This is another gem of a site…Real Estalker.
Check out the houses that the famous and fabulous are trying to flip! They swap houses like they do boyfriends and girlfriends. Seal and Heidi sell to Nick Lachey, Hillary Swank & Chad Lowe and Ellen & Portia have amazing taste, Matthew McConnaughey used to live pretty modest up to now….. It’s all there and your fabulous host Your Mamma shares ALL!
Check www.http://realestalker.blogspot.com
Loving Chad and Hillary's rustic yet intellectual style!
As mentioned elsewhere on this site we are currently exploring options to create a bit of outside space in our Amsterdam apartment. Dutch architect Pieter van Gendt developed a smart and novel idea called Tea for Two. It’s a balcony that can be attached to your house in a day. It iks not wowoing city councils as much as it should yet. They claim it does not fit with the flat, no nonsense and uninterupted facades in Amsterdam. Feel free to disagree.
Tea for Two balconies
Flat and uninterupted?
Posted in Design, designers and online finds
Tagged balcony, monuments, Pieter van Gendt, Tea for Two
My husband (gosh, that still sounds weird) and I bought an amazing two story apartment on the top two floors of an Amsterdam city council monument in a quiet street in the very heart of the city. When we bought it, we thought we might be able to create a roof terrace. The stairs were already there as was the sky-light with access to the roof. However, as it turns out, the 2 degree slope in our ceiling makes it too sloped a ceiling for permission to build a roof terrace. It is out of the question. That means we have to explore other options.
It could have been so wonderful.......
In the back wall of our living room we have a big door opening up to a french balcony. As this door is by no means monumental we now hope the council will allow us to change the door and maybe add a little balcony to the back. There is a Dutch designer called Pieter van Gendt who designed an alternative for balcony. It is called Tea for Two which just has the nicest ring to it!
However, the people of the Amsterdam monuments and archeology department are not that smitten with these balconies. I am drawing several options such as an iternal loggia/balcony, a french balcony with a bit of a ledge to at least put plants on and maybe a small table and several drawings with the aforementioned Tea for Two balconies. With all drawings I take into consideration the age and era of the house and the materials they used in those days. This way I hope to show the monument people that I mean well and would like to respect the house with whatever we do.
It might turn out to be a story with a longer tail than we are hoping for, but I am persistent and am not resting until I can have a glass of wine on my own little space of outside.
An example of a wrought iron balcony attached to the wall.
Posted in General living and fun stuff, See how others live
Tagged Amsterdam, balcony, dakterras, gemeentelijk monument, Loggia, roof terrace, Skylight
Talking of living. My bestest friend Liesbeth has elevated living to a form of art with her hubby Tycho. They moved to the top of a mountain in the south of Spain, orange ridden Andalusia to be precise, and she is now pursuing a career in knitting! (to be fair, knitting next to a fabulous career in journalism….)
Her blog is to be found here: www.movingtoandalusia.com
If you ever dream of making that big move, read this. All the valuable and must knows are there. She promissed me to share photographs of her new, and without a doubt lovely, habitat. So far I havent’s seen anything.. Have you?
Let’s stalk and beg her to share!
Me not even having a balcony to EAT an orange on am a tad bit jealous. Talking of balconies. read more about those elsewhere on this site.
Home voyeurs.... a peek into homes 