you guess the correct neighborhood? The RDA prize will go to the player who gave the best explanation with the guess.
What if you already know this home — or if you come across the answer while we’re playing the game? Well then, please don’t just blurt out the answer and ruin the fun for all the other players. Instead, play this screwy version of the game: Send us an email with a link to the listing; then post an incorrect guess — but make it sound plausible, just to throw other players off! If you do this well, you’ll get special recognition when the winner is announced. And if nobody guesses the actual location, that winner could be you!
A dozen more pix, coming up!
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: Interiors, Neighborhood Guessing Game
February 18, 2010 – 4:13 pm
The winner of this week’s game is EllieMae. Congratulations! And Kevin, you’re our runner-up.
So where is this home?
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77089, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Neighborhood Guessing Game, Sageglen
February 16, 2010 – 10:32 am
We’re all ready to go with this week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game! All you need to do is have a gander at these photos, then decide where the pictured home is located.
If you guess correctly, we’ll declare you the winner and give you a hearty virtual pat on the back. But we’re only patting one back here: If more than one player guesses the correct neighborhood, the person who provided the best explanation for the guess will be declared the winner.
As usual, this is a game for guessers. If you already know this property, or if you find it online while we’re playing, please don’t blurt out the answer and ruin the fun for everyone else. Instead, you’re invited to mess with the game a bit — provided you follow these rules: First, send Swamplot a link to the listing, so we know what you’re trying to do. Then submit an incorrect guess, to throw the other players off. Just make it sound super plausible. If you do this well, you’ll earn special recognition when the winner is announced. And if nobody guesses the actual neighborhood, that winner could be you!
Here are the rest of the pix:
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: Interiors, Neighborhood Guessing Game
February 11, 2010 – 4:04 pm
The judges for this week’s game declare . . . that we have a winner! Miz Brooke Smith, you get the prize: a one-year individual membership in the Rice Design Alliance. Congratulations!
(Thanks also to flake, for writing this post’s headline!)
So where is this place?
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77031, Fondren Southwest, Glenshire, Home Decor, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Neighborhood Guessing Game
February 10, 2010 – 3:49 pm
Ubiquitous design blogger Joni Webb hyperventilates over the March issue of Veranda magazine, which features actual interior pics of the house Kay O’Toole had built behind her Kay O’Toole Antiques & Eccentricities shop. The shop is in the building with the rounded corners next to the Firkin & Phoenix Pub parking lot at 1921 Westheimer:
I had heard the blogosphere mumbling about this Veranda showing Kay O’Toole’s new house and that was what had my mouth watering like Edward’s whenever Bella is around. Honestly, I’ve been waiting over two years for this issue!
O’Toole owns a French antique shop housed in a 1920s brick building that was once home to several different businesses. Through the years, she eventually acquired the entire building and tore down the dividing walls – creating a long and narrow haven for the best of what France, and now Belgium, Sweden, and Italy have to offer.
O’Toole’s single-story, one-bedroom stucco home — designed by Murphy Mears Architects — is another long and narrow haven, modeled after something O’Toole saw in New Orleans’s French Quarter: It’s one room deep, and backs up to the property’s back fence.
Couldn’t Webb have just charmed her way inside, camera in hand? Oh, she’d tried that:
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77098, Antiques, Home Decor, Houston Architects, Interiors, New Construction: Residential, Recycled Materials, Retail, Shelter Magazines, Winlow Place
February 9, 2010 – 5:18 pm
If it’s Tuesday, this must be the Neighborhood Guessing Game! This week the winner of the game will get a one-year individual membership in the Rice Design Alliance. Are you in it to win it?
If so, simply look at these photos and tell us where the pictured home is located. If more than one of you come up with the correct answer, the RDA prize will go to the player who provided the best explanation for the guess.
But the winner’s got to be guessing. If you’ve seen or heard of this home before, or if you come across it while we’re playing the game, please don’t blurt out the answer and ruin all the fun for everyone else. Instead, try this trick: Send Swamplot an email with a link to the listing — so we’ll know what you’re doing. Then, add an incorrect guess, explained just sharply enough to throw other players off the scent. If you do this well, you’ll earn special commendation when the winner is announced. And if nobody guesses the actual neighborhood, that winner could be you!
Ready to play?
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: Interiors, Neighborhood Guessing Game
February 8, 2010 – 5:20 pm
“Beautiful corner lot, gorgeous oak trees. House has been added onto and has 8 ft ceilings,” begins the terse listing for this 80-year-old property with a $1.6-million asking price on live-oak-lined South Blvd. It’s part of the newly declared historic district portion of Boulevard Oaks.
