Weekend Wrap Up

1.
While not exactly real estate related, Your Mama is all kinds of 0b-sessed with the saga of copper heiress Huguette Clark, who has been living for years at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. The New York Daily News is jumping on the coat tails of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Bill Dedman's with a report that 104-year old Miss Clark is–not surprisingly and despite protestations by her increasingly shady seeming attorney Wally Back to the contrary–not lucid.

2.
Dumb-ass actor Randy Quaid and his wife Evi were arrested the other day for squatting in the Montecito, CA home they once owned and sold many years ago to former Warner Bros. executive Bruce Berman. Apparently the whackadoodle couple feel their business manager somehow duped them out of ownership and they feel they are still the rightful owners. Bitches, please. You sold the house in 1991. Get over it.

3.
Mini-moguls Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have finally managed to unload their little or never lived in penthouse at 1 Morton Square to property developer Bruce Eichner. The 5,700 square foot spread was first listed at $11,995,000 in late 2007 and three years later finally sold for $7,700,000. That's a huge come down in price, but it's still more than the $7,300,000 the little girls paid for the place. Plus, it's not like these two need the money: They're richer than the damn Pope.

4.
New York City-based J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon appears to have finally sold his real estate white elephant in Chicago, IL. Mister and Missus Dimon scooped up the colossal Gold Coast crib in 2000 for $4,700,000 and re-listed the 8-bedroom albatross in April of 2007 with an asking price of $13,500,000. More than three years and several price chops that brought the asking price of the 1880 townhouse to $6,950,000, which clearly did the trick because the property is currently in contract with an unknown buyer at an unknown price.

5.
Conservative blowhard Rush Limbaugh quick-deeded two penthouse apartments at the Slade building in West Palm Beach over to his new wife ensuring that she has a few pennies in her pocket should their May-December romance swirl down the terlit of love as have the first three marriages of the former pill popper who promotes family values. Mister Limbaugh purchased the pair of penthouse pads in May of 2009 for $1,350,000 apiece.

6.
According to Jose Lambiet, professional basketball sensation LeBron James has entered into a contract to purchase a mansion inside the gates of an exclusive gated enclave in Coconut Grove, FL owned by lawyer and philanthropist David Lipman. According to property records, the mansion measures 9,561 square feet and includes 5 bedrooms and 5.5 poopers, plenty of room for a single man.

7.
Poor Octomom. It seems her Warholian 15 minutes are long up and she's still got 14 tiny mouths to feed. The paparazzi courting baby factory must be feeling the financial squeeze of her media obsolescence because according to the gossip juggernaut TMZ, the holder of the loan on the La Habra, CA crib where she and her 99 children live is fixin' to foreclose on the property. The single non-working mother is, according to the report, $7,500 behind on the her mortgage payments and she's got a sizable $450,000 balloon payment due on the 9th of October.

8.
The folks at TMZ also reported recently that the Ramage Construction company filed a lawsuits against press beleaguered Mel Gibson claiming he and his soon to be ex-wife Robyn own them a measly $12,000 for unpaid improvements to their Malibu properties. The same company claims that the foundation that owns Mel's little church in Malibu owes them $200,000 and they're seeking permission to foreclose on several of Mister Gibson's several Malibu properties if the erstwhile couple does not cough up the cash. Considering Mister Gibson is worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, it seems highly unlikely this lawsuit will ever see the light of day.

Russell Brand and Katy Perry Purchase Pied a Terre

BUYER: Katy Perry and Russell Brand
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $2,900,000 (list)
SIZE: 1,500 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Since Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are currently on a bit of a holiday in the perfection that is Santa Barbara, CA it's only appropriate that we discuss the recent real estate doings of one of the coastal city's native daughters, Miss Katy Perry.

Miss Perry, for those who don't keep up with the gossip, has the last few days been faced with a shit storm of righteous anger from letter writing prudish parents of toddlers upset with the amount of cleavage she bared in a Sesame Street video duet with Tickle Me Elmo. The powers that be at Sesame Street kowtowed to their choleric constituents and chose not to air the video, which y'all can see here iffin you care.

First of all, Miss Perry–oh, gurl, pleeze–despite the tough to stomach inanity of your little pop ditties, you are riding a massive wave of popularity at the moment so we really don't know why you'd even do something so silly and desperate seeming as a stoopid duet with a damn Tickle Me Elmo puppet.

Secondly, to paraphrase the sassy and saucy comedienne Chelsea Handler, we are outraged that anyone has a stick so far up their butt that they'd actually bother to be outraged by something so ridiculous. While the yellow outfit might have been a poor choice–it's just plain ass uglee as far as we're concerned–Your Mama can't find anything even remotely vulgar about the video. We just hope these uptight and naïve parents who made the bizarre effort to stomp their feet and whine like ninnies to the people at Sesame Street don't do anything as careless as, say, take their innocent offspring to the beach or the community swimming pool where, by comparison to Miss Perry's bouncing boob-tops, there's a virtual pornographic cornucopia for Sesame Street age children to ogle.

Anyhoo, worse even than the breast brouhaha itself is that the whole thing got our blood got all up. It's just crying over spilt milk that we don't even want to drink, you know? Lo-wered.

