List Price: $1,999,975
Sale Price: $1,400,000
The Property: This twenty-year-old house in west Lincoln Park fits congenially with its historic neighbors, thanks to its red brick exterior, arched windows, and slim cornice. Inside, it’s much more contemporary, with crisp expanses of...
September 2008
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Sometimes all contemporary furniture seems to blend together. I’m thinking low-slung, deep sectionals, Parsons-style legs on tables, shortish chunky chairs. When I’m in the right mind space, I love it. Other times, I feel like it’s somehow too sexy for me. Like, I would always have to wear slip dresses and heels in my house if my furniture was so fabulous. My furniture would be like… hey, you need a shower! Don’t even come near me with those sweats! But I digress. Like I said, sleek contemporary furniture can sometimes look too much like other sleek contemporary furniture (particularly in ads). So that’s why I was so smitten by Piet Boon Zone, a new Dutch line that Haute Living will be carrying in October. Looking through the catalog of Boon’s pieces (Piet Boon is an actual person) I couldn’t help but feel that they were somehow different. I think it’s because while the lines are “clean,” they aren’t machine-precision clean (the leather on the console table pictured above has a slight, soft wave to it), and I love how the cushions jet out in the above sofa, breaking up the predictable couch silhouette. Is it still sexy? Yes. But, I like to think this sofa would accept me, sweats and all.
—Gina Bazer
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Even if you’ve seen it butchered by a high-school cast—especially if you’ve seen it butchered by a high-school cast—don’t miss The Hypocrites’ take on the Thornton Wilder classic Our Town. The troupe remounts its too-short, sold-out staging, an imaginatively revisionist twist on what must be...
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We got a heads up from the owner of Crosell & Co. (1922 N. Damen Ave.) that she’s having a bridal event tonight from 6 to 8 pm. Samantha Goldberg, one of the hosts of the Style Network’s Who’s Wedding is it Anyway?, will be giving a presentation on trends and planning, and local florist extraordinaire Casey Cooper of Botanicals (see her gorgeous arrangements above) will be signing her book, What’s your Bridal Style? Come by and enter to win a Juliska vase with a floral arrangement from Botanicals.
—Gina Bazer
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I was a judge for the International Casual Furniture & Accessories Market’s Design Excellence Awards last week. It’s recognition for new product design in the outdoor furniture and accessories industry. I saw some great stuff! My favorites (shown here from left to right--these also ended up being winners): the Janus et Cie Forest chair (we didn’t know the manufacturers when we were doing the judging), the totally fun Emu Re-Trouve chair, the elegant Gloster Elan dining chair, the Neoteric Home chaise with a super-cool hydraulic device that allows a lounger to adjust positions without getting up; and the Rock Wood Cove modular day bed, which I saw in a lovely grey/white weave (shown here in a more typical chocolate brown). Other judges were Julie deLeon, designer and garden division manager of Chicago Specialty Gardens (we just shot one of her outdoor spaces for publication next fall), and John West of JW Landscapes (see a rooftop marvel of his we published here.
--JAN PARR
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List Price: $2.49 million
The Property: On the outside it’s a crisp and reserved brick and limestone structure from the 1920s. But inside, this former three-flat, now a 4,000-square-foot single-family home, is totally 21st century. That modern aesthetic begins in the foyer with the lighted acrylic...
The song "I Want Candy" was used on a handful of runways this season, most often in the 80s incarnation by the group Bow Wow Wow. I'm sure it's popular because it's upbeat and girly, but the fact that designers are repeatedly using a song released more than 20 years ago (and was used quite recently, and to memorable effect in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette) seems indicative of the biggest problem at the New York shows: a please-everyone mentality...
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Back in the summer of 2006, a subdivision called Settlers Ridge was the hottest thing in Sugar Grove, a small town west of Aurora in Kane County. The homebuilder Kimball Hill had begun work on what was intended to become a model of...