A 4,270-sq.-ft. home with lowish ceilings — is that a problem? Nothing you can’t make up for by taking your interior shots from atop a stepstool:
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77098, Boulevard Oaks Historic District, Boulevard-Oaks, Demolitions, Home Design, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Ormond Place
February 5, 2010 – 10:50 am
The Chronicle’s Chris Moran finds inmates on the move at 1200 Baker St.:
They were working, waiting in line for the dentist, moving to other floors to appointments (medical, dietician, counseling, therapy) getting processed for release or shuffling off to a court appearance. In fact, my guess is I saw fewer inmates inside cells than on the move.
As a result, it seemed as though nearly as many uniformed detention officers, sheriff’s deputies and mental health and medical professionals were moving and monitoring as well.
The concrete halls amplify and echo sound, so any time someone raised his voice it startled me a bit. And the rattling of leg irons always sounded as if it were coming from just a few feet behind me even if the inmates were far away.
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77002, Downtown, Institutional Buildings, Interiors
February 4, 2010 – 7:04 pm
MariaO was the first to name the Yorkshire in this week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game. Which means she’s our . . . runner-up! First prize goes to DavidW and his exhaustive descriptions of this west-side home. Congratulations to you both!
Wanna see more details?
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77079, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Neighborhood Guessing Game, Yorkshire
February 2, 2010 – 2:03 pm
And we are back for another round. Are you ready to play?
You’ll win this game if you tell us where this home is located. If more than one of you guess the correct location, we’ll declare the player who provided the best explanation for the guess the winner. (Yeah, no fancy prize this week.)
If you already know this property, or if you come across it while we’re playing, please don’t be a spoilsport and blurt out the answer. Instead, send us an email with a link to the listing, and then post an incorrect guess. If you do this well — throwing other players off the scent — you’ll get special recognition when the winner is announced. And if nobody guesses the actual location, that winner could be . . . you!
Are you ready to play? You know you want to . . .
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: Interiors, Neighborhood Guessing Game
February 2, 2010 – 10:25 am
Can’t get enough marble tile, paneled doors, or finely wrought yet unobtrusive burglar bars? You’ll find this River Oaks gem just a swerve north of the Shepherd Curve. It appeared on MLS over the weekend.
A few delightful surprises inside:
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77019, Homes for Sale, Interiors, River Oaks, Shepherd Curve
January 28, 2010 – 4:31 pm
None of you guessed the location of this week’s mystery home. But . . . we do have a winner of that one-year individual membership in the Rice Design Alliance!
Two readers sent in links to the listing — and helped to mix things up by posting fake guesses. We’ll award the prize to Jennifer, who did so first, and volunteered some extended commentary about the property:
I’ve actually been to see this house. I haven’t been inside, but drove to find the property to see what in the world it was after seeing it on har.com
It’s sort of an island paradise. It’s bounded on the east by a creek and on the west and south by a drainage ditch. It borders another property to the north. The house in the pictures is the main house, but there is another ramshackle house on the property plus the barn.
The entire area is smack in the middle of the revamped FEMA flood maps 100-year floodplain. A neighbor came out and told us that the area had never flooded and that they are in the middle of fighting it in the courts because the change in the flood maps has decimated their property values.
I have no idea if it would be safe to live in this area. We drove the entire area to get a look at it from all sides. The street itself is kind of isolated and the neighbor said it was safe, but just across the drainage ditch on the west side is the kind of apartment complex that shows up on the news, and not in a good way.
Thanks and congratulations, Jennifer! Karen came up with the other fake guess. We’ll call her the runner-up.
And now the details:
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77022, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Neighborhood Guessing Game
January 27, 2010 – 10:36 am
Now that photos have been posted — and the asking price has been chopped a full 7 percent — the whole world gets to peek inside the full-floor condo in The Huntingdon that belonged to Enron founder and CEO Ken Lay and his wife Linda. The buildout on the 33rd floor of 2121 Kirby Dr. was designed in the late nineties by Houston architect Leslie Barry Davidson, who’s proven herself versatile in many historical styles that pre-date highrise construction. But the listing photos show what looks like a glum castle retreat for a king and queen who’ve lost their jester.
Oh, but those 360-degree skyline views of Houston! And really, with angry investors and Californians likely to approach from any direction, you’d maybe want a hideout with 4 good corner balconies, just so you can assess the risks:
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77019, Condos for Sale, Enron, Houston Architects, Interiors, Ken Lay, Price Reductions, The Huntingdon, Theming, Upper Kirby
Comment of the Day: Going All or Nothing with IKEA
“There’s nothing worse than a room of quality furniture and then one piece from Ikea. The only way to do Ikea is to do everything Ikea and basically rip-off one of their show rooms.” [biggerintexas, commenting on Neighborhood Guessing Game: Loveseat Convention]