Miss Perry, a fashion maverick and sartorial hot mess if there ever was one, is engaged to nappy and stringy looking British jokester Russell Brand who recently sold his louche London townhouse that was on the market with a guide price of £2,500,000. According to Your Mama's trusty currency conversion contraption that's $3,937,200 at today's rates for all us Uhmereecanos.

Mister Brand and Miss Perry have been on quite a real estate spree. In late December of 2009, they shelled out $3,250,000 for a 4,706 square foot house in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. Now, less than a year later, world slip slides down the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine that the quirky couple just closed escrow on a modestly sized if not exactly inexpensive penthouse apartment in New York City's star studded TriBeCa neighborhood.

According to the reports, the mixed-nationality pair paid $2,700,000 for an approximately 1,500 square foot doo-plex penthouse. The wee aerie sits atop a building that sits just around the corner from Nobu Next Door where a body can eat some pretty damn good sushi iffin they have the dollars to do so. According to The Post, the soon to be newlyweds purchased a place in New York City to help with their taxes.

The renovated and oddly shaped penthouse has a living room with built in cabinets to hide the electronics, gew-gaws and other assorted celebrity paraphernalia, and three large south facing windows with framed by built in bookshelves. The small but well equipped kitchen is open to the decent sized dining room where the ceiling of exposed beams take part in an architectural stand off with the sleek stainless steel cabinetry in the kitchen.

A small bedroom in the back of the apartment has loads of closets and a skylight but, regrettably, not a proper window. Can it even be called a bedroom if there's not an actual window? Aren't there laws about these things? A laundry closet with stacked machines and a large pooper slathered in limestone complete the lower level. However, and unfortunately the door to the pooper opens directly in the kitchen and dining room, which is a real no-no and should be avoided if at all possible for a myriad of obvious olfactory reasons.

A custom built cherry stair case winds up to the second level loft bedroom–the so-called "master bedroom" on the floor plan included with marketing materials–where there are plenty of windows and a small private pooper with a space saving concave wall. There are not, however, any closets. Not. A. Single. Damn. Closet. In. The. Master. Bedroom. Clearly this awkwardly laid out penthouse is what one might call a couple's apartment meant to be utilized as a one bedroom apartment with a large dressing room.

At best, the layout is inconvenient and while those who don't like, live in or want to live in New York City will surely take serious umbrage with the layout, the truth is New Yorkers tend to be a more forgiving of unwieldy floor plans in exchange for luxuries like a manageably sized south facing terrace that offers a make-your-friends-jealous view of the delicious wedding cake-like Woolworth Building like this one does.

Given that Miss Perry and Mister Brand own a much more significantly sized home in Los Angeles, we expect they'll dig deeper roots on the west coast and use their new penthouse pad in New York as a kind of pied a terre. Awkward as the layout may be and although we might chosen something else, we should all be so damn lucky as to be in the financial position at 26 damn years old to buy a 2-point-7 million clam pied a terre in New York damn City. So la-de-dah. We don't listen to or care for your particular brand of pop music Miss Perry, but you go on witch yer bad real estate self now, hear?

A Teenager’s Bedroom

    The inspiration bedroom – teenager Allie wanted a bedroom that looked similar to this.   Around four years ago,  I had designed this bedroom on a budget, using mostly Pottery Barn merchandise. 

 

Recently, I went to a client’s house and remembered that I had never taken pictures of her Allie’s, her teenaged daughter, bedroom.   I worked on her bedroom a few years ago – this is the third bedroom I have decorated for the teenager.   The first bedroom was when she was just out of the toddler stage, leaving behind her decorated nursery.    I designed a room around a Waverly Toile in reds and golds.  I KNOW you remember the toile ????   Everyone and his brother had it, or a version of it, from Waverly.    I mixed it with, yes of course, red and cream checked fabrics.  She had a pine headboard from Pier One and a mosquito netting over the bed.  It was really a cute bedroom at the time.  Even her doll beds were fitted with miniature toile spreads.  That toile bedroom was supposed to last her until she left for college.  Sure!    Actually that bedroom was one of my first jobs as a designer.   

 

  The famous Waverly toile  in the red and gold colorway.   Ugh!

 

After Allie and her parents moved to a new house, she continued to use the toile bedroom decor for a while, until she discovered Bombay Kids, when they opened a new store in the Rice Village.   Allie insisted we redecorate her room ala Bombay Kids.    Do you remember that awful crap they sold, pardon my French??   No wonder they went out of business!    It was all purples and zebras and faux Indian Maharajah chic.   I even had a skirted table made to match with a crystal beaded trim.  Beautiful.   Her carpet was a scrolled dark purple.  It was all God-awful and thankfully she outgrew it quickly.

 

Bombay Kids – Faux Maharajah Chic

 

A few years earlier, I had decorated a bedroom on a budget for a mutual friend using mostly all Pottery Barn merchandise.   Allie asked if I would recreate the bedroom, in feeling, for her.    The two rooms do look similar, but there are several different important design elements.   In the PB bedroom,  the curtains in a large bay window  were the focal point, but I absolutely could NOT persuade Allie’s mother to agree to curtains in her bedroom - a decision that still bothers me to this day.    Conversely, while I could not get the PB bedroom owner to buy a two toned patterned carpet, Allie’s mother happily did, and  the carpet adds so much to the room.   Another main difference was the fabric, of course,  and the wall color.  We used a creamy gray in the PB bedroom, but Allie wanted a soft aqua on her walls.   What Allie wants….

 

Allie’s bedroom, Version IV, if you count her nursery.

I used a Laura Ashley fabric from Kravet and a velvet for the pillows and the bench’s slipcover.   The Laura Ashley fabric, a linen-cotton, is Briston Seaglass LA1301.324 and is very, very inexpensive.    We had a strict budget for this room and nothing in it was too extravagant or expensive.    For instance, the cute, white end tables came from Target – the Shabby Chic line.   We paid next to nothing for them.    The large wing chair, a hand me down from her parents, has been in her room for years and has been recovered at least three times now. 

 

 

Across from the bed is a mirrored chest from Z Gallerie.   We bought it on sale, but it’s usually $999. 

 

 

We bought the bench from the Shabby Chic store in Austin and then made a slip cover for it out of the aqua velvet. 

 

I luckily found six matching aqua lamp shades and two inexpensive lamps (but I can’t remember where they are from!)   Allie wanted sconces just like in the PB bedroom, and she also wanted the oval mirrors flanking the bed.  The sconces came from Indulge HERE.   Another item Allie insisted on was a crystal chandelier.  We bought this one online from one of those huge lighting stores and it was under $200.

 

The carpet is a trellis pattern in white and aqua – again, it was very, very reasonable.   While not as inexpensive as plain pile carpet, the custom look is worth the minimal extra cost.  

 

 

Allie needed something to put all her invitations and pictures on, so I made her a bulletin board.   There was a large blank space between the bathroom and bedroom doors – and I had it made to fit that space.  It is 5’ tall!     If you look closely, you can see that it is tufted with buttons made out of the velvet fabric.  I added a small pleated ruffle to dress it up and soften the edges.   At first while it was still empty, the bulletin board looked odd – a huge blank piece of fabric hanging on the wall.  But,  Allie filled it up very fast.   It has really helped keep her room neat and clean looking.  Once she leaves for college,  her mother can either take it down or hang a few prints on it, framed or not. 

 

Here is the link for the Target Shabby Chic nightstands – HERE.    And here is the link for the  Z Gallerie mirrored chest – HERE.    I’m sorry to say, but I absolutely have no idea what the paint color is!  I”m sure it’s a Pratt and Lambert, but otherwise, I just can’t remember!!!

 

 

And finally, the sheets came from Pottery Barn, from the Pearl Embroidered line.  HERE.   Houstonian upholsterer Hien Lam made the headboard from a sketch.  HERE.

 

 

 

SOLVING A DESIGN PROBLEM:

 Bookshelves for a large bedroom.

 

We’ve discussed this issue many time before – what to do about those oversized bedrooms - huge, echoing, cavernous spaces that leave you cold?  Alllie’s parents bedroom had that problem.  Even with a large bed, an armoire, and two chairs and ottoman in a sitting area, the room still felt empty.  What to do?   My clients are voracious readers – in fact the entire family is.  They have a million books, seriously, maybe even 2 million.   Once they moved into their new house, all the built in bookshelves in the family room were quickly filled up.   Next we added more shelves in the downstairs study.   On the large second floor landing, we built a large floor to ceiling bookcase.    Still, there were numerous leftover books needing to be shelved. The solution to the book problem and the empty bedroom problem was to add a floor to ceiling, wall to wall bookcase.  I designed these shelves along the wall where  the bathroom door is.    And yes, the door is not centered on the wall – but there was nothing I could do about that – and in the end, it looks fine just the way it is.     We finished this project over five years ago, and to do it again today, I would make the shelves thicker and fixed for a more up to date look.    Once the shelves were built, the atmosphere in the room changed dramatically.  It became a very cozy space – warm and friendly – despite its large size.     This is a solution I would offer to anyone looking to fill up an oversized bedroom.   Even if you don’t have a lot of books – you can always go to Half Priced Books and buy their Box of Books,  filled with new hardbacks for just $25 – a steal of a deal.   

 

 

Other things I did to cozy up the room was to add the two toned, trellis patterned carpet – in place of the cream Berber that was previously there.  The client’s furniture was all pine – so, we restained most of the pieces dark brown which also helped ground the room.   I added curtains and bamboo shades to the windows to further soften and warm up the room.   The client used  her own existing bedding in gold, while I brought in blue in the checked curtain fabric.    The now stained dark armoire was short for these extra tall ceilings, but rather than buying a new one, I layered a collection of drawings on top of it to fill in the blank space.    Looking at the room today, it’s hard to remember how it used to look before the bookshelves were added! 

 

NOTE:  THERE ARE THREE – YES, THREE – GIVEAWAYS COMING SOON!!!  BE SURE TO WATCH AND ENTER.  THE GIVEAWAYS ARE ALL REALLY GREAT ITEMS, I PROMISE YOU!!!!